Flow Changes Everything

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Carol-Lynne Moore

When flow takes the place of another motion factor, Laban wrote, “the expression is more intense” and the whole configuration “gains new meaning.” In the Mastery of Movement correspondence course, we tested Laban’s assertion.

Readers were asked to choose one of the transformation drives – either Passion or Vision or Spell. They were to work out the eight effort quality combinations of that drive and then embody each mood.

The Vision Drive combines the motion factors of Space, Time, and Flow (the motion factor of Weight is latent). Cate Deicher, who will be co-teaching the July workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere,” with me, explored the Vision Drive. She has graciously allowed me to share her descriptions of what each combination felt like…

I went to a Merce Cunningham exhibit this past weekend and saw footage of Merce dancing. His movement seemed to be a lot about Vision Drive. Those images have stayed in my mind, so I chose that drive. I’ve also been thinking about Iceland. I was there 40 years ago and will be going back soon. So this is a combination of Merce + Iceland.

1) free+indirect+decelerating: I take pleasure in leisurely exploring the incredible, charmingly, unfamiliar landscape.

2) free+ direct+decelerating: I see an unusual patch of color in the stony landscape, and want to get a closer look. As I approach it I take my time to enjoy how the shading of color changes with the movement of the clouds.

3) free+indirect+accelerating: In the harbor, a strong gust of wind scatters a flock of seabirds in the sky above. I try to keep track of all of them as they circle about.

4) free+direct+accelerating: I scoot quickly, gleefully away from Geyser as it begins to bubble up.

5) bound+indirect+decelerating: We’re entering an ice cave. The ground is icy, but there is otherworldly light that is reflected all around.

6) bound+direct+decelerating: I’m approaching Geyser. It’s a stunning display, but I’ve been told that sometimes you can feel and observe fissures starting to form in the earth. I’m careful about this, I also want to be able to flee if I start to feel the ground rumble. Still, I’m fascinated by Geyser; my whole body is trained upon this spectacle.

7) bound+indirect+accelerating: I know there are no birds here, so I feel a bit threatened by something that just flew by me from out of nowhere. Where did it come from?

8) bound+direct+accelerating: I shudder and dash to the shelter of the bus stop as the cold, heavy rain begins to fall.

Just Add Flow

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Laban’s well-known basic actions combine the movement factors of Space, Weight, and Time. However, the whole mood of an action changes when Flow replaces one of these motion factors. Then the functional action is transformed into a visionary, passionate, or spell-binding mood.

Laban admits that “even when man sets about a working job and his bodily actions have to fulfill practical functions they are distinguished by personal expression.”

However, when flow takes the place of another motion factor, “the expression is more intense.” According to Laban, this is because “These configurations build up individual units in which the single constituent part submerges entirely.” Thus the whole gains a new meaning and importance. In other words, the Vision, Passion, and Spell drives are distinctive moods in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, just as green, while being composed of blue and yellow, is a distinctive color all its own. This is where Laban’s effort theory, composed of only four motion factors and eight contrasting effort qualities, blossoms into a multi-colored landscape encompassing both function and expression.

In the forthcoming workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere,” we will start with the basic actions and organic sequences of these actions. Then we explore the transformation drives – Vision, Passion, and Spell. Find out what happens to the chemistry of effort when we just add flow!

Demons Into Goddesses Through Effort Magic

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Laban personifies each of the eight basic actions in Mastery of Movement. He characterizes Floating (all indulging qualities of Weight, Time, and Space) as the Goddess and Punching (all fighting effort qualities) as the Demon. He goes on to note that it will not be difficult for the actor or dancer to depict these characters, for we “remember the age-old symbolism of love’s soft floating movements, and of the violent and abrupt movements of hatred.”

During the recent MoveScape Center Mastery of Movement correspondence course, Rebecca Nordstrom created a sequence of basic actions and imagined this movement sequence as a scenario involving the Demon and the Goddess. It is a beautiful example of how imagination can bring Laban’s effort theories to life.

Becky has graciously allowed me to share her scenario….

Scale of moods order: Punch, slash, wring, press, glide, dab, flick, float.

A demon looks at the large oblong object that mysteriously appeared in his lair. First, he strikes it with his fist, punching repeatedly to try to break it open. He then slings it violently and repeatedly around the room sending it crashing into the walls, floor, and ceiling (slashing). When that doesn’t work, he grabs it in his hands and tries to twist it open with great force (wringing). Lastly, he leans against it with all his force trying to crush it (pressing). Exhausted, he collapses into a heap and falls asleep.

Out of a hole at one end of the object a veiled figure slowly, gently and steadily emerges (gliding). Once free of the object the figure quickly but gently pokes at the surrounding veil with long delicate fingers and toes (dabbing). Once loosened, the veil is gently but quickly tossed aside with flicking gestures.

Now completely free of the veil, the figure begins to spread its wings and gently, delicately rises. As the butterfly goddess knew, she was only able to emerge from her chrysalis cage with the help of the unsuspecting demon. She hovers over his sleeping body to whisper her thanks before floating gently out of his lair and into the bright sunshine.

Space Toys

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Mel Brooks had Spaceballs (a Star Wars parody); I have Space Toys.

I’m not kidding. One way to bring Choreutics to life is with good geometrical models. Whenever I’m in a toy shop (or the children’s section of a museum shop), I’m always on the lookout for the newest geometrical toys.

To be honest, I’m always on the lookout. At the moment, geometrical forms are fashionable as decorative items. I just went to Hobby Lobby to buy pastel paper and walked out with a stellated icosahedron….

In “Bringing Choreutics to Life” I will share some of my “finds.” I will also show participants how to make models out of inexpensive materials.

Come play with my space toys.

Find out more….

Decoding Choreutics – Key #2

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

As an artist-scientist, Laban is concerned not only with the geometry of movement, but also with its expressive meaning. This dual vision gives rise to his theory of natural affinities between lines of motion and effort qualities.

Laban’s working out of these correlations, introduced in Choreutics in Chapter 3, is intriguing but not entirely original. The expressive value of line and form has its roots in theory of empathy propounded by late 19^th and early 20^th century psychologists and art theorists.

According to the theory of empathy, we project our visceral and kinesthetic feelings into the objects we perceive. In order to be expressive, the art object must possess certain formal qualities, but it need not be represent anything in particular.

Art Nouveau artist August Endell went on to spell out the empathic reactions aroused by various kinds of lines. Straight and curved lines, narrow and wide lines, short and long lines, and the direction of the line were all correlated with various sensations. For example, length or shortness of a line are functions of time, while the thickness and thinness are functions of tension.

I’ve been unable to find a full description of Endell’s system, but it seems to me that the germ of Laban’s theory of effort affinities can be linked back to his days as an Art Nouveau artist. The fact that effort notation postdates the development of direction symbols suggests that Laban may have assumed that the movement dynamics were inherent in the spatial form.

Want more clues for deepening your understanding of Laban’s theories? Register for “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics,” beginning March 26.

Decoding Choreutics – Key #1

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Another example of Laban’s double vision is his concept of the kinesphere and dynamosphere as dual domains of human movement. To represent both domains, Laban utilizes the cube.

Decoding Choreutics via Movescape

With regard to the kinesphere, Laban uses the cube quite literally. Its corners, edges, and internal diagonals serve as a kind of longitude and latitude for mapping movement in the space around the dancer’s body.

With regard to the dynamosphere, Laban uses the cube formally to represent patterns of effort change. This shift in how the model should be interpreted is complicated further by Laban’s use of direction symbols to stand for effort qualities and combinations.

When Laban wrote Choreutics in 1938-39, the effort symbols had not yet been created. Consequently, his dual use of direction symbols to stand in for effort obscures the discussion, but not entirely.

To decode the models discussed in Chapters 3, 6, and 9, it is only necessary to translate the direction symbols into effort qualities and combinations. Once this is done, Laban’s discussion of dynamospheric patterns becomes clear.

Want more keys? Register for the correspondence course, “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics,” beginning March 26.

“God Geometricizes….” Said Madame Blavatsky

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Artistic and scientific circles were not the only circles that overlapped in the fin de siècle period. European artists of the period were also involved in various secret spiritual societies that flourished in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

For example, the painter Wassily Kandinsky was an ardent follower of Theosophy, one of the occult spiritual movements of the period, and one that was very attractive to artists. As religious historian Mircea Eliade notes, avant garde European artists “utilized the occult as a powerful weapon in their rebellion against the bourgeois establishment and its ideology.”

Novel spiritual practices were not merely a form of rebellion for the European avant garde. The occult revival also gave artists new ways to think about the nature of art as it moved beyond representation and symbolism toward formalism and abstraction. Kandinsky drew upon precepts of Theosophy, such as the quote above by Theosophy guru, Madame Blavatsky, to theorize a spiritual visual art composed of only form and color. By these means alone, Kandinsky wrote, the artist could “cause vibrations in the soul.”

Laban was also attracted to the occult. During his career as a painter (1899- 1919), he supposedly associated with three esoteric groups: the Free Masons, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and the Rosicrucians. The extent of Laban’s involvement is a matter of speculation. Nevertheless, in Choreutics, his treatise on the geometry of human movement, Laban does acknowledge that his subject “necessitates a certain spiritual emphasis.”

What does this mean? Find out more in the correspondence course, “Decoding Choreutics,” beginning March 26.

Was Laban Seeing Double?

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

More than any of his other books in English, Choreutics reveals Laban’s dual vision as a dance artist and movement scientist. The forthcoming course, “Decoding Choreutics,” examines Laban’s double vision from more than one angle.

For example, Choreutics and the whole fabric of Laban’s space harmony theory can be seen as a design source for dance. The various scales and “rhythmic circles” can be mined as abstract patterns for movement creation. In this sense, Choreutics is analogous to various design sources utilized by Art Nouveau artists at the turn of the 20^th century.

The fin de siècle was a time when artistic and scientific circles overlapped. In their stylized renderings of natural forms, Art Nouveau artists drew upon scientific illustrations. A case in point is Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms in Nature. Haeckel (1834-1919) was a biologist-philosopher whose beautiful illustrations of biological forms, ranging from microscopic creatures to sea life, plants, and animals, inspired the artists of his day.

One of the Art Nouveau artists who drew upon Haeckel’s illustrations was Hermann Obrist, with whom Laban studied in Munich. Originally trained as a botanist, Obrist the artist moved progressively from realistic depiction of natural forms to increasingly abstract and geometrical designs. Laban’s own geometricizing of the biomorphic curves of human movement in Choreutics follows a similar trajectory.

Led by the Art Nouveau movement, early 20^th century artists were looking beyond the surface appearance of visual objects to reveal underlying patterns and organizing principles. With the advent of the atomic age, scientists were doing the same. Thus when Laban, the artist, turned his eyes to dance and human movement, he, too, was seeing double.

Change of Any Kind Is Recuperative

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

In her re-thinking of physical therapy through a Laban lens, Irmgard Bartenieff noted that “the basic activities of the body are lying, sitting, crawling, kneeling, standing, and walking.” In dealing with back and leg pain caused by a herniated disk, I had to re-thinkthe rhythm of my workday. Fortunately, I’m self-employed and work from home. However, like many people, I had become accustomed to sitting at my computer for extended periods of time. But during periods when my back problems were acute, I could not sit for any length of time comfortably.

I found a way to deal with back pain by drawing on the concept of exertion and recuperation. I began to intersperse periods of standing, walking, and lying into my sedentary workday. To stand and work, I set up a laptop on the kitchen counter. I took short breaks and walked figure 8s around the living room sofa. I also took breaks and simply lay down for a while. Varying the nature of activities across the day certainly aided in my eventual recovery.

The upright posture of homo sapiens presents many challenges. Degeneration of the spinal disks is one. As Bartenieff notes, “A disturbance of posture can be thought of as the introduction of unfavorable statics: some muscle groups being fixed in permanent contraction, others being left out of functioning. Since posture is seen as readiness to move, to change throughout the body, such fixedness of one or more groups of muscles interrupts or reduces readiness to change and thus has far reaching effects on all patterns of the arms, legs, and trunk.”

So, while I am glad you are reading this blog, don’t just sit there. Take a break. Stand, stretch, walk, kneel, crawl, or lie down. Change of any sort is recuperative!

The Warren Lamb Legacy: Freedom through Movement Analysis

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Carol-Lynne Moore

In the weeks since movement pioneer Warren Lamb died at the age of 90, I have had many occasions to reflect Warren’s life, our friendship, and what Warren fashioned from the insights he garnered from Rudolf Laban.

Laban referred to movement as “man’s magic mirror.” Lamb found a way to capture what is reflected in movement and give it practical relevance. In doing so, he moved far, far beyond “body language.”

The Movement Pattern Analysis profile Lamb developed reveals a person’s unique motivational pattern. It shows what kind of challenges are stimulating, and what kinds of demands cause stress. Thus the profile enables the individual to grasp where his strengths lie and to find a situation to suit those strengths.

As one of Lamb’s clients recently wrote to me:
“I often think about my profile. It has helped me know what to get involved in and how to avoid pitfalls. If only I could have had it at 20 years old!”

Lamb himself summed up his legacy in the following way:
“Much of my life’s work has been dedicated to helping people become aware of their distinctive pattern of movement so that they can, truly, be free.”