Rudolf Laban’s visual thinking: Modern dance theory and practice in dialogue with art and architecture
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Rudolf Laban, a pioneer of modern dance, intertwined visual arts and crafts with his choreographic practice. He mobilized abstract geometric shapes in his dance education. His use of the icosahedron form, for example, derived from geometric and stereometric architectural models, has yet to be mined. It allowed him to renegotiate the relationship between body and space. The paper also compares Laban’s adaptation of the icosahedron to that of architects like Richard Buckminster Fuller, who used its implications of motion to create lightweight architecture. Laban, too, was interested in building domes made of lightweight material based on the platonic solids to perform his huge movement choirs. Based on a dialogue between visual art, modern dance and architecture, the article sheds light for the first time on Rudolf Laban’s visual thinking and the role of the pictorial in his work.
Source: Anales de Historia del Arte
DOI: 10.5209/anha.100609
Author: Anja Pawel
Institution: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Language: English
Subfield: Architecture
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4415277768