What’s So Special About Rudolf Laban? Rudolf Laban (1879-1958)
was born into the military aristocracy of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Rejecting a military career, Laban studied visual art in
Munich and Paris, where he was involved with modernist movements
such as Art Nouveau, Expressionism, and Dada. However, Laban's
artistic passion was to establish dance as an art of equal
standing to the other arts. He applied himself tirelessly to
this task. Thus, among other activities, Laban developed a dance
notation system, wrote extensively, established schools of dance
and a dancers' union, choreographed works for the theatre,
created large movement choirs for amateur dancers, analyzed
factory workers' movements to enhance efficiency, trained actors
in movement for the stage, and pioneered the fields of
educational dance and dance therapy. But the real importance of
his work lies beyond these achievements. Laban's vision
penetrated the surface of physical action to reveal general laws
of movement. As a consequence,