EIGHT BASIC EFFORT ACTIONS:
LABAN’S MOVEMENT THEORY
Terms:
1. Kinesphere: space within our reach, or our personal space. It moves with you as you travel.
2. Dimensions:
- Up-down (high, middle, deep)
- Left-right
- Forward-backward
- Diagonal
3. Flow of Movement:
- Bound flow – can be stopped at any time (pause).
- Free Flow – difficult to stop suddenly.
4. Space: Movement can be linear (direct) or curved (flexible).
5. Time: Time can be very personal or cultural. Modern transport allows us to travel faster and further than in the past. Time zones can be crossed. Life used to be governed by the seasons. Spring was the awakening and planting time, summer was the ripening time. With autumn came the harvesting time, and winter was the resting time. Today we have an inbuilt clock and a 24 hour clock. Speed is still a flexible term, depending upon the influences and circumstances.
6. Weight: Our ability to stand upright depends on the tension between the upward force of our bodies and the downward pull of gravity. Weight must be distributed or we may “lose balance”. Moving the body anywhere in space requires energy along a light to strong continuum. A small bounce requires only light force, whereas a pole-vaulter needs a stronger force to leave the ground.
| # |
EFFORT |
TIME |
SPACE |
FORCE |
| 1 |
PRESS |
Sustained |
Direct |
Strong |
| 2 |
FLICK |
Sudden |
Indirect (flexible) |
Light |
| 3 |
WRING |
Sustained |
Indirect |
Light |
| 4 |
DAB |
Sudden |
Direct |
Light |
| 5 |
SLASH |
Sudden |
Indirect |
Strong |
| 6 |
GLIDE |
Sudden – Sustained |
Direct |
Light |
| 7 |
Thrust (punch) |
Sudden |
Direct |
Strong – Light |
| 8 |
Float |
Sustained |
Direct – Indirect |
Light |
1. Pressing: Sustained, direct, strong.
- Feel it first with palms of hands.
- Press forward and downward, and diagonally across the body.
- Extend your pressing activity into all spatial directions, and into high, medium, and low zones.
- Let the other parts of body lead in pressing, for example, the back, the knees, top of head, and elbows or feet.
- Let two parts of body press simultaneously in two different directions, such as: right palm up, left hip down.
f. Press simultaneously in three different directions, for example: head backward, hips forward,
elbows outward, away from their sides.
g. Press down with feet as they walk, taking the body in different directions.
h. Try pressing in kneeling, sitting and lying positions as well as standing.
i. Try pressing as a transition from one position to another.
j. Combine (e) and( f) with( g),( h), and (i).
2. Flicking: Sudden, Flexible, Light
- Imagine a fly alighting on food or dust on your jacket. Flick it away with your hands by quickly twisting the wrists and fingers.
- Move on to flicking in every part of your kinesphere , near to the body, far away, use high, medium and low zones, directions should include backward and forward and sideways.
- Try flicking with your shoulders, head and feet. The most important zone for flicking hands is high, outwards and backwards. But it is essential to try in all directions, with the hands working simultaneously or alternatively, in the same time, or in different, directions.
- Continue the explorations with flicking by involving the elbows, hips and knees.
- Try jumping, flicking the feet in the air. Flicking the feet rhythmically on the floor gives rise to a light tap dance effect or a “soft shoe shuffle”.
- As in pressing, flicking can be performed in kneeling, sitting, or lying positions and be used as a transition from one position to another.
- Repeated flicking produces a fluttering movement. When the whole body is involved, there is a sense of intense lightness and buoyancy. In pressing there is a battle with outside resistance, in flicking we can yield to the feeling of lightness, thereby indulging in the weight.
- Flicking is flexible in the use of space and may be multi-directional. It is crisp and light.
- The lightness and speed of flicking is sometimes referred to as “fine touch”. Other fine touch actions include light stirring, floating, gliding, dabbing, wafting, and tapping.
3. Wringing: Sustained, Flexible, Strong
- Try wringing out clothes movement first.
- Imagine you are, literally, a wet blanket and try wringing yourself out! For exercise purposes, practice wringing in a deep, forward and outward zone. Move to both sides – right and left.
- Try wringing in all zones and in all directions of the kinesphere.
- Remember to try simultaneous and alternate movements of different parts of the body into different directions or into the same direction.
- Stand, lie, sit or kneel to perform the action and use it as a transitional movement.
- Examples of wringing where concrete resistance by an object is offered are: washing, knotting, twisting or untangling ropes. Where no concrete resistance exists, strong counter-tension is necessary and can be felt throughout the body.
4. Dabbing: Sudden, Direct, Light. The basic effort of dabbing is usually performed with free flow but can, when necessary also be performed with bound flow.
- This action is clearly felt in the hands as in a painter dabbing at a canvas or in typing. Try dabbing with the right side leading across the body, diagonally backwards, over the opposite shoulder. Repeat with the left side leading.
- Dab with the feet. It is easy to quickly point the heels or toes. Try in all directions and in all zones.
- Try with the knees, hips, shoulders, head, elbows, chin, back, and chest. Take plenty of time to experience dabbing in all these parts of the body. Try simultaneous and alternate movements.
- Try the action with steps. Knees can dab upwards and toes or heels downwards.
- When dabbing at a concrete object 9canvas, typewriter), we experience resistance. However, dabbing in the air requires our muscles to produce the necessary counter-tension which can be felt throughout the body even if only one finger is involved in the action.
5. Slashing: Sudden, Flexible, Strong. Slashing is usually performed with free flow which tends to fade out into floating.
- A good pathway in which to experience the feeling of slashing is from high forward, across the body to downwards, outwards, and backwards. One arm should lead the effort. Then change to the other.
- Try the arms slashing separately in all directions.
- Now try each leg separately.
- Continue with all the possibilities mentioned for the other actions, i.e. limbs separately or together, kneeling, sitting, lying or standing; all directions, including inwards and outwards and moving in different zones.
- Use slashing as a transition from one position to another.
- Large jumps give good opportunities for slashing movements of the legs, arms or trunk. Slashing aimed at a concrete object encounters resistance.
6. Gliding: Sustained, Direct, Light. Gliding is usually performed with bound flow.
- Imagine you are smoothing something horizontally, the palms of the hands parallel with the floor or vertically, with the palms facing forward. Or again, let the palms face inwards as one removes imaginary cobwebs in front of the body. The most important zone is across the body diagonally forward high but, as with other efforts, you must take the exercise into all zones, all directions, using different parts of the body, some simultaneously, some alternately.
- Alternate legs can glide over the floor as steps or gestures through space.
- Gliding with the trunk results in a smooth swaying movement.
- Remember it can also be used as a transition from one position to another. In gliding along a concrete object we meet with resistance. Gliding in the air brings about a counter-tension felt throughout the whole body, giving the feeling of controlled boundness. As a result, the movement can be stopped at any given moment. Bound movements in the air rely on the antagonistic muscles to control the action. Other actions tending to be bound are those of wringing and pressing and their derivatives. Thrusting can be performed with bound or free flow. The action of gliding “fights against” Space but “indulges in” Weight and Time.
7. Thrusting or Punching: Sudden, Direct, Strong. Can be performed with bound or free flow.
- Try to make a fist of the hands and punch forcibly at some imaginary object. The main zone for this exercise is punching with one arm and fist across the body attacking a target deep (low) backward
- Thrusting or punching with the legs becomes stamping.
- Try with other parts of the body, head-butting, elbows, shoulders, knees, hips.
- Explore your kinesphere in all directions and zones, using the parts of your body simultaneously or alternately. One doesn’t need to remain standing. It is possible to punch in a kneeling, lying or sitting position. In a lying position, the feet can punch into the air.
- With a reel target, one encounters a natural resistance; the most obvious examples are a punching bag used by boxers or two fighters in the ring. Where there is no concrete object to resist our punch, we need the counter-tension of the antagonistic muscles which should be felt throughout the body, no matter what part of it is leading the action.
- The essential characteristics in punching involve “fighting against” Weight, Space and Time. Therefore, there is no “indulgence” in this action, no yielding either to lightness or flexibility and no yielding to sustainment of the movement.
- An abrupt or sudden muscular reaction prevails in quick movements, including such actions as flicking, slashing, dabbing and, of course, thrusting.
8. Floating: Sustained, Flexible, Light. Floating can be with bound or free flow.
- The action of floating is felt momentarily in a leap when the energy for take-off has subsided and before descent occurs. On waking, one can also experience it as a slight “stirring” of the resting body during respirations.
- The most important zone for floating is high, forwards and outwards.
- Now try floating in all directions and zones as in previous effort exercises.
- Try floating downwards as well as upwards, with different parts of the body leading alternately or simultaneously.
- Float or fly with the legs or touch the floor very lightly on tiptoe.
- Attempt the effort sitting, lying and kneeling as well as standing.
- Use floating as a transition from one of these positions to another. If one needs to use floating as in very lightly stirring a liquid, then the liquid is an object offering resistance, however slight. Without any external resistance, as in a leap through the air, the body employs sets of muscles in a counter-tension, thereby helping to overcome the weight of the body momentarily. The tensions must be kept to a minimum to achieve a floating movement.
- In this action there is no “fighting against”. Here all is “indulgence”, i.e. the essence of floating is one of “indulging in” or yielding to Time, Weight and Space. We indulge in our lightness, sustain our movement and wander around “smelling our flowers” in Space. Counter-tensions are very slight and multi-lateral in floating but nonetheless sustain the muscular function of the effort. Pressing, gliding, wringing and their derivatives are all examples of sustained actions.
Laban calls these dynamic qualities “secondary tendencies”.
The six fundamental directions of the Dimensional Scale also contain their own dynamic qualities, giving rise to such feelings as:
- Lightness, associated with upward or High direction.
- Strength, associated with downward of Deep direction.
- Restriction. A movement across the body, producing a straight or Direct movement.
- Freedom of movement associated with the body’s open side, leading to Flexibility.
- Suddenness as in fear, resulting in the body’s contraction Backward.
- Sustainment, as tension is slowly released, leading the body in the opposite directions, i.e. Forwards.
