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.… Read More

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.

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.… Read More

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.… Read More

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.

These 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.… Read More

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.… Read More