Labanotation
The Importance and Legacy of Rudolf Laban’s Work for Educators
In studying and researching the work of Rudolf von Laban I chose to focus on the publication of "Kinetographie Laban" which established his dance notation system, referred to as Labanotation, and it's effect on dance education within the broader education community both at the time and today and the many different kinds of benefits this has resulted in. I chose this because of it's importance and broad reaching effect. It was a huge breakthrough at the time and it is a very fascinating system, because of and in spite of it's simplicity, which has enabled it to be incredibly popular. There are many reasons why it is so noteworthy, not just for it’s uniqueness in itself but in the uniqueness in the large effects it has resulted in in so many multiple fields of research and education.
For dancers, or anyone who studies dance, it quickly becomes a natural query to look for a way to translate moves to some sort of written, easily understandable, clear form which could be shared with others or used for ones own benefit. Many people attempted to create a system for this reason but it was never achieved successfully. When Rudolf Laban created and developed his system of Labanotation it opened up a lot of opportunities for people in and out of the dance world. He was able to invent a method that was easily broken down in to sections and which could be quickly learned by those both young and old, this leant itself to the spreading of his method which increased it's popularity and further proved that it was a really good system.
His system was based on a series of symbols which combined correctly reflect a direction, a level, a body part, the duration, and even the dynamic quality of a movement or series of movements. He did this by dividing the body into it's parts and using some basic geometrics and shading as a key, these can then be applied to convey the movement or movements the author intended. He
In studying and researching the work of Rudolf von Laban I chose to focus on the publication of "Kinetographie Laban" which established his dance notation system, referred to as Labanotation, and it's effect on dance education within the broader education community both at the time and today and the many different kinds of benefits this has resulted in. I chose this because of it's importance and broad reaching effect. It was a huge breakthrough at the time and it is a very fascinating system, because of and in spite of it's simplicity, which has enabled it to be incredibly popular. There are many reasons why it is so noteworthy, not just for it’s uniqueness in itself but in the uniqueness in the large effects it has resulted in in so many multiple fields of research and education.
For dancers, or anyone who studies dance, it quickly becomes a natural query to look for a way to translate moves to some sort of written, easily understandable, clear form which could be shared with others or used for ones own benefit. Many people attempted to create a system for this reason but it was never achieved successfully. When Rudolf Laban created and developed his system of Labanotation it opened up a lot of opportunities for people in and out of the dance world. He was able to invent a method that was easily broken down in to sections and which could be quickly learned by those both young and old, this leant itself to the spreading of his method which increased it's popularity and further proved that it was a really good system.
His system was based on a series of symbols which combined correctly reflect a direction, a level, a body part, the duration, and even the dynamic quality of a movement or series of movements. He did this by dividing the body into it's parts and using some basic geometrics and shading as a key, these can then be applied to convey the movement or movements the author intended. He