Laban Movement Analysis—Scaffolding Human Movement to Multiply Possibilities and Choices

Abstract

Rudolf Laban (1879–1958) and his colleagues, based on their transversal experience in different creative fields, proposed a complex approach of human movement that values its process of transformation, the plasticity of human beings, and the possibility of expanding human referential and movement repertoire. What is now called Laban Movement Analysis is composed of four main and interdependent points of view concerning movement: “Effort” deals with qualitative changes in the use of the motion factors Time, Space, Weight and Flow, their polarities, configurations and phrasings; “Shape” concerns the capacity of changing body shapes and its link with human adaptation to internal and external issues; “Body” focus on gesture, posture and their merging, and patterns of total body organization; “Space” speaks about personal, interpersonal and general space and reveals the spatial scaffold of movement (dimensions, planes and diagonals). The paper approaches some essential aspects of each domain, focusing on their connection and interdependence, and exposes the different notations proposed by the Laban Movement Analysis.