Harmony in Space: A Perspective on the Work of Rudolf Laban

Abstract

To establish a systematic approach to human movement in all of its manifestations is a daunting task, one at which few thinkers have been successful. Such disparate fields as physical education, dance, theater, anthropology, biology, kinesiology, physical therapy, zoology, and psychology are all concerned with aspects of human movement; yet a vocabulary, notation, and body of theory that can be widely applied and adapted to satisfy the needs of all of these fields has not been available until recently. Even within any one of the fields mentioned above, approaches to movement have so changed over the years that theories that served well in one period became inapplicable as new developments occurred. I am thinking here particularly of the field of dance, where such visionaries as Pierre Beauchamp (1636-c. 1705), Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), and Francois Delsarte (1811-1871) developed and articulated highly influential and brilliant solutions to the systematization of human movement, yet their work proved inapplicable to changing styles. As a dancer, teacher, and dance historian, I have long brooded over the lack of unity within even my own discipline. I can never be certain that the language I choose to use in class with my college students bears much resemblance to what they might have heard at home from their local dance teacher, or that those who come from a sports or theater background can translate their movement experiences into dance terms. At professional meetings, dancers and teachers from different national or stylistic backgrounds are often at a loss fully to comprehend one another's work. Can I then expect to speak the same language about my movement as do those who come from other fields, but with similar concerns? It was my role as a teacher that motivated me to seek some solutions to this problem. From earlier brief exposures to the work of Rudolf Laban, I suspected that the system