Following on from my original Laban post I've been researching the Laban states where you combine 2 elements. These are sometimes referred to as 2 factor states.
If you remember from my last blog about the Laban elements, Laban categorised movements into 4 elements or component parts, direction, weight, speed and flow.
Each of these elements/components has 2 opposite parts:
Direction - Direct and Indirect
Weight - Heavy and Light
Speed - Quick or Sustained
Flow - Bound or Free
As improvisers this gives us access to 8 potential characters using just the Laban elements. For example if we pick light, we can use the light element to create a character. How would a light character move? talk? think?
You can also combine 2 of these elements together to create the 2 factor states. These 2 factor states are often referred to as the character/performers inner attitudes. The different combinations again have 2 opposite parts.
We're not going to really worry about the reason for these names today instead we're going to focus on all the different combinations we can use to create characters.
Awake state: (opposite of dream state)
Direct + Speed
Dream state: (opposite of awake state)
Weight + Flow
Stable state: (opposite of mobile state)
Weight + Direction
Mobile state: (opposite of stable state)
Flow + Speed
Near state: (opposite of remote state)
Speed + Weight
Remote state: (opposite of near state)
Flow + Direction
So each 2 factor state has 4 different potential combinations of elements. I've summarised it here in this table.
This now gives us a further potential of 24 different characters.
You could be a character that is quick and light or free and direct. There's a lot to play around with here.
What is beautiful about this as well is everyone's interpretation is different, a light character me will be different to a light character to you.
If you'd like to come and have a play with Laban I'm running an online 2 week introduction to character creation using Laban workshop in November/December. Find out more here.
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