Rudolf (von) Laban, also known as Rudolph von Laban (Hungarian: Lábán Rudolf; 15 December 1879 – 1 July 1958), was an Austro-Hungarian dance artist, choreographer, and movement theorist. He is considered a "founding father of expressionist dance" and a pioneer of modern dance. His theoretical innovations included Laban movement analysis (a way of documenting human movement) and Labanotation (a movement notation system), which paved the way for further developments in dance notation and movement analysis. He initiated one of the main approaches to dance therapy. His work on theatrical movement has also been influential. He attempted to apply his ideas to several other fields, including architecture, education, industry, and management.

Following a dress rehearsal of Laban's last choral work, Of the Warm Wind and New Joy, which he had prepared for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Joseph Goebbels cancelled the piece after which time Laban fell out of favor with the National Socialist government. He eventually left Germany for England in 1937 after four years of working with the Nazi regime. Between 1945 and 1946, he and his long-term collaborator and former student Lisa Ullmann founded the Laban Art of Movement Guild in London, and the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester, where he worked until his death. The Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London has continued this legacy.

Laban was the son of Rudolf Laban Sr. (1843–1907), a military governor in Pressburg (Pozsony) and (from 1899) field marshal in the Austro-Hungarian Army in the provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Marie (née Bridling; 1858–1926). In 1897, Laban senior was ennobled by the Hungarian monarchy in recognition of his military merit and received the nobiliary predicate "de" to his family name (choosing Laban de Váralja; a place name associated with the Laban family), whereupon Laban junior was rightly entitled to use "von" in his family name in the German-speaking world. Laban grew up in the courtly circles of Vienna and Sarajevo.

At a young age, Laban joined a csárdás dance group. At age 15 Laban entered the Theresian Military Academy, but later turned his back on military service. In 1899, Laban moved to Munich and began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Künste). There Laban met the painter Martha Fricke from Hanover, whom he married on 15 December 1900. They moved to Arcisstr 44, where their daughter Azraela was born in 1901.

Parallel to Laban's studies at the art academy, he took courses at the newly opened teaching and experimental studio for free and applied art (Lehr- und Versuchsatelier für Freie und Angewandte Kunst). There Laban met his future friend Hermann Obrist, who ran the nature studies course. In 1904 Laban decided to leave Munich to visit the most famous art school in Europe, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris to study architecture.

Laban's son, Arpad, was born in Paris in 1905. After three years of a fulfilled bohemian lifestyle with his wife, Martha Fricke died suddenly. Barely two months after the death of Laban's wife, his father also died, who had made it possible for Laban to lead an independent life with substantial financial support. From then onwards, Laban's two children grew up with their maternal grandparents.

In the years that followed, Laban led an unsteady life between Paris and Vienna, Sanremo and Nice. Financially bankrupt, Laban completed an apprenticeship as an accountant in Nice, from which he also successfully graduated. That was to be Laban's only encounter with a regular working life.

Living with his mother in Vienna, Laban made a living as a graphic artist and caricaturist. Laban drew for the magazines Simplicissimus and Jugend and continued the studies he had begun in Paris on historical dance forms. At a cultural event, Laban met the singer Maja Lederer from Munich and married her on 8 May 1910 in Pressburg. In the same year, they moved to Munich. With his second wife, Laban moved into a dwelling in Schwabing at Hohenzollernstraße 120.