Laban Movement Workshop

Welcome to this digital drop-in on Laban Movement in Improv! So the idea is that this video will contain a load of exercises that you yourself can do from the comfort of your own home. Please pause and rewind the video if you need to – I won’t be allowing time to do the exercise in the video itself!

What is Laban Movement?

So, Rudolf Laban was an Austrio-Hungarian dance artist and theorist. Born in 1879, Laban revolutionized the dance world prior to his death in 1958. He is widely regarded as one of the fathers of modern dance and his theories about movement have shaped the way dancers have viewed their bodies ever since. His theory of The Eight Efforts will be the focus of today’s drop-in.

How does this relate to improv?

When coming up with a character, sometimes it’s useful to draw from the rhythms of your own body. Act first, think later. Not always! But it’s a useful tool to have in our arsenal. Through this drop-in, hopefully you can expand your physicality through the use of dance theory to try characters you’ve never played before!

What are your qualifications?

None.

Can we start yet?

Almost! Just a quick note to say that this stuff is quite physical, so please be aware of your surroundings and do not overstretch yourself or hurt yourself. If you have mobility issues, a lot of this workshop can be transplanted to think about other areas of your body – for instance, how you hold your hands, or how you hold your head!

Part 1: Preparing the Room

Draw your curtains to hide your shame.

Clear away any furniture.

Part 2: Warming Up

Physical warm up:

Stretching

Vocal warm up:

Tongue Twister

Tongue Boot Camp

Part 3: Warm Up Exercise

To get us in the mood to get physical, I want you to dance to some music. After a while, however you choose, turn that music off! Set an alarm so it is when you are not expecting it. Whatever position you are in, form a character from that position!

Part 4: Laban Movement

Laban has divided human movement into four basic components:

Direction, Weight, Speed and Flow. Whenever you move, you engage with these things. Changing them is a great way to access a character quickly!

Direction is just what it sounds like. How direct do you go to a place? Do you walk straight there? Or do you amble about? What kind of character would walk that way?

Weight is another component. How heavy are your steps? Do they weigh you down? Or are they light? What does that say about you?

The speed at which you move is also important. Do you speed from one place to another as quickly as possible? Or do you take your time, moving slowly? How does that shape character?

Finally, what kind of flow does your character have? Do they constrict themselves, keeping their body bound up? Or do they move freely, and openly?

As a quick exercise, walk from side of the room to another. Go across according to the four component parts, forward and back, swapping to the opposite each time. In other words:
Walk across the room directly, then back indirectly

With heavy steps, then light steps

With slow steps, then fast steps

With bound body language, then loose body language

So hopefully by now you can start to see the ways in which our body can shape characters, and how Laban movement can be used. Simple, right? Then let’s make it harder!

Part 5: The Eight Efforts 

So Laban believed that you could combine these four component movement types into what he called the Eight Efforts. These are eight ways of moving on stage as a character. Each one is built on combining the four movement types in different combinations.

Those Eight Efforts are: Punch, Slash, Dab, Flick, Press, Wring, Glide, and Float.

So we’re going to go through each of the Eight Efforts, one after the other.

Punch – Direct, Heavy, Fast, Bound. I feel like a boxer, or a shifty mafia man.

Slash – Indirect, Heavy, Fast, Free. For some reason when I do this, I become an angsty teenage boy.

Dab – Direct, Light, Fast, Bound. This one I also get very handsy with, but you can play it in your feet, or any part of your body. I feel like a nervous typist when I do this.

Flick – Indirect, Light, Fast, Free. Again, feel free to move it around your body. I feel like a nervous scientists – like Professor Frink from The Simpsons.

Press – Direct, Heavy, Slow, Bound. Imagine like you are pushing against a wall with your body. For me this makes me feel like everything is taking more effort, maybe I am older?

Wring – Indirect, Heavy, Slow, Bound. Feel like your body is a towel, and you are squeezing twisting the water out of it.

Glide – Direct, Light, Slow, Free. I’ve realised this is the one I do the most in my scenes! This makes me feel like an elegant figure, maybe a Queen.

Float – Indirect, Light, Slow, Free. This feels less purposeful than a glide to me, like I’m going in slow motion, in this one I feel like a cliché Disney Princess.

In a drop-in, here’s where we’d do a bunch of scenes with you being assigned one of the Eight Efforts. What I’d suggest at home, is walk about the space doing each of the efforts. Start silent, then begin to vocalise, then add a voice! Go back through the video if you need a reminder, or there is a summary here.

Part 6: Ending!

Thanks so much for watching this video! IF you want more ideas of how to use these, try shifting the efforts to each area of your body. For instance, you could have floating feet, or slashing shoulders. And try mixing them up – can your arms be punching while your legs are dabbing? The possibilities are endless!

Alternatively, try handling objects with different Efforts. How would you pass a cup of coffee to someone, and how does changing the Effort you do it with change that?

If you want to know more about Laban Movement in improv, I’ll post some resources in the description. Another improviser who I know has taught Laban Movement is Stuart Moses of the Improv London podcast – if you want to learn more, he’s a great person to ask!

Finally, this is going to be a tough time for the arts industry. If you enjoyed this, our drop-ins normally cost £3 - £5. MissImp does not own a space so won’t suffer heavy losses beyond teaching, but some of our venues and friends in the city of Nottingham are at risk. If you want to, please consider donating what you would normally pay for a drop-in to the Malt Cross, NonSuch Studios, or the Nottingham Playhouse.

Thanks everyone, stay safe!

Pages to donate:

Malt Cross - https://www.justgiving.com/maltcrosstrust

NonSuch Studios - https://wearenonsuch.com/donate/

Nottingham Playhouse - https://www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/support/ 

Other resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK-7QhORB9k 

https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/the-eight-efforts-laban-movement/