Extending Laban’s Notions of Embodied Cognition

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

By observing that “the dancer moves, not only from place to place, but also from mood to mood,” Laban established human movement as a psychophysical phenomenon. He went on to relate the “movement from mood to mood” –manifested as effort variation – to psychological functions of giving Attention, forming an Intention, and making a Commitment to embodied action.

Laban’s protege, Warren Lamb, reasoned that there must also be correlations between the “movement from place to place” and psychological functions. He found the following associations.… Read More

The Mind in the Body

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

According to Rudolf Laban, “The dancer moves, not only from place to place but also from mood to mood.” This simple statement establishes movement as a psychophysical phenomenon. Indeed, Laban was ahead of the embodied cognition theorists, for he recognized that bodily movement happens in two domains – the physical domain of visible space and the psychological domain of thought and feeling.

Thoughts and feelings cannot be observed directly, but they can be inferred from how a particular action is performed.… Read More

The Body in the Mind

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

The notion of embodiment refers to the assumption that thoughts, feelings, and reactions that are grounded in sensory experiences and bodily states. By extension, mental processes involve simulations of physical actions and perceptions. For example, early childhood experiences moving about in the physical environment are believed to structure later understanding and representation of abstract concepts such as status, power, time, etc. 

Such notions tend to redress the position of movement professionals as a cognitive minority. As I noted in an earlier blog, we believe that movement is meaningful and may be studied in all its dynamic variations, yielding valuable insights into human behavior.… Read More

Embodiment is Hot

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Attention movement professionals – the body is now on everyone’s mind. From psychologists and philosophers to computer scientists and robotic engineers, everyone is saying goodbye to Descartes and the separation of body and mind and hello to “embodied cognition.”

Put simply, embodied cognition posits that intelligent behavior emerges from the interplay between brain, body, and the environment. Thinking is no longer the function of an isolated brain performing disembodied calculations based upon abstract concepts. Instead, the raw materials for thought are distributed over the brain, body, and environment and coupled together via our perceptual systems.… Read More

Celebrating Meaningful Movement Analysis

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Thirty-five individuals from across the nation and around the world gathered in Golden, Colorado over Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the life and work of movement analysis pioneer, Warren Lamb (1923-2014) at a seminar sponsored by Motus Humanus.

Warren Lamb began his career under the tutelage of movement theorist Rudolf Laban and management consultant F.C. Lawrence.  Their ground-breaking work provided a basis for matching the movement traits of manual laborers to the motion factors of various factory jobs. Lamb took this work much further, to relate movement patterns to cognitive processes used in decision making at the managerial level.… 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 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