Dancing through Time

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Dance is often viewed as a form of self-expression.  But everyone expresses themselves through their bodily movements.  These quotidian expressions differ from dance in an important way however, for everyday expressive actions are spontaneous, un-rehearsed, un-premediated and largely unguarded.

Dance movements, on the other hand, are carefully chosen, rehearsed, and controlled.  One of the attractions of dance training is not only enhanced freedom of bodily expression, but also increased control.  Yes, dancers are control freaks.  But they are also optimists.  Dance offers the possibility to construct a new self – one that is leaner, stronger, more capable, more sexy — in short, more of whatever attribute a particular style of dance may emphasize.… Read More

On Space and Time

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Dance is an art that exists in both space and time.  In 2016, MoveScape Center will be offering a series of workshops about space, focusing on Rudolf Laban’s Choreutic theories.  As 2015 draws to an end, however, I want to focus on time.

Space is multi-dimensional. Time, on the other hand, is uni-directional.  It flows in one irreversible direction — from past to present to future.

In reality, we exist only in the present moment.  The past is gone; the future may never come. … Read More

Body Usage – The Japanese Bow

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I have long been fascinated with the ritual of bowing in Japan.  Clerks in a hotel bow when you enter the lobby.   They bow when you finish checking in.  Conductors bow when entering a train car.  They bow again when exiting.  Groups of friends, particularly if they are older, with bow deeply when parting.

I can’t pretend to grasp the ins and outs of the etiquette of bowing.  But bowing seems to serve as a boundary marker, delineating the beginning and ending of many social interactions. … Read More

Effort and Human Potential

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Since the discovery of neuroplasticity (the lifelong capacity of the human nervous system to regenerate and form new neural pathways), we aging Baby Boomers have been admonished to reinvent ourselves and learn new things, presumably so we will stay young forever.

This is, of course, hard advice to follow.  Not everyone wants to take up scuba diving or have a second career. Moreover, we are creatures of habit.  And one hallmark of skilled movement is that it has become, at least in part, automatic.… Read More

Effort and Habit

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As Fred Astaire crooned to Ginger Rogers —  “The way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea, the memory of all that, no, no they can’t take that away from me. “ Simple actions are memorable.  According to Mabel Ellsworth Todd, “It is not our parents’ faces that come back to us, but their bodies, in the accustomed chairs, eating, sewing, smoking, doing all the familiar things.  We remember each as a body in action.”

We all have a preferred way of being in the world, and we embody this. … Read More

Effort and Inner Life

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Effort is not only about doing; it is also about being, or what Rudolf Laban calls movement thinking.  “Movement thinking could be considered as a gathering of impressions of happenings in one’s own mind, for which nomenclature is lacking.  This thinking does not serve orientation in the external world but rather it perfects man’s orientation in his inner world.”

Laban relates movement thinking to effort in the following way: “Man’s desire to orientate himself in the maze of his drives results in definite effort rhythms.” … Read More

Effort and Assertion

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Every voluntary human movement involves applying energy to change the position of the body.  Energy can be applied in many different ways.  Rudolf Laban referred to these various qualities of kinetic energy as effort.  Similarly, the moving body can trace many different shapes as it traverses space.  Consequently, the human beings possess a richer range of motion than most other species.   As Laban observes, “When jumping the cat will be relaxed and flexible.  A horse or a deer will bound wonderfully in the air, but its body will be tense and concentrated during the jump.”  … Read More

Body Movement Is In

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Henri Bergson, the French philosopher, was fascinated by how analytical thinking leads us to misperceive our own experience of being alive.  For Bergson, life is an unceasing, continuous, undivided process, a sort of cosmic movement.  Yet, we tend to conceive our lives as passing from feeling to feeling or thought to thought, as if each is separate, unchanging thing.  In reality, feelings and thoughts are themselves in a state of flux, and it is the experience of continuous changes that is central to the experience of being alive.… Read More

Change of Any Kind Is Recuperative

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In her re-thinking of physical therapy through a Laban lens, Irmgard Bartenieff noted that “the basic activities of the body are lying, sitting, crawling, kneeling, standing, and walking.”  In dealing with back and leg pain caused by a herniated disk, I had to re-thinkthe rhythm of my workday.  Fortunately, I’m self-employed and work from home.  However, like many people, I had become accustomed to sitting at my computer for extended periods of time.   But during periods when my back problems were acute, I could not sit for any length of time comfortably.… Read More

Walking Is Recuperative

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According to a story in the Washington Post, mounting scientific evidence shows that sitting for long periods of time can lead to poor circulation, heart disease, and joint pain.  Unfortunately, many American adults sit for approximately eight hours a day on the job. However, a recent study at Indiana University showed that five-minute walking breaks reversed some of the negative effects of prolonged sitting, especially when integrated into the working day.

This study supports Rudolf Laban’s notion that working activities should be designed to incorporate active recuperation rather than passive rest periods or breaks. … Read More