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

Friends of Movement Study 3 – F.C. Lawrence

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Within the Laban community, F.C. Lawrence has been regarded merely as Rudolf Laban’s “groupie.” Indeed, Warren Lamb, who worked closely with both men, observed in his unpublished autobiography that “Lawrence became so attached to Laban as to hang on his every word, promoting him (often much to my embarrassment) in guru-like terms.”

Lamb goes on to note that Lawrence “was not the most obvious candidate to partner Laban.” Lawrence was not a movement person. He was, however, one of the first management consultants in England, professionally qualified as both an engineer and an accountant.… Read More

Friends of Movement Study 2 – Eden Davies

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Eden Davies’s introduction to movement study began in 1965 when she started to work for Warren Lamb’s English consulting firm. Lamb appeared to her to be a successful young businessman with a remarkable method of assessing aptitude. Davies’s job was to sit in while Lamb interviewed clients, discuss the notes Lamb had taken (“neat hieroglyphics with verbal notes like ‘raised left arm’”), then write a report for the client. She only caught glimpses of another side of the businessman – through photos of him as a dancer and references to summer movement schools.… Read More

Friends of Movement Study 1 – Kaoru Yamamoto

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

While developing ideas for the book on movement observation and analysis that became Beyond Words, I knew that I did not want the text to be narrowly focused for a movement audience of dancers and athletes. I wanted Beyond Words to be a book for anyone whose professional activities involved face-to-face interactions with people, a text that could help professionals of all sorts understand the nonverbal dimensions of human interactions.

If the book were to succeed, I needed a collaborator, someone who was sensitive to movement and, at the same time, able to contribute other professional skills and perspectives.… Read More

Laban Movement Analysts – A “Cognitive Minority”

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Laban-based movement professionals belong to a “cognitive minority,” a term coined by sociologist Peter Berger. Berger points out that all human societies are based on knowledge. However, most of what we “know” has been taken on the authority of others. For example, I’ve never personally attempted to verify that the earth travels around the sun, but I accept this view as genuine knowledge of how our solar system functions. Such socially-shared concepts define our world and allow us to move through life confident that we know what is real and meaningful, and what is not.… Read More

On Flow, Lamb, and Kestenberg

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

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

Laban and Lamb

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

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

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