Movement and Authenticity

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

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

Movement Patterns Over Time

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

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’s Legacy: On the Shoulders of Giants

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

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

Extension Systems and Movement Study II

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

When I did the Laban Movement Analysis Program at the Dance Notation Bureau in the mid-1970s, we were required to document our final projects using two extension systems: simplified Labanotation (motif writing) and film. The latter documentation was accomplished with a small super 8 camera, a mode of recording that is now obsolete.

Several years later, Irmgard Bartenieff and I purchased the first videotape equipment for the Laban Institute. We bought Sony Betamax because of its high quality. Almost overnight, this equipment became obsolete, because the American market wholeheartedly went for VHS – the quality was not as good but it was cheaper.… Read More

Extension Systems and Movement Study I

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Human movement is a dynamic and ephemeral phenomenon. It disappears without a trace and leaves no artifact behind. Consequently, movement has been very difficult to study. The means for capturing and preserving movement behavior in material forms are comparatively new and depend upon other extension systems. These include drawings and notations along with mechanical recordings such as instantaneous photography, film, video, and motion capture.

All extension systems amplify biological functions. For example, a knife does a better job of cutting than the teeth and a photograph extends the visual impressions of the eye.… Read More

“Swan Lake” and the Industrial Revolution

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

While the Choreometrics study focused on the relationship between work movements and dance in pre-industrial societies, I once heard Lomax draw an equally provocative association between European folk dance, ballet, and the advent of the Industrial Revolution in western Europe.

The extent to which all dancers are doing exactly the same thing at the same time varies considerably among folk dance traditions. Certain western European folk dances show a high degree of synchrony, symmetry, and spatial precision, resulting in what Lomax calls “regimented choreographies.”… Read More

Material Extensions and the Elaboration of Movement Behavior

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

The Choreometrics Project, developed by Alan Lomax, Irmgard Bartenieff, and Forrestine Paulay, provides a provocative hypothesis regarding the relationship between tools, work movement, and dance.

Taking a cross-cultural perspective, the project studied dance and work movement as formalized, culturally conditioned behavior, drawing on hundreds of filmed examples from pre-industrial societies. They found that dance mirrors the movements necessary to carry out recurrent work tasks. Moreover, the Choreometrics team found the shape and dimensionality of the dance movement to be associated with the types of tools traditionally employed in working.… Read More

Body Movement – Humankind’s First Extension System

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Humankind’s first attempts to extend their capabilities must have focused on the use of the body itself. This is Lewis Mumford’s view, articulated in his seminal Technics and Human Development. His argument goes like this:

“Early human beings persistently explored their own organic possibilities and in the process made two discoveries. First, certain bodily actions were intrinsically pleasurable. Such actions tended to be repeated for purely personal reasons. However, prehistoric man also discovered that such deliberately executed movements could serve a social function.… Read More

Beyond the Body

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

In the long-standing dichotomy of mind and body, movement specialists tend to value the body more than the mind. From an evolutionary perspective, however, the body is standing still. That is, Homo sapiens have changed very little on the biological level for eons. Instead, as Weston LaBarre notes: “The real evolutionary unit now is not man’s mere body; it is ‘all-mankind’s-brains-together-with-all-the-extrabodily-materials-that-come-under-the-manipulation-of-their-hands.” These “extrabodily” inventions are known as “extension systems.”

Extension systems augment human capabilities of both body and mind and fall into two broad categories: external or material extensions and internal or non-material extensions.… Read More

On Barbie, Laban, and Movement Imagination

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

In last month’s lecture-demonstration, “10 Ways to Bring Laban Theory to Life,” Cate Deicher and I stressed the importance of movement imagination. Laban’s notions of effort and space are pretty abstract, and we feel movement analysts must bring their own imaginative forces to bear when teaching, lest Laban’s ideas seem cut and dried. Which they most certainly are not!

To illustrate this point, I compared Barbie to a Waldorf school doll. Barbie is made of molded plastic, with well-defined features and realistic, somewhat idealized anatomy.… Read More