Laban Movement Analysis as a Framework
to build Dance Literacy
By Hye Won Hwang
Rudolf Laban (1879
-1953) was born in
Austro-Hungary.
Laban was a dancer,
a choreographer and
a dance / movement
theoretician.
“Without literacy dance would never be taken seriously
by the cultural elite.” (Laban, Rudolf)
Rudolf Laban's passion was to
establish dance as an art of equal
standing to its sister arts, a place it
had never held. It had to establish
a medium through its own literacy,
hence in his burning desire to find
a notation for dance.
• Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is a system and
language for understanding, observing, describing
and notating all forms of movement.
• Devised by Rudolf Laban, LMA draws on his theories
of Effort and Shape to describe, interpret and
document human movement.
• LMA was developed after Laban's death by his
students. LMA has four main categories: Body, Effort,
Shape, Space.
The body category
describes structural
and physical
characteristics of the
human body while
moving.
Effort, or what Laban
sometimes described as
dynamics, is a system for
understanding the more
subtle characteristics
about the way a movement
is done with respect to
inner intention.
Shape Flow of
Growing
Shrinking
Arc-like Directional
Spoke-like Directional
Shaping
It is ill suited to
discussing the way the
body changes shape
during movement.
This category involves
motion in connection
with the environment,
and with spatial patterns,
pathways, and lines of
spatial tension.
• Motif Description:
Depicts the most
important elements, the
essential aspects of the
movement sequence.
• Labanotation: Detailed
description of
movement so it may be
reproduced exactly as it
was performed or
conceived.
Laban Movement Analysis
is a movement framework
that can help not only
teachers to strengthen
their teaching skills but
also students to build up
dance literacy in the
process of making,
performing and
appreciating.