Irmgard Bartenieff – Gracious Colleague

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Carol-Lynne Moore

I knew Irmgard Bartenieff for seven years – first as her student, then her teaching assistant, then a fellow faculty member.  Our lives intersected at many points as we worked together, liberating the Effort/Shape Program from the Dance Notation Bureau and setting up the Laban Institute of Movement Studies.

Across this whole time, I never once saw Irmgard “pull rank.”  She out-classed most of her younger colleagues in both intelligence and experience.  But she had the marvelous capacity of not only helping us to “see,” but also allowing us to “be seen” and valued.… Read More

Choreutics Is Integrative

Posted on April 11, 2024 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Space is generally considered to be the main topic in Laban’s book, Choreutics.  Of the 12 chapters, however, three address the body, three address effort, and one chapter touches on shape.

In short, Choreutics is integrative in perspective.

Laban confirms this when he writes in the Introduction, “The art, or science, dealing with the analysis and synthesis of movement, we call ‘choreutics.’  Through its investigation and various exercises, choreutics attempts to stop the progress of disintegrating into disunity.”

Find out more in “Decoding Laban’sChoreutics,” beginning in May.… Read More

Harmonious Movement Is Healthy

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Bodily health and being able to move about freely is on everyone’s mind right now.
Rudolf Laban thought about this, too. He believed that a healthy human being “should be able to do every imaginable movement.”

Laban didn’t stop there, however. He designed harmonious movement patterns to build health, not just of the body but also of the mind and spirit. These patterns foster physical balance and range of motion, while allowing scope for freely exploring subtle moods and emotional expression through whole-bodied actions.… Read More

The Grotesque in Dance

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Writings on the grotesque seldom discuss dance.  Yet, during the 1700s, Italian dancers trained in a “grotesque” style were in demand all over Europe.  These grotteschi combined French ballet technique with a vigorous athleticism and pantomimic skills to portray comic and “foreign/non-European” characters.  This historical precedent provides a clue to the creative uses of the grotesque.

The grotesque, above all, represents the Other.  The Other may simply be someone of another nation, race, or creed.  Or, within a given situation, the grotesque may depict “Otherness” by transgressing social norms. … Read More

Body, Mind, and Harmony

Posted on November 5, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

As the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki noted, “The mind and the body are not one and not two.”  This is undoubtedly one of the most vexing paradoxes of human life.   But perhaps it would not be so vexing if we simply paid more attention to movement harmony, to those moments when mind and body meld seamlessly in the medium of physical action.

Movement harmony matters because it is so ubiquitous that we take it completely for granted.  Normal voluntary movement is miraculous because most of the time we manage to accomplish what we intend without excessive conscious effort, either physical or mental.… Read More

Grappling with a Girdle

Posted on May 9, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Lately I have been grappling with a girdle – not the underwear kind, the Choreutic kind.  I’ve been trying to create suggestions for how to embody each of the four Girdles that Laban identified.

These spatial sequences are peripheral six-rings that surround a diagonally tilted axis.  The Girdles themselves are tilted circles, part of which lies in front of the mover, and part of which lies behind the mover.

I’m quite fond of two of the Girdles that fall in front of the body and rise behind it. … Read More

International Connections

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Since MoveScape Center started running correspondence courses, it has been my pleasure to interact in virtual space with movement analysts on five continents. The LIMS Conference in New York made it possible to meet and learn more about the work of several of my correspondents, and to make new friends as well.

I was able to participate in the workshop of Lorella Rapisarda (Italy), whom I met through her participation in the “Decoding Choreutics” course. Lorella’s elegant conference workshop explored “The Missing Pull;” or, more accurately, what to do when one cannot fall automatically into the next thing, but must cope with a static situation.… Read More

Laban and I Discuss Trace-Forms

Posted on May 10, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

CLM: I’ve read that Leonardo da Vinci was interested in “the second form of the human body” – that is, the lines traced by moving limbs on the space around the body.  He visualized these forms as circles. Were you aware of that?

R. Laban:  Not exactly.  But again, circles have been used in figure drawing to help with capturing the figure in motion.

CLM:  But your circles are “rhythmic.”   What exactly does that mean?

RL:  A circle lends itself to continuous motion.  … Read More

More Archival Traces of Bartenieff

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Irmgard Bartenieff’s letters to Rudolf Laban, as I mentioned in the previous blog, also reveal how she adapted to American culture and redefined herself as a professional – moving beyond dance into physical therapy, dance therapy, and dance anthropology.

In a letter to Laban dated July 21, 1944, Irmgard wrote:

“I went into my work with the sick abnormal body with this curiosity, and I discovered, while always working with the sick as well as with the average untrained working person, how deeply buried the joy and understanding of movement is in most people – to a degree that we really cannot be astonished about the small audiences dancers get.”… Read More

Constant Change…

Posted on November 14, 2017 by Carol-Lynne Moore

As Irmgard Bartenieff used to observe, “Constant change is here to stay.” This is certainly the case in Berlin, where Bartenieff grew up. When I first taught for Eurolab  — Rotterdam (1988) and Berlin (1993-1996) – the Laban Certificate Programs were modeled on the American version. And it was an irony of history that these early programs depended heavily on American faculty to teach the Europeans what the Europeans had taught the Americans! 

Two decades later, under the able direction of Antja Kennedy, the Laban programs in Germany have developed a unique format, delivered by European faculty in both German and English.… Read More