The Anatomy of Body Knowledge

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Body knowledge develops gradually, as a combination of perception of our own movements and observation of the movements of other people.

Similar to all other forms of knowing and attaching meaning to human actions, body knowledge rests on three processes: categorizing, abstracting, and generalizing.

Categorizing is discerning related and unrelated movements; grouping those that are similar. For example hammering is one kind of movement and stamping is another.

Abstracting is leaving out particularistic details to generate broader categories. Hammering involves the hands and stamping uses the feet, but both hammering and stamping employ the same effort qualities and can be abstracted as belonging to the broader category of punching movements.… Read More

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Years ago during a modern dance class the instructor demonstrated a complicated movement. When the class attempted to repeat it, he complained. “No, the arm goes here, not there.”

The class protested, “We just did what you did.”

“Well then,” he countered, “do as I say, not as I do.”

Whether one is trying to dance or determine if a friend is really dependable, actions speak louder than words. In the long run, what really matters is not what someone says, but what they do.… Read More

Movement Analysis is a Physical Activity

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Like other physical activities, observing movement is a process that involves effort and recovery. The following excerpt from my book, Beyond Words, describes movement analysis as a process consisting of four phrases: (1) relaxation, (2) attunement, (3) point of concentration, and (4) recuperation.

Relaxation
The initial preparatory stage involves relaxation as the observer strives to “get in the mood” for whatever will come. This takes the form of letting go in order to achieve a state of mind analogous to the “unfocused focus” of the naturalist who “goes alone into a field or woodland and closes his mind to everything but that time and place, so that life around him presses in on all the senses and small details grow in significance” (Wilson, 1986, 103).… Read More

In Praise of Whole Body Movement

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Shakespeare praised man’s “infinite faculties”. But human beings are constantly in danger of coming apart. Whether we bifurcate the individual into body and mind or even greater divisions (ego, ID, superego; thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting, etc.), keeping it together is a uniquely human challenge.

Body movement is one medium through which these divisions can be unified. Laban created physical practices to facilitate the integration of man’s infinite faculties. This part of Laban’s work is known as “choreutics” or space harmony. Laban characterizes his choreutic exercises as “attempts to stop the progress of disintegrating into disunity”.… Read More

Insight and Effort Observation

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Have you ever had the experience of wondering “what is it about that guy”? It’s the kind of wondering that takes place when someone rubs you the wrong way but you just can’t put your finger on why that is.

I had that experience some years ago when my son was in grade school. He had a teacher, who by all reports was brilliant, but during communications with this man I had the regular experience of feeling very put-off. It’s not that the meetings were full of bad news; in fact this teacher gave a mostly positive reports on my son.… Read More

Form and Color in Painting and Dance

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

The artist Wassily Kandinsky and the dancer Rudolf Laban were contemporaries and moved in the same bohemian circles in Munich in the early 20th century. Interesting parallels run through their theoretical works.

Kandinsky observed that “painting has two weapons at her disposal: 1) colour, 2) form”. He goes on to note that there is an “essential connection between colour and form”.

An analogous delineation of elements can be found in Laban’s notions of effort and shape. Effort – qualities of dynamic energy – give expressive color to bodily actions.… Read More

Bartenieff Fundamentals and Healing through Movement

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Recent encounters with physical therapy have given me a new appreciation of Irmgard Bartenieff, my first Laban teacher. Bartenieff was a dancer when she studied with Laban in Germany. After immigrating to the U.S. she became a physical therapist, initially working with polio victims. If facing the challenge of helping clients recover from paralysis, she drew on everything she had learned from Laban. The result crystallized in a somatic practice known as Bartenieff Fundamentals, which I studied with Bartenieff in the 1970s.… Read More

Empty Space Does Not Exist

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

According to Rudolf Laban, space is a superabundance of simultaneous movements. He’s right, of course. Empty space is full of air. And air is full of molecules and atoms, each a bundle of energy and particles that orbit and pulse.

Space isn’t empty for artists. It has shape. Artists learn to see this shape through drawing exercises. Rather than sketching the object, they draw the shape of the space around the object.

Space isn’t empty for architects. Like a surgical suture, space connects a building with the other objects in the environment.… Read More

Dancing from Mood to Mood

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

According to Rudolf Laban, “The dancer moves, not only from place to place, but also from mood to mood.” His perceptive comment illustrates a point that neuroscientists are beginning to recognize – nothing is purely mental or purely physical. Bodily movements accompany thoughts and feelings; and thoughts and feelings accompany movements.

In his unpublished papers Laban also observed, “inner becomes outer and outer becomes inner.” That is, movement not only reflects what a person is thinking and feeling, it also affects one’s inner psychological state.… Read More

Seeing Movement More Precisely with Laban

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Laban Movement Analysis allows the observer to see movement more objectively and precisely. But after 35 years of teaching LMA, I can safely say that learning to observe accurately and developing confidence as an observer takes time. And there is a reason for this.

The beauty of Laban’s taxonomy is its parsimony. Laban worked hard to develop a finite number of descriptive terms for movement. Effort is a good example. There are only four motion factors (flow, weight, time, and space) and eight effort qualities with which to capture the enormous variation of motion dynamics.… Read More