Why I Became a Movement Pattern Analyst

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Shortly after I completed my Laban Movement Analysis training (1976), Warren Lamb gave a short course at the Dance Notation Bureau.  I had been thinking a lot about the relationship between movement and psychology, but in vague and hypothetical ways.  What Lamb presented was much more concrete — it blew me away.

Fast forward 40 years, Movement Pattern Analysis still blows me away for three key reasons.

First, Lamb’s grounded theory connecting movement patterns with motivational initiatives and decision-making processes continues to help me understand my fellow human beings better.… Read More

MPA as a Teaching Tool, Part 2

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By Madeleine Scott, Registered Movement Pattern Analyst

The application of Movement Pattern Analysis in building teams was not the focus of my experiment with making basic profiles of undergraduate dance majors for a seminar on career development.  However, I realized that an implicit team relationship clearly exists between student and teacher.

Students and teachers must work together, or they will fail to collaborate successfully in the educational enterprise.  The profile information about the group allowed me to re-assess the strengths and weaknesses of my own profile.… Read More

MPA as a Teaching Tool, Part 1

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By Madeleine Scott, Registered Movement Pattern Analyst

I utilized the Movement Pattern Analysis decision-making framework to support an undergraduate seminar for dance majors that focused on career planning and resume/portfolio development. In preparation for the course, I had interviewed and constructed basic profiles of all thirteen students.  This revealed specific learning needs of the group and suggested strategies to meet these needs.

For example, students with strong Attending motivation need to be interested in the subject as such.  They need to go into the subject in depth and also see it from a number of different angles. … Read More

MPA and Acting

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By Alison Henderson, Registered Movement Pattern Analyst

One problem for an actor is character similarity — does each character portrayed exhibit the actor’s habitual movements? Having a Movement Pattern Analysis profile gives the actor an understanding of his own thought process so he can see how it differs from his character’s process. Moreover, he can learn his personal movement characteristics/habits that arise from this thought process.

Until now, movement training has looked at body habits separate from the thought process, rather than connected.… Read More

MPA and Collaborative Choreography: Creating The Black Sea

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By Laurie Cameron, Registered Movement Pattern Analyst

My choreographic process has always involved collaborative research – studio time in which “problems” that I have invented (usually based on a theme) are solved in various ways by the artists who will eventually perform whatever eventually materializes.  As the director of the process, my job is to organize and orchestrate largely improvised material into some kind of coherent, presentable form.

With strong motivations in both Timing and Anticipating, it has always been important to me to move the process toward a “finished product” in a timely fashion, assuming that all involved trusted me to make sound artistic decisions and hoping to avoid hours of grueling studio work that might not necessarily produce more interesting results.… Read More

Movement Pattern Analysis – Business and Beyond

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In the 1940s, Rudolf Laban took his dance theories into the world of work, addressing issues of efficiency, job satisfaction, and reduction of fatigue on the factory floor.

In the 1950s, Warren Lamb took Laban’s methods of movement analysis into the executive suite, discerning how patterns of movement reveal unique decision-making processes.  He applied his Movement Pattern Analysis profiles to thousands of senior executives in businesses around the world.

Today, Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA) is being applied to new arenas of human endeavor.… Read More

Movement Health – Laban-style

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dance, movement, theory, laban

As the benefits of physical motion are gaining recognition and undergoing further scrutiny, it is interesting to see how Laban characterized movement health.  He wrote, “A healthy human being can have complete control of his kinesphere and dynamosphere….  The essential thing is that we should neither have preference for nor avoid certain movements because of physical or psychical restrictions.”

Clearly, Laban views movement as healthy for both the body and mind.  He prescribes a rich range of motion, noting “we should be able to do every imaginable movement and then select those which seem to be the most suitable and desirable for our own nature.”… Read More

Mixing Business, Physical Exercise, and Creativity

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walking, business, exercise

The Wall Street Journal has also been covering the health benefits of walking, notably the walk-and-talk business meeting.  According to their September 13th article, “the health benefits are real for people who take walking meetings; their work gets more creative, too.”

These walking meetings are typically held with two or three people over a set route and period.  Given mounting research on the health benefits of being more mobile at work, the walking meeting provides a way to integrate movement with other work activities.… Read More

Good News for Movement Analysts

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Good news has been scarce in this election year. But don’t despair, movement analysts, for the benefit of movement is gaining traction in the national press!

Time magazine, for example, featured “The Exercise Cure” as its cover story in the September 12th issue.  The writer notes that doctors have been advising patients to exercise for some time.  But the prescription has been generic.  Too much repetitive motion can be damaging, but too little movement is also unhealthy.  So what kind of movement is healthy and how much exercise is “just right?”… Read More

Beyond First Impressions

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The very first time we encounter a stranger, we derive an impression based on the person’s physical attributes and body language.  Then rapidly and without conscious or logical control, we form a judgment  – is the person positive, negative, or neutral?

The capacity to make snap judgments is probably essential to our survival.  Yet first impressions are notoriously unreliable and often prejudicial.  The real character of an individual is revealed over time – not in a single encounter, not in a single action, but in a moving pattern and embodied way of being.… Read More