Serving the Laban Community

communitySince 1991, Motus Humanus has been serving the Laban community by providing various services to support movement professionals as they develop their post-certification careers.  These include the following.

Continuing Education for Movement AnalystsMotus Humanus has sponsored 14 advanced seminars addressing topics such as space harmony, effort phrasing, Bartenieff Fundamentals, teaching Laban Movement Analysis, observation and notation, movement psychology for actors, understanding movement patterns, and more.  Our roster of instructors draws upon 40 leading Laban experts from the US and overseas.  Over 265 individuals have taken advantage of these opportunities to deepen their movement analysis skills.

Networking Opportunities.  Motus Humanus has organized 8 Roundtables on Professional Events in which over 100 individuals have presented their work.  In addition, through our Adventure Grant program, we have provided over $2400 in funding for members to present their work at other professional conferences and workshops in Phoenix, Washington DC, Chicago, Brazil, Austria, and, most recently, Montreal, Canada.

And that’s not all.  Read more in the next blog.

Motus Humanus Turns 25!

birthdayIn 1991, Charlotte Honda, Kaoru Yamamoto, and I formed Motus Humanus, a professional organization for Laban-based movement specialists. Over Labor Day weekend, we celebrated our 25th anniversary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with over 30 movement analysts and invited guests.

“Six Conversations about Human Movement” provided the theme for this, our 8th Roundtable on Professional Issues.  In this unique event, each of our six volunteer Board members (David Bauer, Cate Deicher, Alison Henderson, Becky Nordstrom, Kaoru Yamamoto, and myself) invited a special guest for a chat.  Six stimulating exchanges resulted on a variety of topics.

David Bauer and Mindfulness instructor Steve Flowers discussed “Mindful Paths to Healing Our Minds and Bodies in Post-Modern Culture,” Cate Deicher and philosopher Amy Shapiro explored “Thinking Movement/Moving Thought,” Alison Henderson and British movement-for-actors specialist Juliet Chambers-Coe shared their experiences with “LMA and the Role of Movement in Theatre Training,” Becky Nordstrom and choreographer Claire Porter had “A Conversation about Moving while Moving,” Kaoru Yamamoto and dancer/martial artist Charlotte Honda discussed “Human Movements: Varying Points of View and Life Courses,” and Waldorf educator Robert Schiappacasse and I compared the careers and aims of Rudolf Steiner and Rudolf Laban in “Spirited Forms – Art, Individuality, and Impulses for a New Age.”

Many of these conversations incorporated movement experiences, including a wonderful performance of “Happenstance” by Claire Porter.  In addition, there were morning movement sessions led by Charlotte Honda (Tai Chi), Becky Nordstrom (improvisational explorations of reach space and indulging effort qualities), and Claire Porter (dance composition techniques combining movement and words).

The gathering provided an occasion to honor loyal members and reflect on the organization’s service to the field of movement analysis.  Find out more in the next blogs.

Celebrating Meaningful Movement Analysis

Thirty-five individuals from across the nation and around the world gathered in Golden, Colorado over Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the life and work of movement analysis pioneer, Warren Lamb (1923-2014) at a seminar sponsored by Motus Humanus.

DSC00617Warren Lamb began his career under the tutelage of movement theorist Rudolf Laban and management consultant F.C. Lawrence.  Their ground-breaking work provided a basis for matching the movement traits of manual laborers to the motion factors of various factory jobs. Lamb took this work much further, to relate movement patterns to cognitive processes used in decision making at the managerial level. Over 400 companies worldwide utilized Lamb’s profiles work to select and build executive teams, with some firms employing this consulting approach continuously for three decades.

The weekend seminar sponsored by Motus Humanus incorporated sessions on Lamb’s key ideas. All the presenters were Registered Movement Pattern Analysts who had studied and worked with Lamb. Presenters included Laurie Cameron, Jagriti Chander, Alison Henderson, Charlotte Honda, Patricia Marek, James McBride, Beverly Stokes, and myself.

In addition, Motus Humanus recognized the contributions of Eden Davies with its new “Friend of Movement Study” award. Over the last 20 years, Davies has promoted Movement Pattern Analysis through writing, publishing, and other supportive efforts. The award was presented by Lamb’s daughter, Imogen Lamb, who traveled from Europe to attend the event, along with her sister Elizabeth and brother Tim Lamb.   A particular highlight was the impromptu talk Tim gave at the closing banquet in which he shared his perspective on growing up with a very unconventional father who even had an empty room in the family home dedicated to movement!

On Flow, Lamb, and Kestenberg

One of the little known facts of Warren Lamb’s career was his close involvement with Judith Kestenberg and the synergy of ideas generated by their long association. In the early 1950s each had begun to study movement independently. Kestenberg was observing infants in maternity wards, recording their movements with EMG-like tracings.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Lamb was observing adults and recording their movements with Laban’s effort and space notation.

The two were introduced by Irmgard Bartenieff in the late 1950s. Both Bartenieff and Kestenberg studied observation with Lamb, and it was Lamb who identified Kestenberg’s tracings as changes in flow, rather than effort as Kestenberg originally believed. Lamb’s insight served as a catalyst for Kestenberg’s subsequent theories of psychophysical development.

MoveScape CenterAt the same time, Lamb’s thinking about adult movement was influenced by his work with Kestenberg.  Lamb had felt for some time that flow did not have equal footing with the other motion factors of weight, time, and space. This conviction grew as Lamb joined Kestenberg’s Child Development Research group, meeting with them on an average of seven times a year for 15 years. His involvement with her longitudinal studies of movement from birth to early adulthood added to his conviction that Flow should be interpreted independently. Lamb described their discovery in the following way: “As babies we compass a full range of Flow variation, then as we grow up this diminishes as we develop Shape and Effort ranges.”

While loss of Flow and gain of Shape/Effort was a trend among adults, Lamb was making other observations.

“In 1963 I had four children between the ages of eight and two. It fascinated me that of the many visitors we had, some were popular with all four while some were treated with indifference. One example was F.C. Lawrence. ‘Pop Pop’ Lawrence, as the children called him, was immensely popular. Others, including some Laban movement people, were not.

“What did Pop Pop Lawrence share with a lot of other popular visitors varying from the young, old, vigorous, decrepid, and with or without children of their own? I tried to observe what was happening….”

To find out what Lamb discovered, and how this influenced his Movement Pattern Analysis profiles of adults, come to the Motus Humanus “Lamb Legacy Lives,” in Golden, Colorado, May 23- 24.

Laban and Lamb

One of the things I have appreciated most about Warren Lamb’s work is how faithfully it adheres to the basic principles of movement set out by Rudolf Laban.

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For example, Laban’s taxonomy has two broad categories: effort and space. Effort consists of four motion factors: Space, Weight, Time, and Flow. Qualities of these factors can be combined, to produce a wide variety of dynamic expressions.

Laban’s spatial scheme starts from a simple delineation of the cardinal directions – vertical, horizontal, and sagittal. In natural movement these dimensional inclinations combine, resulting in a wide variety of complex movement shapes.

Laban also identified relationships between effort and space, noting that “the body and its limbs are able to execute certain dynamic nuances in movement towards certain areas in space better than towards others.” This observation underlies his theory of effort/space affinities and disaffinities.

Finally, Laban detected relationships between the motion factors of physical effort and mental processes involved in giving Attention, forming an Intention to act, and Commiting the action.

The Movement Pattern Analysis profile developed by Lamb rests solidly on Laban’s foundational work. Lamb’s lifetime of movement study, however, refines and extends Laban’s ideas.

For example, Lamb discerned relationships not only between effort factors and mental processes, but also between spatial aspects of movement and the decision-making processes of giving Attention, forming an Intention, and making a Commitment to action.

Lamb found that effort/space affinities impact the nature of face-to-face interaction. He discovered a relationship between the complexity of movement and the relative intensity of an individual’s motivation to act.

In short, Lamb took Laban’s movement scheme and gave each part meaning in behavioral terms.

Intrigued? To find out more, come to Golden, Colorado in May for the Motus Humanus advanced seminar, “Lamb Legacy Lives.”

Movement and Authenticity

Martha Graham claimed that “movements never lie.” I’d like to believe this. However, contemporary research shows that bodily actions can be used purposefully to mislead the observer.

Thus human movement is both genuine and artificial. If one wishes to understand the nonverbal dimensions of an individual’s behavior, it becomes necessary to distinguish between authentic expressions and actions that are meant to create a certain impression.

Warren Lamb grappled with this problem. As a business consultant, he was often asked to make hiring recommendations among short-listed candidates. Lamb recognized that some candidates interview better than others, simply because they are more adept at image management. In attending closely to nonverbal behavior, Lamb had to find a way to discern honest expressions from actions “put on” for effect.

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This led to Lamb to distinguish gestural actions, movements limited to a part of the body, from actions that involved a consistent process of effort or shape change throughout the body as a whole. Lamb dubbed these “Posture-Gesture Mergers” and interpreted such whole-bodied expressions as more genuine than mere gestures.

Paying attention to postural versus gestural expression has been a bedrock of my practice as a movement analyst for many years. I have found that when people are comfortable in a situation and involved or excited about what is being discussed, they tend to integrate gestures with postural actions more consistently.

On the other hand, gesturing and posing also have their uses. Politicians in formal state visits are understandably constrained in their physical behaviors. As a consequence, their true feelings are difficult to discern. Similarly, I once observed interviews with American soldiers who had been abused in Japanese prisoner of war camps. I am sure they felt deeply about their experiences. But they did not merge gesture and posture as they described these experiences. It seemed to me that gestural isolation of movements provided a way to contain painful recollections.

In short, discerning gesture from Posture-Gesture Mergers opens a window on human life and coping mechanisms. For this reason, the opening session of the Motus Humanus celebration of Warren Lamb’s legacy is dedicated to Posture-Gesture Merger and how to identify this significant aspect of movement behavior.

Movement Patterns Over Time

Before I ever met Warren Lamb, I recognized that movement occurs in patterns. While the stream of everyday motion appears to be a turbulent jumble, there is an underlying pattern of change. My pattern is not like your pattern. Everyone’s movement pattern is a little different and consequently individually distinctive, like a fingerprint.

MoveScape CenterThese individual patterns only become apparent over time. To capture an individual’s movement fingerprint requires patience, for the pattern emerges gradually. For this reason, the interview used to collect data for a Movement Pattern Analysis profile is lengthy, running close to two hours.

By now I have been making Movement Pattern Analysis profiles for 35 years. I am no longer a nervous beginner. Nevertheless, I still feel like a beginner at the start of each interview with each new person. It takes time to get used to the individual’s movement. What jumps out at me as a observer during the first moments of the interview seldom turns out to be the most prominent feature of the person’s movement style. I have had to learn to suspend judgment and to be patient.

Most adults have an adequate range of motion, meaning access to all the effort qualities and planes of motion. But some of these kinds of movements occur more frequently than others. This is the key to individual variation. It takes time to accurately discern the relative frequency of different movements. I am seldom able to detect redundancy — the steady recurrence of certain kinds of motions and the relative absence of others — until I have been observing an individual for at least 90 minutes.

Establishing principles of good practice is part of Lamb’s legacy to the movement analysis community. One principle I would like to see more widely adopted is the following:  generalizations about an individual’s character should be based upon an adequate sample of movement behavior. Enough said.

Warren Lamb’s Legacy: On the Shoulders of Giants

Warren Lamb was one of the most creative people I have ever known, though he was always quite modest about this. Indeed, I believe if asked about his accomplishments, he would have been likely to reply as Sir Issac Newton did –“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Warren was lucky enough to work with two giants, Rudolf Laban, a movement genius, and F.C. Lawrence, one of the first English management consultants. Warren gained his profound understanding of movement by drawing on Laban’s ideas, while his association with Lawrence provided practical experience as a business consultant.

Laban and Lawrence were also lucky to have Warren Lamb. It doesn’t do much good to be a giant, if there is no one to stand on your accomplishments and see further.

Warren was able to see further because he was not slavishly devoted to Laban or Lawrence. Rather, he took their ideas seriously – seriously enough to test them in the crucible of giving advice to hard-headed and hard-hearted business executives. In the process, Lamb enriched the field of movement study by demonstrating how it can be used to illuminate human behavior.

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Contemporary movement analysts are the beneficiaries of Lamb’s legacy. Put most simply, this legacy has three parts:

First, Lamb developed an empirical procedure for observing and analyzing movement using Rudolf Laban’s taxonomy.

Secondly, Lamb created a commonsensical framework for interpreting the significance of what he observed.

Thirdly, the connections he made between observations and their interpretations are both straightforward and transparent.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Motus Humanus will celebrate Lamb’s legacy with an advanced seminar focusing on his discoveries and the standards of good practice embodied in his life work.