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Austro-Hungarian Dancer/Choreographer/Movement and Dance Practitioner

Rudolf Laban was an Austro-Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and movement practitioner who was one of the founders of European modern dance. He developed theories on movement and dance that revolutionized the field. Laban categorized human movement into four components - direction, weight, speed, and flow - and developed the Eight Efforts to describe ways an actor can express movement. His work was influential and extended through celebrated collaborators like Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, and Sigurd Leeder.

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155 views2 pages

Austro-Hungarian Dancer/Choreographer/Movement and Dance Practitioner

Rudolf Laban was an Austro-Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and movement practitioner who was one of the founders of European modern dance. He developed theories on movement and dance that revolutionized the field. Laban categorized human movement into four components - direction, weight, speed, and flow - and developed the Eight Efforts to describe ways an actor can express movement. His work was influential and extended through celebrated collaborators like Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, and Sigurd Leeder.

Uploaded by

MatthewE036
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Rudolf Laban (1879-1958)

Austro-Hungarian
Dancer/Choreographer/Movement and Dance practitioner.
One of the founders of European Modern Dance, his work was extended
through his most celebrated collaborators, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss and
Sigurd Leeder.

Death From the Green Table - Kurt Jooss

Based on Classical Ballet.


Through his studies of architecture at the coles des Beaux Arts in Paris he observed the
moving body and its spaces.

Aged thirty, he moved to Munich, the art centre of Germany.

Concentrated on revolutionising Bewegungskunst, a type of dance focused on theatre


dance and dance drama

Married twice. 9 kids. Never had an actual house. Family life ceased when his career
developed.

He developed and relied on a series of apprentices to follow through his ideas, Mary
Wigman being the first, Marion North being the last.

Expressionist Dance is a movement that arose mainly in Germany, going completely


against dance style of classical ballet.

For a long time laban

The Laban expression for acting:

aban then combined these parts together to create The Eight Efforts:

Wring
Press
Flick
Dab
Glide
Float
Punch
Slash

Laban categorized human movement into four component parts:

Direction
Weight
Speed
Flow
Each of those parts has two elements:

Direction is either direct or indirect.


Weight is either heavy or light.
Speed is either quick or sustained.
Flow is either bound or free.

These were all ways in which an actor can express a line, without the traditional way of
simply exhorting the lines, creating a performance that will hopefully go against the social

Ellis, M. (2015). The Eight Efforts: Laban Movement. Available:


http://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/the-eight-efforts-laban-movement/. Last accessed
10/11/16.

Ellis, M. (2016). Rudolf Laban. Available: http://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/about-us/our-


history/rudolf-laban. Last accessed 11/10/16.

Ellis, M. (2008). Bibliography of Rudolf Laban. Available:


https://labanforanimators.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/rudolf-laban/. Last accessed
11/10/16.
Ellis, M. (2014). Historical and Contemporary Schrifttanz: Rudolf Laban and Postmodern
Choreography. Available:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01472526.2014.957628. Last accessed
11/10/16.

Ellis, M. (1999). Expressionist Dance. Available: http://www.dance-


germany.org/index.php?languageId=2&pos=091&topic=3. Last accessed 11/10/16.

Ellis, M. (2016). Laban's Theory of Movement. Available:


http://www.junewygant.com/labans-theory.html. Last accessed 11/10/16.
Ellis, M. (2011). Kurt Jooss. Available: http://www.dance-teacher.com/2011/08/kurt-
jooss/. Last accessed 11/10/16.

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