This text translated here (first published in Die Tat in May 1921) is an early elaboration of Rudolf Laban’s polyrhythmic ontology. The phenomenon of rhythm here takes shape through the manifold ways in which it resonates in the text (Ur-rhythm, Eu-rhythm, Kako-rhythm). Besides positing a fundamental co-dependency between rhythm, movement and space, Laban sees rhythm here also as the gateway to a socio-ethical dimension culminating in the Festival, or art of celebration.

In this paper, we propose an examination of the shared connections between the French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Austro-Hungarian movement theorist, Rudolf Laban.In many ways Merleau-Ponty''s philosophy demonstrates a synthesis of the best in existen-tialism and phenomenology. In like manner, Rudolf Laban was a synthesizer of experiences and theories of movement.

The work and ideas of Rudolf Laban, dancer, choreographer and seminal theoretician of movement and dance, have had a profound impact across a range of disciplines. This book explores this impact.

Unser menschlicher Leib gleicht einem Umschlagplatz: Mittels der Wahrnehmung verwandeln wir Mitwelt in Innenwelt und Innenwelt in Mitwelt. Wir kommunizieren dabei nicht nur mit unserer Sprache, Gestik und Mimik, sondern mit unserem gesamten Bewegungsverhalten. Dies birgt nicht nur Gefahren, sondern vor allem die Möglichkeit, die eigene Leiblichkeit und Körpersprache als Quelle der Selbsterkenntnis nutzbar zu machen, durch sie das eigene Selbst zu erfahren und zu verstehen und sich damit dem eigenen Ich anzunähern. Beate Schüler untersucht anhand der Laban- und (...) der Alexandertechnik sowie der Tanztherapie von Anna Halprin exemplarisch, wie die sozialen und individuellen Gegebenheiten eine solche leibliche Eigenerfahrung, eine Begegnung mit dem eigenen Selbst, beeinflussen und wie sich in der Bewegung die traditionelle Trennung zwischen Geist und Körper aufhebt. (shrink)

Jeder Wahrnehmung liegen Kinästhesen zugrunde, doch tritt die Bewegung am deutlichsten im Tasten hervor. Untersucht wird hier die phänomenologische Auffassung vom Zusammenhang zwischen Tasten und Kinästhesen bei Husserl und Erwin Straus, im Vergleich zu der Tanzwissenschaft . Diese Interpretation wird teilweise durch andere Perspektiven ergänzt, die aus der pränatalen Anthropologie, Psychiatrie und den Ingenieurwissenschaften stammen. Das Vorbild ist bei Husserl die mechanische Bewegung zu Erkenntniszwecken; Straus entdeckt die Tierwelt und ihre appetitiven Bewegungen. Keine von diesen Analysen entspricht völlig dem Phänomen (...) des Tanzes als Ausdruck der propriozeptiv empfundenen Harmonie zwischen dem Leib und seiner Welt. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo do presente artigo é tratar a dança como discurso visual e verbo-visual e identificar alguns de seus componentes que permitem a construção de sentido para um público sem formação específica e que seja mero amador e frequentador de espetáculos de dança. Na primeira parte, busca-se estabelecer as bases teórico-conceituais do trabalho e, para tanto, percorrem-se trechos da obra de Bakhtin, Medviédev e Volóshinov que convergem com o pensamento de Rudolf Laban, teórico da dança que a (...) concebe como linguagem. Na segunda parte, analisa-se um corpus constituído de quatro fragmentos discursivos, exemplares de diferentes gêneros - balé clássico, balé moderno, hip-hop e streetdance. Mobilizam-se para a análise os conceitos de gênero discursivo, entonação e sistema de valores. ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to examine dance as visual and verbal-visual discourse, and to identify the components that foster the production of meaning for an audience without any specialized training, but who are merely amateurs, and who attend dance shows. The first part of the article establishes the theoretical-conceptual basis for the study, supported by excerpts from the works of Bakhtin, Medvedev, and Voloshinov, which converge with the perspective of dance theorist, Rudolf Laban, who conceives of dance as language. Secondly, a corpus consisting of four discursive fragments from different genres are analyzed: classical ballet, modern ballet, hip-hop and street dance. The analysis focuses on the concepts of discursive genres, intonation, and value systems. (shrink)

This article identifies two different paths where the amnesia described by Hannah- Arendt and the fragmentation identified by Willie James Jennings of our historical past has distorted how people today view dan-cing. I set out how the Christian entanglement with colonial powers has impacted on people’s abilities to relate to their bodies, lands and other creatures of the world. I describe how the colonial wound of Western society forms the basis of the loneliness and alienation that totalitarianism inculcates. After this, (...) I examine how people who seek to find a solid tradition of dance within the Western traditions of Christianity often end up in a conundrum when they seek to legitimize the existence of the tradition in the wrong places. I show how seeking roots for Christian dance practices in Jewish customs is often entangled in supersessionist understandings. These arguments are constructed by means of both J. Kameron- Carter’s writings on race and theology and the black political theology outlined by Vincent W. Lloyd. The second-most-often chosen option for creating a dance tradition for Western forms of Christianity is to romanticize the non-Western ‘other’. Using Lindsey Drury’s work, I argue that dancers have perpetuated the interests that seek to possess the ‘other’ by bringing exotic dancers to the Western marketplace. Finally, I describe the third option – more commonly found amongst those critical of Christian tradition – to seek the roots of transformational dance practices in Hellenistic and more esoteric teachings flourishing in the early twentieth century. We run into the often forgotten or neglected stories of renowned dance teachers like Rudolf Laban and Isadora Duncan on this path. By combining esoteric bodily practices, Mother Earth ‘spirituality’ and superior views about race, they not only promoted but laid the foundation for how people were manipulated in the Third Reich. I end by sharing ethnographic stories of resistance towards how these past historical patterns have affected how dance is viewed today. Those exhibiting such resistance are not always consciously aware of the historical roots I have described. However, engagement in contemplative and healing dance practices seems to be forging new and better ways to create community and to live in a connected way with creation and our creatureliness. The central theme of these practices is to resist the illusion of perfection and control while helping people to listen to and discern the Holy Spirit leading them into a new way of living. (shrink)

Le concept de « rythme », véritable « mot phare » du tournant du siècle en Allemagne, articule autour de 1900 un certain nombre d'accusations contre le monde moderne, cristallise des espoirs de renouveau et se trouve placé au centre de projets éthiques opposés aux tendances individualistes et utilitaires. Il bénéficie d'une part de phénomènes contextuels comme l'essor de la danse moderne, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze et plus tard Rudolf Laban - 1er XXe siècle – Nouvel article.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Merging Traditional Technique Vocabularies with Democratic Teaching Perspectives in Dance EducationA Consideration of Aesthetic Values and Their Sociopolitical ContextsBecky Dyer (bio)IntroductionConventional aesthetic values in dance traditionally have been wed to long-established authoritarian teaching approaches in American professional dance companies and university dance programs. Developed over time from a mixture of enduring cultural tastes, aesthetic ideals, and historical influences, aesthetic values play a significant role in teaching and learning processes (...) in the classroom, although the impact of their presence on learning is often indiscernible or paid little attention. As dance educators in higher education make efforts to move toward more democratic teaching perspectives, they often find themselves philosophically lodged between established approaches to teaching traditional, codified vocabularies and aesthetics and more contemporary, student-centered, and democratically oriented perspectives to teaching and learning dance. Attention to the sociopolitical contexts of dance training gives practitioners opportunities to consider aesthetic values of dance from differing cultural vantage points and the perspectives by which these values are taught and learned.Each learning circumstance in dance is a complex weaving of personal and social experience involving individuals, communities, movers, and viewers. Movement aesthetic values emerge from personal and communal morals and ideals as well as social mores of the body, which create contextual lenses for experiencing, interpreting, and making meaning of movement vocabularies created and perpetuated in dance communities. It is important that teachers who seek to incorporate more democratically oriented, student-centered teaching perspectives become mindful of ways social values and perceptual/contextual frameworks impact personal [End Page 108] and communal practices in dance. Approaches to learning technique that consider sociocultural factors of dance movement aesthetics—wherein teachers and learners are led to recognize and reflect upon personal, social, and aesthetic values embodied in movement and embedded in movement vocabularies—can lead teachers and learners to better understand the significance of learning in dance as it relates to personal and social worlds beyond the classroom.This article will suggest how movement analysis from a socially contextualized perspective can inform understanding about the significance of sociopolitical contexts and aesthetic values in Western dance training. Perspectives of movement analysis will provide groundwork for discussing perceivable ways to address discrepancies between democratic and authoritarian teaching viewpoints and to challenge the prominent linking of conventional aesthetic values and vocabularies, as well as codified techniques, to authoritarian practices. The discussion will address relationships between pedagogical perspectives and ideologies held by teachers concerning the place and worth of conventional aesthetic values and the nature of aesthetic experiences in the dance technique classroom, and the potential understandings and meanings their students construct.Foundations of Movement Analysis: The Ideas and Practices of Rudolf LabanRecognizing embedded personal and social aesthetic values in movement is an important initial stage in developing more critically reflective practices that promote meaning, agency, and student interest in learning. The task is challenging because the only values accessibly evident to the bystander, and often the mover, are visual ones. Yet, as Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) suggested, intangible values also inspire movement. Laban created a theoretical framework—referred to as Laban Movement Analysis—for movement exploration, description, and analysis to consider both noticeably apparent and less-tangible values of movement by investigating movement phenomena and factors that generate them.1 The praxis-oriented system involves reflecting on movement observations, considering emotional and mental facets of movement, and taking into account experiential bodily perspectives of the mover.2Although one of Laban's fundamental purposes for developing a descriptive vocabulary for movement was to facilitate the mastery of dance technique,3 his teaching emphasized the "harmonious expressiveness of the whole individual," as he aimed to facilitate dancers' ability to understand and use their bodies in order to discover individual ways of expressing themselves and communicating.4 Laban's attitudes toward training were in sharp contrast to approaches of the day, yet interestingly, they were not [End Page 109] opposed to them. For example, common dance gestures and postures were expanded into free exploration and studied from diverse points of view rather than a narrow range of perspectives, aesthetic values, and movement qualities.5Laban's theory of "Effort," which he linked to emotions as well as... (shrink)

The notion of Bildung has been a catalyst for educational theories about the human relation to the material and social world. Place, both as a concrete spatial location and as metaphorical spatialization have been central to the understanding of Bildung. Nevertheless, the tradition of Bildung has treated the material world mainly as a restricting and adversarial space for human becoming. By asking why the role of belonging to a concrete place is absent from several contemporary debates on Bildung, we discuss (...) themes in Hegel’s and Humboldt’s conceptions of human formation, and argue that the preoccupation with different ideas of becoming human, through moving beyond material restrictions, centres on a notion of Bildung as a movement in time, a temporal dialectic. In contrast to conceptualizations of the world as binding and restricting, we then ask what place there is for ‘place’ in a theory of Bildung, and argue that the relation between the subject and the world can be perceived as a much more supportive dialogical relationship than these discussions suggest. With reference to insights from Rudolf Laban’s and Irmgard Bartenieff’s Movement Studies (LBMS), we illustrate an alternative perspective on the role of the material world in human physical, social, and cognitive development. These dimensions of development suggest that becoming and belonging in the world necessarily involve a simultaneously functional and expressive element, where the subject’s expressive movement of freedom and intention is balanced by their trustful resting in a concrete place. (shrink)

This text was first published in Theory, Culture & Society, May 13, 2015. For a special issue of Body & Society on ‘Rhythm, Movement, Embodiment', Paola Crespi presents two previously untranslated texts, Rudolf Bode's ‘Rhythm and its Importance for Education' and Rudolf Laban's ‘Eurhythmy and Kakorhythmy'. In the following interview she uncovers further unpublished and untranslated sources and she discusses some of the main themes of these texts in relation to the more widely known text - Danse, (...) théâtre et spectacle vivant – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

'My endeavour in these pages is to explain the main features of the method of philosophizing which we, the Vienna Circle, use, and by using try to develop further. It is the method of the logical analysis of science, or more precisely, of the syntactical analysis of scientific language.... The purpose of the book -- as of the lectures -- is to give a first impression of our method and of the direction of our questions and investigations to those who (...) are not yet acquainted with them.' -- From the Preface. (shrink)

Since its publication fifty years ago, this work has established itself as a classic. It casts the visual process in psychological terms and describes the creative way one's eye organizes visual material according to specific psychological premises. In 1974 this book was revised and expanded, and since then it has continued to burnish Rudolf Arnheim's reputation as a groundbreaking theoretician in the fields of art and psychology.

The philosopher and historian of culture Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) has had a significant and continuing influence on twentieth-century Continental philosophy and in a broad range of scholarly disciplines. Rudolf Makkreel interprets Dilthey's philosophy and provides a guide to its complex development. Against the tendency to divorce Dilthey's early psychological writings from his later hermeneutical and historical works, Makkreel argues for their essential continuity.

The article is an inquiry into the contribution that choreology made to the Russian/State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN) as both an institutional and research project. Choreology was a new discipline that Aleksei Sidorov and Aleksandr Larionov created following up Vassily Kandinsky’s idea that dance and, more widely, the art of movement, should be a subject of scholarly and scientific investigation. In his capacity as the academic secretary of GAKhN, Sidorov founded the Choreological Laboratory (1922–1929), and Larionov served as its (...) head. Both took an active part in movement analyses, made sketches and notes, and used photography to capture dance movements and to create a system of dance notation. Their search was informed by Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, and especially by Heinrich Wölfflin; at the same time, their interest in dance notation grew from their search for occult signs and symbols. In Sidorov’s notes and sketches from the 1920s, one can see the process of making signs for a language of dance notation. The attempt by the Russians to schematize movement and find an abstract language for dance paralleled an effort by the Central-European choreographer and dance theoretician, Rudolf von Laban. A unique and only half-realized project, choreology was a valuable contribution to the new “artistic sciences.”. (shrink)

Cet article a déjà paru dans Le Texte et l'Idée, N° 24, 2010, p. 69-89. Nous remercions Olivier Hanse de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. De 1913 à 1919, la colonie végétarienne du Monte Verità fondée par l'industriel belge Henri Oedenkoven et la pianiste et féministe allemande Ida Hofmann servit de cadre aux cours d'été du chorégraphe Rudolf von Laban. De la sorte, les apprentis-danseurs n'y recevaient pas uniquement des cours d'expression corporelle mais se - 1er (...) XXe siècle – Nouvel article. (shrink)

When a theorist of my persuasion looks at photography he is more concerned with the character traits of the medium as such than with the particular work of particular artists. He wishes to know what human needs are fulfilled by this kind of imagery, and what properties enable the medium to fulfill them. For his purpose, the theorist takes the medium at its best behavior. The promise of its potentialities captures him more thoroughly than the record of its actual achievements, (...) and this makes him optimistic and tolerant, as one is with a child, who has a right to demand credit for his future. Analyzing media in this way requires a very different temperament than analyzing the use people make of them. Studies of this latter kind, given the deplorable state of our civilization, often make a depressing reading. Among Rudolf Arnheim's latest publications are Toward a Psychology of Art, Visual Thinking, and Entropy and Art. A new version of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, will appear this fall. He is professor of the psychology of art, emeritus, at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University. Other contributions to Critical Inquiry are "A Stricture on Space and Time" and "THE LANGUAGE OF IMAGES: A Plea for Visual Thinking". (shrink)

Face à des enjeux planétaires qui se multiplient et à leurs pronostics de plus en plus inquiétants, les injonctions à agir vite s’imposent avec une certaine évidence. Si la proposition semble tenir du bon sens et ne pas nécessiter qu’on s’y arrête, il convient de prendre un peu de recul, au contraire. S’autoriser à prendre le temps : le temps de la déconstruction des évidences, à commencer par celle de la définition de l’urgence qui invite à de nouveaux engagements, suivi (...) d’un temps nécessaire à l’élaboration d’une réponse appropriée, et ainsi de suite… Sans parler du temps du partage nécessaire, dès lors que la cause se doit d’être collective et non simplement individuelle et personnelle. Sans remettre en cause la légitimité des alertes écologiques, il convient de réfléchir à des modalités d’action permettant tout à la fois des engagements fermes en matière de transformation sociale et la prise en compte d’imprévus. L’article conclut par la présentation de quelques innovations dans le domaine des projets urbains qui tentent de combiner ces deux enjeux. La discussion s’oriente pour finir par une réflexion sur la nécessité de renouer avec un art menacé, celui de faire société. (shrink)

"O fim do direito é a paz, e o meio para atingi-lo é a luta. Enquanto o direito precisar estar pronto ante a agressão da injustiça, o que ocorrerá enquanto existir o mundo, não poderá ele poupar se da luta. A vida do direito é luta, uma luta dos povos, do poder do estado, das classes, dos indivíduos." O jurista Rudolf von Ihering expõe neste livro de 1872 sua ideia de que o direito não é cedido ao povo naturalmente, (...) mas sim que deve haver uma luta social para conquistá-lo. O autor expressa que o processo é de fato difícil e doloroso, contudo é justamente essa dor que desenvolve uma ligação mais forte e perene entre o Direito conquistado e o povo que sangrou para conquistá-lo. E vai além: essa luta seria não apenas um dever moral do indivíduo para consigo mesmo como também um dever cívico dele para com a sociedade. A luta pelo Direito tece críticas a todos os que sacrificam seus direitos individuais em nome de uma paz pessoal, e reafirma o poder e o dever de cada um perante a coletividade. Obra fundamental em tempos de mudanças sociais e jurídicas tão profundas. (shrink)

The habit of separating the intuitive from the abstractive functions, as they were called in the Middle Ages, goes far back in our tradition. Descartes, in the sixth Meditation, defined man as "a thing that thinks," to which reasoning came naturally; whereas imagining, the activity of the senses, required a special effort and was in no way necessary to the human nature or essence. The passive ability to receive images of sensory things, said Descartes, would be useless if there did (...) not exist in the mind a further and higher active faculty capable of shaping these images and of correcting the errors that derive from sensory experience. A century later Leibnitz spoke of two levels of clear cognition.1 Reasoning was cognition of the higher degree: it was distinct, that is, it could analyze things into their components. Sensory experience, on the other hand, was cognition of the lower order: it also could be clear but it was confused, in the original Latin sense of the term; that is, all elements fused and mingled together in an indivisible whole. Thus artists, who rely on this inferior faculty, are good judges of works of art but when asked what is wrong with a particular piece that displeases them can only reply that it lacks nescio quid, a certain "I don't know what." · 1. Leibnitz, Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain , bk. 2, chap. 29. Rudolf Arnheim is the author of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, Toward a Psychology of Art, The Dynamics of Architectural Form, and Visual Thinking. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "On the Nature of Photography" and "A Stricture on Space and Time". (shrink)

Rudolf Bode’s text Rhythm and its Importance for Education (published by Eugen Diederich, Jena, 1920) has both a theoretical and a practical aim: to clarify the nature of the rhythm phenomenon in order to lay down the foundations of ‘Rhythmic Gymnastics’. Bode engages with the work of his contemporaries, such as Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Karl Buecher and Ludwig Klages, and comes to identify rhythm with a continuum devoid of rationality. The text is unique in its ability to meaningfully connect such (...) diverse fields as philosophy, gymnastics, anthropology and politics and shows, in this way, the potential of ‘rhythmanalysis’. (shrink)

The clearest instances of Time experience in music can be observed when the melodic and harmonic structure of a work announces the approach to a climax, for example, the finale. A goal is established in the awareness of the listener and acts as an independent system toward which music is striving. Most other examples that come to mind are extra-musical, that is, they refer to music in relation to something outside of it. A listener who instead of moving with the (...) flow of the musical happening remains outside of it and watches the arriving and passing of phrase after phrase as though he were watching a parade from a viewing stand places himself in a separate temporal system whose relation to that of the music itself is governed by Time. Compare also the radio performance scheduled to finish on the hour or the state of mind of a concertgoer anxious to make the 11:20 suburban train home. A literary narrative, like music, tends to be perceived as an ongoing flow. No reference to time is relevant for a description of the sequential action. The work sprouts and grows. But whenever the continuity is broken , the appearances may form separate systems. The only medium that can bridge the gap may be Time, in which both are embedded. This is generally considered a compositional flaw. A skillful narrator avoids such a break by providing a filament that connects past and present appearances "amodally," as psychologists call it, that is, the way a train's progress is seen as remaining uninterrupted even when it is hidden for a moment by a tunnel. But when Time is embodied as an authentic literary character, such as the "devouring Time" of Shakespeare's nineteenth sonnet, which blunts the lion's paws and plucks the tiger's teeth, it becomes an active system of its own and thus deserves the capitalization. Rudolf Arnheim is the author of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, Toward a Psychology of Art, and The Dynamics of Architectural Form. His contributions to Critical Inquiry are "On the Nature of Photography" and "A Plea for Visual Thinking". (shrink)