Laban’s Dramatic Imagination

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rudolf labanOne challenging aspect of Laban’s Mastery of Movement is his description of many dramatic scenes meant to be embodied by the reader.  These scenes involve multiple characters, various dramatic conflicts, and several changes in mood on the part of all the characters involved.

Laban wants the reader to get up and mime these scenes, thinking about how the body would be used, where movement would go in the space around the body, and what kind of efforts would appear and change.   It’s a tall order, one requiring a rich imagination.

I’ve written elsewhere about the necessity of using imagination to bring Choreutic forms to life.  But it is equally clear that using effort to embody various characters and dramatic situations requires imagination.  Laban’s scenes demand great effort variation, but can easily stray into stereotypic or melodramatic choices.   To avoid such regrettable diversion, Laban wants the reader to “think in terms of movement.”

Just as Laban was concerned to identify organic movements from place to place in the kinesphere, he was equally concerned to find natural sequences of effort change in the dynamosphere.  His guidelines on effort patterning in Mastery are a bit sketchy, so I intend to integrate more detailed approaches for “thinking in terms of movement” in the forthcoming Octa seminar. To do so I’ll be drawing on several models of effort relationships that I uncovered during my research on unpublished theoretical materials in the Rudolf Laban Archive in England.

To find out more, participate in the spring correspondence course, “Mastering Rudolf Laban’s Mastery of Movement.”

Gods, Goddesses, and Demons

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movement theory analysisIn Mastery of Movement, Rudolf Laban invokes gods, goddesses, and demons in his discussions of the “chemistry of human effort.”

“Gods as conceived by primitive man were the initiators and instigators of effort in all its configurations,” writes Laban.  “The strange poetry of movement that has found expression in sacred dance enabled man to build up an order of his effort actions, which is valuable and understandable to this day.”

Laban goes on to describe floating and gliding goddesses, divinities of joy that flick and dab, gods that wring, slash, and press, and demons that punch.  C.G. Jung would certainly see these mythical beings as archetypes with profound psychological significance.  But it takes an imagination like Laban’s to relate these figures to equally archetypal aspects of human effort.

These surprising combinations make Mastery of Movement a complex and nuanced work.  Find out more in the forthcoming Octa correspondence course.

Rudolf Laban – Man of Theatre

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rudolf laban theaterLaban’s life work was to create a rich palette of movement options from which a performer could draw.  By the time he wrote Mastery of Movement, he had a lifetime of experience observing movement and working with dancers and actors, which he distilled into this intriguing work.

Ironically, Laban’s own creative methods and experimental dance and theatre works are little known.   However, recent re-creations of work mounted by Valerie Preston-Dunlop, Alison Curtis-Jones, and Melanie Clarke provide glimpses of his work and methods that are useful in illuminating aspects of Mastery of Movement.

In particular, re-creations based upon repertoire of the Kammertanzbühne Laban reveal Laban’s theatrical vision.  Housed in an exhibition hall at the Hamburg Zoo, this small company performed several times each week for subscribers who came again and again in the mid-1920s.  As Preston-Dunlop notes, the company concentrated on four types of dance:  “ornamental, ecstatic, grotesque” and national folk dances.   The grotesque, “covered dances that were dramatic, odd, funny and made people uncomfortable, curious, amused, flabbergasted,” in other words, more theatrical than the other three types, which were respectively attractive, solemn, and colorful.

Laban and his assistant, Dussia Bereska, choreographed works, as did members of the company.  Much of the movement material was improvised, then shaped, as Preston-Dunlop notes, “through bodily, choreutic, and eukinetic articulation.”   As Laban notes in his autobiography, “familiar characters came into being, who were welcomed by the audience as old acquaintances just as in the medieval theatre.”

“For example,” Laban continues, there were “the jester, the juggler, obstinancy, rage, playfulness, the dandy, the tyrant, death, and many more.”  Some of these characters make repeat performances in the many dramatic scenarios Laban provides to stimulate readers’ movement imaginations.

Give your own dramatic imagination some food for thought in the forthcoming correspondence course, “Mastering Rudolf Laban’s Mastery of Movement.”

Laban Is Good Company

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Laban photoI have been re-reading Laban’s autobiography in preparation for teaching “Mastering Rudolf Laban’s Mastery of Movement.”  Laban’s writings are evocative, and I always find him to be good company.

Laban and I have seldom met in the most luxurious of settings.  During my seven years of doctoral and post-doctoral research, he and I met in a windowless room in the top of the University of Surrey library.  Here he kept me company under fluorescent lights as I engaged with his handwritten musings on yellowing sheets of paper and tried to make sense of geometric sketches in colored pencil.  I’m sure this kind of social get-together would not appeal to everyone, but Laban always held up his side of the conversation, even when I did not entirely understand what he was trying to say.

There is an element of mystery in all of Laban’s writings.  I think this is because he is always ahead of the rest of us in his global understanding of human movement.  Nevertheless, Laban is not a snob.  He genuinely wants to share his insight, and this makes him a good companion.

Mastery of Movement is not an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one.  Find out more in the forthcoming  Octa correspondence course.

Mastery of Movement: Laban’s Other Masterpiece

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mastery of movement rudolf labanMastery of Movement is for body and effort what Choreutics is for space and shape – the most comprehensive treatment of Laban’s ideas in English.  The book has an interesting history.

The first edition was published in 1950, after Laban had published Effort and Modern Educational Dance, and after he had written (but not published) Choreutics.  Thus Mastery draws upon Laban’s endeavors in industry, education, and theatre.

The first edition is focused on movement for the stage, but Laban’s observations go well beyond this, addressing broader functions of movement in human life and evolution.

Mastery went out-of-print in the late 1950s, and Laban was planning a new edition, but he died in 1958 before this could be completed.  Lisa Ullmann, who was conversant with changes Laban intended to make, then took on the task of editing each of the three subsequent editions, both adding and rewriting material.

The 4th edition currently available in paperback was originally published in 1980.

Ullmann added Kinetography Laban notations to the two chapters outlining various actions of the body, marginal legends to highlight important points in the textual discussion, and an Appendix on Fundamental Aspects of the Structure of Effort drawn from an unpublished manuscript written by Laban before 1950.

Now that Mastery is back-in-print, I want to encourage Laban Movement Analysts to read or re-read it.  Hence, the upcoming MoveScape Center offering — Mastering Laban’s Mastery of Movement.

Correspondence courses may be “old school,” but having steady assignments, a guide for reading, and reading companions is a great way to study classics.  And Mastery of Movement is a classic.

Find out more…

What Makes a Good Team?

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movement pattern analysis teamLong before diversity became a political issue, Warren Lamb was encouraging diversity in management teams.  His model of diversity was not based on age, race, creed, or gender. Rather it was based on decision-making style.

Lamb found that the best teams are made up of people who have different decision-making strengths.   That is, you need someone on the team who is strongly motivated to Investigate, someone who Explores, someone who is quite Determined, someone high in Timing and so on.

There is just one problem.  When people approach decisions in very different ways, they are likely to get on each other’s nerves.  The Commitment-oriented individual wants to take action here and now.  The Attention-oriented person needs time to think things over and have a good look around.  Attenders can bother the Intention- oriented person who feels the first thing to be done to get to grips with the issues and resolve what needs to be done.  So there is a lot of potential for conflict in a diverse team.

And this is where the third value comes in – divergent decision makers need to learn to tolerate each other’s approaches and to appreciate what these very different motivations bring to the table.

So, in addition to Warren Lamb’s grounded theory, which brings meaning to patterns of movement, I would like to add three values that are equally important to the practice of Movement Pattern Analysis and particularly important at this moment: respecting individuality, fostering diversity, and encouraging tolerance.

What Makes a Successful Leader?

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leader movement pattern analysisIn his observation and analysis of thousands of business executives, Warren Lamb found that leaders come in many shapes and sizes.  That is, there is no single “leader” profile — successful leaders can approach decisions in quite varied ways.

However, Lamb discovered that the characteristic pattern of motivation tapped by the MPA profile has much to do with how a leader defines his or her responsibility.

For example, a leader who emphasizes Attending will believe it is his/her responsibility to analyze the situation, consider alternatives, and make sure there is sufficient informed preparation prior to taking any action.   A leader who emphasizes Intending will have a strong sense of mission, believing it is his/her job to instill discipline and stick with basic policies and plans.  The leader with predominant Committing motivation will believe it is his job to exploit opportunities strategically, to set the pace and beat the competition.

It is a principle of Movement Pattern Analysis that what is right for one person is not necessarily right for another.  Everyone has a distinctively individual way of moving and that way of moving in intrinsically linked with motivation and decision-making processes.  Successful leaders are people who act true their own way of moving.

What do your movement patterns reveal about your style of leadership?  Find out during the Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis seminar.

Why I Became a Movement Pattern Analyst

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movement pattern analystShortly 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.

Secondly, understanding my own profile has enabled me to use my strengths, minimize my weaknesses, and work more successfully with others.

Finally, the observational skills I have developed by carefully watching and coding normal conversational behavior have convinced me that movement analysis can be used in a disciplined and reliable way.

Don’t just take my word for it.  Find out for yourself at the Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis seminar.

MPA Stands Up to Rigorous Testing

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movement theory testingIn 2011, I participated in a pilot study examining the validity of Movement Pattern Analysis profiles in predicting decision-making patterns.  Although MPA has been used by senior business teams for over 50 years, its potential application to the study of military and political leaders has barely been tapped.  The pilot study was the first test of this new area of application.

Twelve military officers made up the research participant group.  The research team consisted of Dr. Tim Colton, a political scientist from Harvard and Dr. Richard Rende, a psychologist from Brown, along with Movement Pattern Analysts Brenda Connors, James McBride, and myself.  We interviewed the participants and constructed their profiles.  Several months later, the officers completed four hypothetical decision-making tasks designed by the other members of the research team.  The subjects could partially control the amount of information sought and the amount of time spent on each task before coming to a decision.

And the results?  As Connors, Rende, and Colton report:

“A composite MPA indicator of how a person allocated decision-making actions and motivations to balance both Assertion (exertion of tangible movement effort on the environment to make something occur) and Perspective (through movements that support shaping in the body to perceive and create a suitable viewpoint for actions) was highly correlated with the total number of information draws and total response time – individuals high on Assertion reached for less information and had faster response times than those high on Perspective.”

In other words, the MPA profile provided valuable predictive information about individual differences in decision making!

Find out more about your own decision-making patterns in the forthcoming Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis seminar.

MPA as a Teaching Tool, Part 2

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By Madeleine Scott, Registered Movement Pattern Analyst

teaching movement theoryThe 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. This re-assessment of my own style helped me to be a more effective teacher and to respond appropriately to the “team profile” style that this group of students engendered.

In summary, the use of MPA as a teaching tool can improve performance for faculty in various ways:

1)  MPA can provide a novel and self-reflective way to analyze course organization and management, and to strategize meeting the needs of students with different learning styles;

2)  MPA can provide perspective on the academic advising activities required of the professoriate today;

3)  It can enhance mentorship practices required for new faculty and staff.

Find out more about Movement Pattern Analysis in MoveScape Center’s March introductory course.