Laban Efforts

In one of our voice sessions this term we discovered Laban efforts and we can utilise them to affect our movements and inform our vocal choices. I found this class really useful and will definitely be applying these methods to future characterisations. Laban said that all movement can be categorised into 8 descriptors. This can be separated into 3 different components that can be fixed together to create different qualities of movements. Direction; Weight; Speed. Direction = direct or indirect, Weight = heavy or light and Speed = sustained or staccato. So for example if you matched up an indirect, light, sustained movement you'd get float. Here is a list of the efforts and the links in order to make them.

Direct - Heavy - Staccato = Punch
Indirect - Heavy - Sustained = Slash 
Direct - Heavy - Sustained = Push
Indirect - Heavy - Sustained = Wring 
Direct - Light - Staccato = Dab
Indirect - Light - Staccato = Flick 
Direct - Light, Sustained = Glide
Indirect - Light - Sustained = Float 

These qualities exists in all of us but some more than others so some efforts I found easier than others. Flick was one of the less difficult ones to inhabit; on later discussion without realising it I'd applied flick to my characterisation of "Two" last term in contemporary. I guess because I'm quite scatter brained and my attention is always being pulled in many direction flick just really resonated with my personality. A lot of the heavy ones I found difficult especially wring. This one has quite an inner manifestation within my body and has quite a masculine angry quality too it. I feel like I eventually found this effort by picturing someone "wringing" the water out of a towel and letting this feeling come from my core. Glide was quite an interesting effort to find. It was hard to find that sustained quality; keeping moving was the moving was the toughest part. If I was to apply this effort to a character it would definitely be a king or a noble person.

We went on to do an exercise based on communicating purely through these efforts. I chose Flick and my partner chose slash. I feel like because we picked opposing efforts so it was easier to communicate. Every time she would slash my flick would react off of it. This exercise developed on to an argument which was easier than just having a conversation because their was a purpose to the two efforts conversing. When there was just two people it really worked because there was an important element of listening taking place. When more efforts were added in it became chaotic and didn't really work. This was because there was no acting and reacting, it was just a big mess of movements and noises. It also went a bit array when words were added in. I think this was because the sounds and movements communicated our intentions well enough and having to think of words to say took this element away.

In conclusion I found this class very helpful and will definitely be applying these practises to future work. It was very important to explore how movement and can affect my vocal choices and if I want to access a particular sound it might be good to start with a movement component.