Dancing with Your Eyebrows

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dancing with your eyebrows“You must not think of dance as steps,” Rudolf Laban once told a group of student actors.  “Dance is meaningful movement.  You can dance with your eyebrows. When I have taught you, you will be able to dance with any part of your body.’’

The acting students were skeptical, or course.  They thought that dance was frivolous, not serious.  Laban, however, had spent a lifetime investigating not only the physical aspects of dance, but also its mental, emotional, and social dimensions.  He saw dancing as an activity involving the whole person; he understood that dancing brings together body and mind, self and other.  

Now contemporary science is corroborating Laban’s observations with evidence based research.  Find out more in the following blogs.

A Life for Dance

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human movement danceLaban’s autobiography, A Life for Dance, is a curious book, but one that reveals a great deal about his creative vision and theatrical activities.  As he notes in the letter to his publisher that opens the book:

“I recount in my book how a human being makes his way through thousands of circumstances and events.  Since this person happens to be a dance master or even a dance-poet, the book will frequently speak about the precious little-known art of dance.  The whole kaleidoscope of events, both gay and serious, revolves around dance dramas, plays, and festivals which that dance master has invented.”

Laban wrote the book in the early 1930s, after an injury ended his performance career.  It is a summing up of his own career in dance, and in that sense, a kind of farewell.  On the other hand, the third part of the book goes beyond the personal to address the roles that dance might play in contemporary social and cultural life.  Thus the book also looks forward.

Laban is particularly hopeful about what he calls dance-drama – a “completely novel dramaturgy” that “leads to a new perception of life which tells us of the inner path taken by a character.”  The dynamic and partially abstract nature of dance moves beyond being merely a representational narrative of characters and events.  As Laban writes:

“Merely to witness incidents does not force us to look too deeply into the nature of events.  Only the portrayal of the peculiar fusion of spiritual nobility and human passion which sets external happenings in motion compels us to experience that kind of involvement through which we come nearer to the deeper meaning of experience.”

Laban’s own dance-dramas often involved fairy tale figures, historical characters, or archetypes such as “joygrief,” “lovehate,” and death.  His work was not meant to be escapist, however.  Rather, “it is a turning to reality, where the meaning of the development of the hero’s true being is found, both in his nature and in the experience of his inner struggles.”   As he notes, “in the characters of a military leader such as Agamemnon, a Don Juan, a Savonarola, or in the comic and tragi-comic figures of a jester, a Casanova, and other historical and archetypal personages, I saw not so much the victims of fate, but more the embodiments of ethical values and attitudes.”

Thus his later work, Mastery of Movement, is not just about the acquisition of theatrical skills.  It speaks more deeply to mastery of a dynamic self –one that is not only bound to respond to events out of habit, but also capable to transcending habitual reactions by means of humane effort.

Observing Movement, Observing Life

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In Mastery of Movement, Laban asks readers to observe a person in everyday life, a person portraying a character in a mime scene, and a dancer performing a national or period dance.  Observers are to analyze the use of the body, along with the use of space, time, and weight.

movement dance

This is a useful exercise for any actor; it is also a task that Laban set for himself.  In his autobiography, Laban describes his first experiences as a young and very idealistic artist-to-be.  His first port-of-call is Munich, where he has been provided with various letters of introduction, and through these meets a fashionable society woman and her circle of admirers.  They set out to educate the naïve youth in the ways of the world, taking him to various entertainment venues and sending him on errands into the poorer sections of the city.

“So I began to acquaint myself more closely with other aspects of city life,” Laban writes.  In contrast to the elegant restaurants and night clubs patronized by his fashionable sponsors, Laban went to the stock exchange, to meetings of communists, to low-class cabarets.   “I got to know certain quarters of the city where crime was the order of the day” he recalls, “and I caught glimpses of the dark recesses of the souls of many apparently well-bred citizens and saw the inner wretchedness of the wealthy.”

Laban drew on these experiences 20 years later, in an evening long dance-play titled “The Night.”  Performed at the first Dancers’ Congress in 1927, the piece was a critical flop, and Laban freely admits this in his autobiography.  Nevertheless, his description of the experiences that led up to this dance-play provides insight into his desire to become acquainted with a wide range of human affairs.

Laban went on to distil these observations into movement.  This is what he continuously encourages the reader to do in Mastery of Movement.

Find out more in the Octa seminar, April 1 – May 6, 2017.

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…

Why Laban Wrote Mastery of Movement

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Mastery of Movement Rudolf LabanLaban wrote Mastery of Movement on the Stage (1st edition) “as an incentive to personal mobility.”  And indeed, the first two chapters provide a number of explorations organized around movement themes focused on body and/or effort.  Laban hopes to encourage a kind of “mobile reading,” as he explains in the Preface.

However, he also notes that there is something in the book for those who want to remain in a comfy chair.  That is, such readers can learn more about “thinking in terms of movement.”  For Laban, mobile thinking is not merely “cavorting in the world of ideas” any more than stage movement is “restricted to ballet.”  And herein Laban reveals his broader theme:  movement “forms the common denominator to both art and industry.”

In the Preface, Laban also makes it quite clear that movement is not merely a physical practice that can be mastered through mechanical exercises.  Movement involves the “inner life of man.” For genuine mastery, the motivation to move must be integrated with the acquisition of external skill.

Laban also establishes his views on theatre, noting that the stage is “the mirror of man’s physical, mental, and spiritual existence.”  And in the Introduction, he goes on to assert that movement is the heart of theatre, for there is no acting, speaking, singing, or dancing without movement.

In many ways, Mastery of Movement is a quintessential representation of Laban’s vision, which illuminates details of bodily activity and yet broadly positions the whole experience of movement in relation to human existence in the world of both tangible and intangible values.

Find out more in the upcoming correspondence course, Mastering Rudolf Laban’s Mastery of Movement.

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.

Movement Pattern Analysis – Business and Beyond

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movement business and beyondIn the 1940s, Rudolf Laban took his dance theories into the world of work, addressing issues of efficiency, job satisfaction, and reduction of fatigue on the factory floor.

In the 1950s, Warren Lamb took Laban’s methods of movement analysis into the executive suite, discerning how patterns of movement reveal unique decision-making processes.  He applied his Movement Pattern Analysis profiles to thousands of senior executives in businesses around the world.

Today, Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA) is being applied to new arenas of human endeavor.

In the series of blogs that follow, three registered Movement Pattern Analysts – Laurie Cameron, Alison Henderson, and Madeleine Scott — describe how they have applied MPA respectively in creative work for dance, the theatre, and teaching at the university level.

MPA is not just for business – decisions are made in all kinds of enterprises and activities.  You can find out more about your own decision-making processes in the upcoming Tetra seminar, Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis.

Beyond First Impressions

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first impressionThe very first time we encounter a stranger, we derive an impression based on the person’s physical attributes and body language.  Then rapidly and without conscious or logical control, we form a judgment  – is the person positive, negative, or neutral?

The capacity to make snap judgments is probably essential to our survival.  Yet first impressions are notoriously unreliable and often prejudicial.  The real character of an individual is revealed over time – not in a single encounter, not in a single action, but in a moving pattern and embodied way of being.

To me the genius of Warren’s Lamb’s Movement Pattern Analysis has to do with its emphasis on discerning patterns of movement behavior.  Movement is so slippery, disappearing even as it occurs.  I think this is why most movement perception occurs below the level of conscious attention.  However, although it is ephemeral and slippery, movement occurs in patterns.  And if we take the time to pay conscious attention, we can detect these patterns and begin to make judgments that go much deeper than the first impression.

Want to find out more?  Join the Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis course beginning in March.

Movement Patterns, Expression, and Meaning

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movement theoryMovement occurs in patterns, and these patterns are both expressive and meaningful.  In 2017, MoveScape Center’s Red Thread offerings focus on the patterned aspects of movement behavior – in everyday activity, in effort, and in space.

Everyday patterns.  The Red Thread journey begins with the Tetra seminar, “Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis.”  Based on the work of Warren Lamb, this three-day course, scheduled for mid-March in the Denver area, demonstrates how movement patterns reveal individual decision-making processes.   Participants learn how to observe and interpret movement patterns.  Moreover, by having their own profiles made by the instructor, participants emerge with deepened self-knowledge that can be used productively for career development and more effective collaboration with others.

Effort patterns. The Red Thread program continues with the Octa seminar, “Mastering Rudolf Laban’s Mastery of Movement.”  Mastery of Movement is Laban’s most accessible and complete exposition of the movement elements of body and effort. During this six-week correspondence course, offered in April and May, participants read selected parts of Laban’s treatise on movement for the stage.  Each week a set of study questions and movement explorations are provided. When the assignment has been completed, participants receive additional comments designed to elaborate on Laban’s stated aim, that “every sentence is written as an incentive to personal mobility.”

The Red Thread journey culminates in the Ico workshop, “Exploring the Dynamosphere.”  This three-day movement workshop, scheduled for mid-July in the Denver area, provides rich expressive experiences and new perspectives on Rudolf Laban’s effort patterns.   Workshop material includes effort phrasing, effort states and drives, effort modulation, and effort knots.

Space patterns.  In late summer and through the autumn, MoveScape Center will be offering correspondence courses and movement workshops exploring the many spatial patterns of movement that Laban discerned and designed. But this is the subject for future blogs!