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 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

Finding New Meanings in Motion

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Cate Deicher and I had a wonderful time teaching the Meaning in Motion workshops last month at the lovely Balance Arts studios in mid-town Manhattan. Fifteen movement analysts, both seasoned professionals and recent certificate program graduates, kept us on our toes as we reviewed key Laban Movement Analysis concepts and explored advanced theories of effort and space.

Cate and I had planned the workshops around two closely related themes: stimulating movement imagination and using Laban’s Eukinetic and Choreutic models as design sources. … Read More

The Body

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Laban did not neglect the body. He had to create body part symbols and categorize bodily actions to develop his notation system. Movement themes in Laban’s Modern Educational Dance address awareness of the body and explorations of various actions of the limbs, while over half of Mastery of Movement is devoted to enumerating bodily actions of all kinds. Laban’s focus in both these works, however, is primarily expressive.

Elaboration of the BODY category in Laban Movement Analysis is rightfully credited to Irmgard Bartenieff. … Read More

Writing about Laban’s Choreutic Theory

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

I was intrigued when I first read Rudolf Laban’s Choreutics as an undergraduate dance student. I didn’t really understand it, but I found it inspiring.

Later, when I did the “Effort/Shape” Program at the Dance Notation Bureau, I loved the space material. I could feel spatial tensions, certain places in the kinesphere immediately evoked images for me, and I appreciated the physical challenge of the scales.

Teaching space harmony, however, presented other challenges. As I have discovered, many students respond negatively to this part of Laban theory, with reactions ranging from mere confusion to outright loathing. … Read More

Beyond the Oral Tradition in Movement Studies

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

It seems weird to refer to an “oral tradition” in relation to dance and movement. After all, isn’t dance a “nonverbal” art? And isn’t movement hard to talk about?

The answer is yes and no. Dance and movement are nonverbal and devilishly hard to capture in words. Consequently, dance and other movement arts have depended heavily on an “oral tradition” for transmission.

An analogy can be drawn to the oral tradition in music. It is possible to learn to play a song simply by hearing it – through oral, rather than written transmission. … Read More

The Beauty of Movement Study

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Several years ago, while I was teaching Laban Movement Analysis at the University of Surrey, I encountered one of our Korean students outside the library. She approached me, cradling something in her hand. When she opened her hand, I saw it was a small leaf.

“Look,” she cried with delight. “Doesn’t this have a beautiful shape!”

We had, earlier in the day, been doing a class on shape. I had to agree, the leaf did have a lovely shape. But what was even more beautiful to me was the student’s delight.… Read More

Movement Study and the Goals of General Education

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Effective communication and critical thinking are often cited as goals of general education at the university level. Movement study can contribute to the development of both these skills.

It is widely acknowledged that communication has two parts: the verbal and the nonverbal. As the anthropologist Edward Hall explains, words make up only a fraction of any message. The movements accompanying speech convey more significant information. Nonverbal behavior “stresses feedback on how people are feeling, ways of avoiding confrontation, and the inherent logic that is the birthright of all people.”… Read More

Laban Movement Analysis and Architecture

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

“The first inner vision of a choreutic shape and the first inner vision of any architectural creation or an abstract drawing have a great resemblance. The invention of an architectural, plastic or pictorial form is, in reality, a choreutic phrase.”

Rudolf Laban, Mastery of Movement, p. 115

Over my years in the field of dance and movement studies, I became increasingly curious about exploring the relationship between architectural practice and movement.

For some, this may seem an odd pairing. Architects design and create solid, tangible structures that are more or less unchanging over time; dancers articulate liminal traceforms that vanish before your eyes.… Read More

Movement Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Study

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Over the past three centuries, knowledge has proliferated. At the same time, knowledge has become increasingly specialized. At the university level, this has led to a proliferation of departments, with courses of study carefully demarcated along disciplinary borders that are not particularly permeable. Indeed, the departmental structure of most universities makes it difficult for inter-disciplinary initiatives to succeed.

Nevertheless, it is the mission of the university to educate, and an educated person is supposed to know a little something about all fields of human knowledge.… Read More