Laban

In his Introduction to The modern dance: the Yoos-Leeder method, written by Jane Winearls and first published in 1958, A. V. Cotton wrote:

The greater part of Modern Dance development in Europe (in America it started from a different appraisal of the laws of physical movement) grows logically and quite consistently from Rudolf Laban’s work as movement-experimenter. Beginning with studies of ballet, of the work of Delsarte, of many kinds of folk dance, of the laws of mathematics and geometry, he evolved a means of “dissecting out” the basic elements which create and control every kind of movement of which the human anatomy is capable. No-one, least of all Laban himself, pretends that everything knowable has been revealed; some of his fellow researchers have, at various points, agreed to disagree with his findings, and have pursued other routes. His work was furthered by the collaboration of Kurt Jooss and Sigurd Leeder, who starting with the methods and experiments promoted by Laban, carried movement research further until there was evolved the Joodd-Leeder method whereby the dancers of the Ballet Jooss were trained.

(Winearls, 1978; 11)

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On page 17 of In Chapter 3 of her book, Labanotation: The system of analyzing and recording movement , AnnHutchinson wrote:

THE GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX OF MOVEMENT

Dance is a “language” of expressive gestures through which non-verbal communication can be achieved. Like verbal language, it has basic “parts of speech.” There is clearly constructed grammar which defines the relationship of the movement “words” to each other and their given function in the movement “sentence” as a whole. The basic elements in this language of movement fall into the categories of nouns, verbs, and adverbs…

Movement means change and to produce change an action of some sort must occur. In the grammar of movement, these actions are the verbs. The parts of the body that move are the nouns. How the action is done, the degree of change or the manner of performance, is described by the adverb…

NOUNS

The individual parts of the body that move
A partner or other person to whom movement is related
Parts of the room to which the performer must proceed or toward which gestures are directed
Objects or properties which are carried or handled

VERBS

General statement of an action
Absence of action
The three basic anatomical possibilities:
Contraction; Extension; Rotation
Movements produced by the three anatomical possibilities:
Paths in space, of the body as a whole; of limbs
Direction, movement to defined points in space
Motion toward; Motion away; each in relation to points in space, a person, objecte, or performer himself
Modes of Progression, Change in the Support of the Body:
Weight-bearing, transference of weight; absence of support, jumping; Movement in balance, shift of weight; loss of balance, falling

Results of basic actions (statement of effect rather than cause):Relating to a person, object or part of the room
Visual design: the shape made by the body; linear trace forms

ADVERBS

All the verbs mentioned above and their variants can be modified by the following adverbs:

Timing: sudden or sustained, or any specific time value
Dynamics: use of energy, flow of movement, inner attitude
Degree of action: degree of rotation, distance covered, etc.
Manner of performance: (i) physical modification: initiation of the action, part of body leading, guidances, sequential actions, (ii) spatial modification: deviations in paths, variations in positions.

Laban for Animators is an unmoderated discussion group for anything pertaining to Laban Movement Analysis and animation.

Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is a framework for observing, describing and understanding human movement and what it expresses. LMA articulates variations of intent, phrasing, body patterns, dynamic range, shape change and use of space. Through LMA, we can understand what is being expressed in movement. We can observe how the various components of movement come together to form uniqueness and style.

Animation can be made to gesture human responses to landscape directly or indirectly.

Human gestures were animated from my reading of the words of Jack Ward wrote in response to the Antarctic landscape:

“You feel the word lives for the first time, estranged as soon as it is spoken.” (Mawson diary, 1955)

His choice and use of words, their rhythmic arrangement, and the spaces between when read aloud, evoked for me an essentially non-verbal shape of a word “estranged as soon as it is spoken”. I improvised. It could have been a different gesture, but the gesture still evokes, for me, what I read in Jack’s words at that moment. It is subjective, like a drawing. The essential impression was abstracted and drawn in time and space.

The written language, like the language of human movement, articulates time, space and energy, and can hence find moving, visual form.

Laban analysis can also be applied to animate the motion perceived in the landscape itself, the gradual openings of a crevasses, for example, journeying through the nunataks in its path. It may also provide an alternative approach to the anthropomorphic animation of wildlife as seen in the recent film Happy Feet (George Miller, 2006).