Laban recognized that movement is a psychophysical phenomenon involving the whole person. When Laban’s protégé the dancer Irmgard Bartenieff became a physical therapist, she incorporated this understanding in her work with polio patients. Activate and motivate became her mantra.
“There is no such thing as pure ‘physical’ therapy or pure ‘mental’ therapy,” Bartenieff wrote. “They are continuously interrelated.” Finding ways to keep alive the movement impulse for hospitalized children became central to her rehabilitative approach.
In his youthful encounter with the “howling” Dervishes, Laban witnessed an even more extreme example of the regenerative power of movement. Find out more in the next blog.