The actor's alphabet: a practical and developmental study of how to apply Rudolf Laban's language of movement to transform the actor's habitual body into a performance body

Abstract

Rudolf Laban's 'language of movement' offers insight into human behaviour and the roots of human expression. His comprehension of 'action' and contribution to theatre has been largely overlooked by actors. This thesis is dedicated to addressing the general lack of awareness by explaining and exploring Laban's work in relation to acting. Laban's underlying performance philosophy - his search for 'truthful' expression, is in line with Stanislavski's provisions for actors to act with inner truth and Grotowski's advancement of the 'total act'. The principles Laban defined as true and fundamental to human expression reflect principles exposed by the world-view of theatre taken by theatre director and anthropologist, Eugenio Barba. The correspondences revealed between these 'actor' focused practitioners and Laban's viewpoints provide the justification for his research to be applied to acting. Laban's 'language of movement' provides an expressive code with which to dissect human actions and motivations. The evolution of Laban's research away from the theatre arena assists actors to analyse human behaviour. Developments made by Laban Movement Analysists and the practises of Dance Movement Therapists' offer the means of reprogramming to rid actors of inhibitive conditioning and study human behaviour objectively. Practical exercises demonstrate that habitual physical and mental attitudes impede actors from transmitting convincing performance action and restrict creative impulses. The relationship between Carl Gustav Jung's typing of personality traits and Laban's physical definitions are presented to signify the potential for movement crafting to express character psychology. Often most revealing of character, are sub-conscious movements made which shadow functional actions. Attempts to structure and detail these tiny movements into a performance score are examined to determine whether precise physical crafting enhances the performance life of five actors working on individual play-texts. Constructing actors' performance activities from Laban's symbolic movement alphabet is proven to provoke energy transformation and spontaneity. The training processes of the two long-standing Laban proponents teaching actors, Yat Malmgren and Jean Newlove, are explained to connect my experiments to current channels of application. Laban's vast expressive system provides a network for actors to transform psycho-physical habits into performance action which is both vibrant and authentic. Action is the medium of the actor and Laban's 'language of movement' has the power to decipher human action. Studying his alphabet provides the key to unlocking the true potential of actors.