Author Archives: Carol-Lynne Moore

Painting Action

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For my first artwork, I have chosen a painting by the French impressionist, Edgar Degas.  While he is famous for his depictions of ballet dancers, Degas had a fascination with everyday activities and humble labor.

For example, he created 30 depictions of working-class women doing the washing and ironing. I particularly like his 1884 painting, “The Laundresses.”

This work shows a clear effort contrast between two women.  One is engrossed in ironing a garment.  She is focused downwards and clearly Pressing with the heavy iron.  … Read More

Effort Moods in Artworks

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Everything we do in life, whether physical, mental, or emotional, requires energy, or from Laban’s perspective – effort.  In fact, he found effort everywhere, not only in physical activities but also in “the expression of inner states of mind and emotions.”  Because works of art capture various states of mind and emotions, we can also find effort in art.

In this month’s blogs, I discuss several paintings and illustrations by well-known artists that that express an state or drive, conveying a mood that can be described in effort terms.… Read More

Dance and Physical Disability

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Parkinson’s Disease is a progressive nervous disorder that manifests as tremors, slowed movement, rigid muscles, impaired posture and balance, and other motor impairments.  Although the disease can’t be cured, dance has been found to ameliorate symptoms.

In 2001 Ollie Westheimer, the founder of the Brooklyn Parkinson’s Group, asked the Mark Morris Dance Company to create a rigorous creative dance program for individuals with Parkinson’s.  The request was based on the idea that trained dancers are experts whose knowledge of balance, sequencing, rhythm, and aesthetics is helpful in treating movement impairments associated with Parkinson’s.… Read More

Dance and the Assembly Line

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The dancer Rudolf Laban was asked to improve the loading of a van with small staves at a sawmill.  A dozen strong men, who usually unloaded heavy trees, were sometimes assigned the job, which they executed in a clumsy way with much grumbling and many dropped and broken staves.

Confronted by this grotesque spectacle, Laban visualized a different effort rhythm for the flow of material.  He replaced the twelve men with five women.  One collected the staves from a pile, three stood equally spaced passing the staves from hand to hand with a light swinging action, while the fifth woman arranged them neatly in the van.… Read More

Dance and the Football Backfield

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Knute Rockne was the inspirational Notre Dame coach who revolutionized football with the forward pass and intricate backfield formations.  He wasn’t afraid to learn from dancers.

His team was undefeated in 1924, in part because Rockne borrowed choreography from a Chicago chorus line.

The film, Knute Rockne All American, shows the coach treating his team to a night in the theatre.  While the players enjoy the girls, Rockne is making notes on the chorus line maneuvers.  Later, with piano accompaniment, he rehearses four players with his adapted choreography for the football field.… Read More

What Dancers Know

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Embodied knowledge remains undervalued.  In particular the American public shows little interest in dance, until it is turned into a televised competitive sport like “So You Think You Can Dance.” Yet what dancers know has a history of meaningful applications beyond the concert stage and TV screen.

In the following blogs, I chronicle how knowledge and skills developed in the discipline of dance have found useful applications in a variety of other fields.

 … Read More

Expand Your Dynamosphere

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In the upcoming MoveScape Center course, “Effort Mutation,” participants explore how the eight basic actions naturally change into “vision-like,” “spell-like,” and “passionate” expressive movements.

Laban first observed the eight basic actions (Gliding, Pressing, Slashing, etc.) in functional physical labor.  From this foundation, however, Laban elaborated his effort theory to incorporate a broad range of psychophysical states and drives.

Learn how you can expand your dynamic range.  In the new MoveScape Center course, “Effort Mutation,” we start with the basics and then discover how each basic action can be changed into an expressive compound of one of the other drives.… Read More

Mutations of Practical Actions

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Laban first perceived effort mutation among the eight basic actions employed while working.  These changes occurred as spontaneous replacements of one effort quality with another, for example, resulting in Punching become Pressing or Floating becoming Flicking.

In studying expressive actions, Laban began to perceive how the motion factor of Flow changed an action.

For example, he writes: “When Flow replaces Weight, the drive becomes ‘vision-like’, because it is now not supported by active weight effort and is therefore reduced in bodily import.”… Read More

From Function to Expression

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Laban’s notions of effort crystallized during the 1940s, through his observations of workers using tools and manipulating materials. While his perspective was that of the third person, objective observer, Laban remained aware of the other side of movement – the somatic, first person perspective.

He also saw a relation between functional and expressive actions and was convinced that the four motion factors and the eight effort qualities were always at play, regardless of the type of activity.

Yet he perceived a difference, writing “while in functional actions the movement sensation is an accompanying factor only, this becomes more prominent in expressive situations where the psychosomatic experience is of utmost importance.”… Read More

Practical Actions

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Laban’s observations of the organic nature of effort mutation, in which one motion spontaneously changes to its polar opposite, occurred through his study of practical physical actions. This study led him to identify two aspects of effort – “one which is operative and objectively measurable, and the other, personal and classifiable.”

In a functional action, such as driving a nail, the mover’s focus is on an objective and measurable outcome.  Am I hitting the nail hard enough?  Is the nail going straight into the wood? … Read More