E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Garcia, Maria: Forms Of Expression In Common To Movement ...
action that Laban identified as Basic Effort Actions. (Bartenieff, 1983, page
57).
TABLE 2
(U. Preston-Dunlop, 1977, page 67)
Weight Space Time Action
Light Indirect Sustained FLOATING
Strong Direct Sudden PUNCHING
Light Direct Sustained GLIDING
Strong Indirect Sudden SLASHING
Light Direct Sudden DABBING
Strong Indirect Sustained WRINGING
Light Indirect Sudden FLICKING
Strong Direct Sustained PRESSING
As we may see, the words used in this table are those types of words used to
express "vital affects". According to Stern, terms indicating dynamism and
movement are the ones that would best define these qualities (Stern, 1987,
pag. 53).
Here as well, every category represents a polarity in a range within which
we may recognize movement in all of its innumerable nuances. For instance,
"smoothing", "smearing" and "smudging" may be considered as derivatives of
"gliding" (Laban, 1974, page 38). If we look at this carefully we may see that
words have in their very sound a specific dynamic quality (Dogana, 1983).
Incomplete combinations of effort elements that imply neutral or passive
attitudes towards some of the factors of Weight, Time, Space or Flow are
seen as expressions of many other mood-like states, but also of discrete
emotions or even of states of consciousness.
The following table reports a few examples.
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