Rudolf Laban

Rudolf Laban (Rudolf von Laban, Rudolph von Laban, Hungarian: Rezső Laban de Váraljas, Laban Rezső, 1879–1958), was a dance artist and theorist whose work laid the foundations for Laban Movement Analysis and other more specific developments in dance notation.

His father's family came from France, and his mother's family was from England. His father was a field marshal who served as governor of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was born in 1879 in Austro-Hungary.

Laban initially studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and became interested in the relationship between the moving human form and the space which surrounds it. He moved to Munich at age 30 and under the influence of seminal dancer/choreographer Heidi Dzinkowska began to concentrate on Bewegungskunst, more commonly called Ausdruckstanz, or the movement arts.

Laban established the Choreographic Institute in Zürich in 1915, and later founded branches in Italy, France, and central Europe. One of his great contribution to dance was his 1928 publication of Kinetographie Laban, a dance notation system that came to be called Labanotation and is still used as one of the primary movement notation systems in dance. His theories of choreography and movement served as one of the central foundations of modern European dance. Nowadays, Laban's theories are applied in diverse fields, such as Cultural Studies, Leadership development, Non-Verbal Communication, and more.

In addition to the work on the analysis of movement and his dance experimentations, he was also a proponent of dance for the masses. Toward this end, Laban developed the art of movement choir, wherein large numbers of people move together in some choreographed manner, but that can include personal expression.

This aspect of his work was closely related to his personal spiritual beliefs, based on a combination of Victorian Theosophy, Sufism, and popular fin de siecle Hermeticism. By 1914 he had joined the Ordo Templi Orientis and attended their 'non-national' conference in Monte Verita, Ascona in 1917, where he also set up workshops popularizing his ideas. Laban had founded a summer dance program in Ascona in 1912, which continued until 1914, when World War I broke out.

From 1930 to 1934 he was director of the Allied State Theatres in Berlin, Germany. In 1934, he was promoted to director of the Deutsche Tanzbühne, in Nazi Germany^[1]. He directed major festivals of dance under the funding of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda ministry from 1934-1936.^[2]. Laban even published racist viewpoints during this time noting, "We want to dedicate our means of expression and the articulation of our power to the service of the great tasks of our Volk. With unswerving clarity our Führer points the way"^[3]. Several similar allegations of Laban's attachment to Nazi ideology have been made, for instance that as early as July 1933 he was removing all non-Aryan pupils from the children's course he was running as a ballet director^[4]. However, some Laban scholars have pointed out^[5] that such words and actions were necessary for survival in Germany at that time, and that his position was precarious as he was neither a German citizen nor a Nazi party member. His work under the Nazi regime culminated in 1936 with Goebbel's banning of Vom Tauwind und der Neuen Freude (Of the Spring Wind and the New Joy) for not furthering the Nazi agenda.^[6]

He was allowed to travel to Paris in 1937 and from there he went to England. He joined the Jooss-Leeder Dance School at Dartington Hall in the county of Devon where innovative dance was already being taught by other refugees from Germany. He was greatly assisted in his dance teaching during these years by his close associate Lisa Ullmann. Their collaboration led to the founding of the Laban Art of Movement Guild (now known as The Laban Guild for Movement and Dance) in 1945 and the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester in 1946.

Whilst in the UK, he re-directed his work to industry, studying patterns of movement, the time taken to perform tasks in the workplace and the energy used. He tried to provide methods intended to help workers to eliminate "shadow movements" (which he believed wasted energy and time) and to focus instead on constructive movements necessary to the job in hand. After the war, he published a book related to this research entitled Effort (1947). He continued to teach and do research, exploring the relations between Body and Spatial tensions until his death in the UK. But his work lives and grows through the work of his followers around the world.

Among Laban's pupils were Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

External links

• Rudolf Laban -extensive biography from "official" site
• LABAN -information about the BA (Hons), MSc, MA and PhD degree programmes at the Laban Centre in London
• [1] Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies - LIMS NYC
• About Laban Biographical information taken from A Movement Perspective of Rudolf Laban by Sam Thornton - website of LInC (Laban International Courses) in UK.
• Short biographies of Laban and some leading Laban practitioners -website of Laban Project
• Laban Ring -a community of webpages with Laban-related content

Notes

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