Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
The International Conference LABAN 2026: Body–Space Cartographies to be held at the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art, MAM RJ invites artists, students, researchers, and educators from diverse fields to create territories of passage - understood as spaces of movement between memories and futures, between tradition and reinvention, and among bodies, spaces, and ways of knowing.
The crossings evoked here are simultaneously concrete actions and poetic gestures: crossings between disciplines, languages, cultures, and modes of knowledge transmission. Such passages open spaces for sharing, friction, intervention, and displacement, while fostering intergenerational and transdisciplinary contributions emerging from diverse political, geographic, and ideological contexts. These encounters invite new perspectives and expand our understanding of ourselves and the environments we inhabit.
LABAN 2026 reaffirms its commitment to the professional community that, over decades, has built this international gathering as a space for exchange, deepening, and resonance of Labanian thought. At the same time, it proposes itself as an entry point for those wishing to approach the field of movement studies. We aim to create a welcoming environment in which different layers of experience coexist, encouraging dialogue between established bodies of knowledge and perspectives still in formation.
By interweaving Laban and Bartenieff’s ideas with contemporary investigations in theatre, anthropology, dance, architecture, sociology, performance, philosophy, and pedagogy, LABAN 2026 proposes movement studies as a form of sensitive, embodied, and situated knowledge. Cartography is understood here as a living process — drawn through bodies, practices, and relationships among body, space, memory, and creation.
Within this context, the conference will celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the Laban Art of Movement Guild, founded by Rudolf Laban in the UK in 1946 and directed by him until his passing. This celebration honors the many artists, scholars, and practitioners who, through the Guild’s publications, events, and partnerships, have contributed to the international dissemination of Labanian thought as a living force of reflection and invention across artistic and choreological fields.
In dialogue with presentations of works that have significantly contributed to the expansion of movement studies, LABAN 2026 positions itself as a space for encounter, experimentation, and creation, where the body is understood as a living archive and movement as an ethical, aesthetic, and political force capable of generating new forms of presence, coexistence, and collective imagination.
