Laban

We started the lesson by looking and exploring Laban efforts. Laban efforts is a system developed to understand and colour the subtle inner characteristics and how movements are carried out. Though the movements may seem similar such as; flick and dab -  the strength, control and timings of the way the movements are carried out enables them to be developed into separate actions, all with a distinct purpose or title. The movements are all made up of different combinations of the actions; direct or indirect, sudden or sustained and strong or light. We carried out an exercise that allowed us all to explore the different effort action, this enabled me to get a good idea of what each action consisted of and what type of character I would apply it to. I found focusing on each movement one at a time really helped me develop a distinct understanding of what the effort was presenting and how to portray it to my best ability.

We then split into pairs, I worked with Tia, and chose a movement each to portray. I chose flick and she chose float - I chose flick because I found the movement really interesting as a characteristic for a character role and wanted to explore it further in relation to how a flick character would respond and interact with others. Through the effort flick, I created a character that had somewhere important to be and generally looked down upon others. I incorporated flick into the character's physicality, flicking my hands physically out to dismiss Tia's character. I found developing a character around one single action extremely interesting to carry out as it gave me an understanding of how much a subtle effort can effect the entire character. In future roles I will definitely use Laban efforts to aid the development of my characters' characteristics, I will incorporate the efforts into the movements and physicality I choose to portray these characters with, using the effort as a guide to who the character may be. Exploring these different movements really helped me understand different aspects of characters, and different and interesting ways - such as Laban efforts - to explored and develop them.