Embodiment is Hot

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Attention movement professionals – the body is now on everyone’s mind. From psychologists and philosophers to computer scientists and robotic engineers, everyone is saying goodbye to Descartes and the separation of body and mind and hello to “embodied cognition.”

Put simply, embodied cognition posits that intelligent behavior emerges from the interplay between brain, body, and the environment. Thinking is no longer the function of an isolated brain performing disembodied calculations based upon abstract concepts. Instead, the raw materials for thought are distributed over the brain, body, and environment and coupled together via our perceptual systems.… Read More

Celebrating Meaningful Movement Analysis

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

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.

Warren 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.… Read More

Teaching Observation Tip 5 – Discover Something

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Movement analysis is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end, a way to solve a problem or discover something. One way I encourage students to apply observation and analysis is through a Challenge Session.

The Challenge Session is a carefully structured class in which students are asked to observe videotaped material and answer a question. I have chosen the material, analyzed it myself, and framed the question – ideally one that can be answered in more than one way.… Read More

Teaching Observation Tip 4 – Show Me

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

As students are grappling with the general concepts and descriptive terms of Laban Movement Analysis, they often ask hypothetical questions. For example, “If I were on board a ship crossing the international dateline while balancing an ice cream cone on my nose, would that be lightness?”

Laban Movement Analysis may be a parsimonious taxonomy of abstract terms, but it was developed to provide an empirical description of concrete physical actions. So whenever I get a hypothetical question like the one above, I always ask the student to demonstrate.… Read More

Teaching Observation Tip 3 – Use Video Wisely

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

It has taken me years to realize that Laban’s movement analysis system is abstract. The descriptive terms are quite general. Take effort – there are only four motion factors and eight effort qualities for describing any movement a human being can do. This means that the same effort quality can be in movements that look nothing alike, occur in different contexts, and are performed for different reasons.

A student can do strong movements in the studio and concretely experience the physical sensation of increasing pressure.… Read More

Teaching Observation Tip 2 – Rewind

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Human movement exists at a perpetual vanishing point, disappearing even as it is occurring. With no fixed points, movement is devilishly difficult to observe, let alone to pin down and analyze.

Thank goodness for video recording. The rewind button makes it possible for students to see the same event repeated exactly as many times as they need. Live observation, of course, is richer. It is life size, genuinely three-dimensional, and many fine details blurred on a video recording are clearer in the flesh.… Read More

Teaching Observation Tip 1 – Take Time

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Learning to analyze movement takes time. Because at least 60% of human communication is estimated to be nonverbal and behavioral, everyone has developed his or her own way of seeing and coding movement. That is, everyone possesses body knowledge and body prejudices. Learning to observe movement objectively using Laban’s taxonomy of effort and space necessitates setting aside pre-existing approaches.

In my own development as a movement analyst, I found I “went blank” for a while when first attempting to observe a movement event.… Read More

Teaching Movement Observation

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Observation is the most demanding of all the skills involved in mastering Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). I must confess to being a slow learner. While I have been teaching observation for over 35 years, it has taken me a long time to grasp why so many students struggle and emerge, even after a year of Certificate Program training, still feeling very insecure about using LMA as an observer.

In the following blogs I share 5 tips for teaching movement observation and analysis.… Read More

Friends of Movement Study 5

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Throughout this series of blogs, I have been stressing the importance of finding friends outside the field of movement study. These friends are not movement professionals themselves, nor are they “true believers” in the power and significance of movement. They are not dancers, athletes, or “Labanites.” Instead, they come with a different outlook and skill set and often need to be persuaded that there really is something to this thing called movement analysis.

Professor Timothy Colton, a political scientist at Harvard, is a case in point.… Read More

Friends of Movement Study 4 – Daniel Ellis

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

F.C. Lawrence became a friend of movement study through his devotion to Laban and his visionary capacity to see the potential of this field. Daniel Ellis, a member of Lawrence’s staff, became a friend of movement study only grudgingly, and for very different reasons. Here is his story.

Daniel Ellis, an industrial engineer brought up on stop-watch studies, aggressively pursued increased productivity from the workers of client companies. Hard-driving and unrelenting to the core, Ellis was outspoken in his skepticism of everything to do with Laban.… Read More