Laban and Embodied Cognition

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movement theory analysisRudolf Laban’s use of movement-based observational techniques anticipated the notion of “embodied cognition” by several decades.  In his writings in the 1940s and 50s, Laban already had identified “mental efforts” — namely those of giving attention to what must be done, forming an intention to act, and finally taking decisive action — as stages of “inner preparation for outer action.”

Laban went on to associate each of these mental efforts to one of the motion factors, according to the following scheme:

“The motion factor of Space can be associated with man’s faculty of participation with attention.  The predominant tendency here is to orientate oneself and find a relationship to the matter of interest either in an immediate, direct way or in a circumspective, flexible one.”

“The motion factor of Weight can be associated with man’s faculty of participation with intention.  The desire to do a certain thing may take hold of one sometimes powerfully and firmly, sometimes gently and slightly.”

“ The motion factor of Time can be associated with man’s faculty of participation with decision.   Decisions can be made either unexpectedly and suddenly … or they may be developed gradually.”

Building on Laban’s correlations, Warren Lamb extended and refined the linking of movement factors with mental processes.  Find out more in the next blog.

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.

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.

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.

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 1

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By Madeleine Scott, Registered Movement Pattern Analyst

teaching movement theoryI utilized the Movement Pattern Analysis decision-making framework to support an undergraduate seminar for dance majors that focused on career planning and resume/portfolio development. In preparation for the course, I had interviewed and constructed basic profiles of all thirteen students.  This revealed specific learning needs of the group and suggested strategies to meet these needs.

For example, students with strong Attending motivation need to be interested in the subject as such.  They need to go into the subject in depth and also see it from a number of different angles.  Attention-oriented students like an open-ended approach where he/she can make discoveries.

Students with a strong Intending motivation need to have a definite purpose and want to establish the value of a subject and its worthwhile-ness.   They respond well to challenges and want to know how well they are performing in relation to others.  Intention-oriented students like a clear approach with tasks he/she can come to grips with.

Students with a strong Committing motivation need to see a prospect for getting results out of their studies.  They need to see that tangible progress is being made at a good pace and want immediate feedback on performance.  Commitment-oriented students like a well-organized approach, systematized wherever possible.

I found that the MPA profiles helped students to understand their own decision-making processes.  This can facilitate better management not only of individual studies but also of collaborative projects that must be carried out with peers.

In the following blog, I discuss how the MPA Interaction Motivations and team building, though not the primary focus of this course, also became relevant as a teaching tool.

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.

Movement Health – Laban-style

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dance, movement, theory, labanAs the benefits of physical motion are gaining recognition and undergoing further scrutiny, it is interesting to see how Laban characterized movement health.  He wrote, “A healthy human being can have complete control of his kinesphere and dynamosphere….  The essential thing is that we should neither have preference for nor avoid certain movements because of physical or psychical restrictions.”

Clearly, Laban views movement as healthy for both the body and mind.  He prescribes a rich range of motion, noting “we should be able to do every imaginable movement and then select those which seem to be the most suitable and desirable for our own nature.”

When I did my Laban Movement Analysis training in the mid-1970s, the faculty used to give individual “movement prescriptions” in the middle of the year.  These were meant to be fun and usually aimed to encourage exploration of less preferred movement elements.  However, the underlying rationale was not made transparent to students, who were sometimes left guessing as to why they received a certain prescription.

Warren Lamb took a more direct approach in the hundreds of individual movement tutorials he taught in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  First he assessed the individual’s movement patterns.   Then he worked with their effort and shape preferences, gradually building less preferred qualities into a unique movement sequence that the person could continue to practice and refine.

Want to find out more about your own movement patterns?  Join the “Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis” course,  March 17- 19, 2017.

Mixing Business, Physical Exercise, and Creativity

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Walk, exercise, businessThe Wall Street Journal has also been covering the health benefits of walking, notably the walk-and-talk business meeting.  According to their September 13th article, “the health benefits are real for people who take walking meetings; their work gets more creative, too.”

These walking meetings are typically held with two or three people over a set route and period.  Given mounting research on the health benefits of being more mobile at work, the walking meeting provides a way to integrate movement with other work activities.

There is science behind the walk-and-talk.  For example, one study found that the more people engaged in moderate physical activity at work, the less likely they were to phone in sick.  While standing desks have received positive attention as an alternative to sitting all day at work, walking burns more calories than just standing.

More intriguingly, a 2014 study at Stanford University found that walking increased creative output.  Study participants were given a standard creativity test – to think of alternate uses for a common object.  When participants were walking, they produced more original responses that no one had thought of when the group was merely sitting.

So don’t just sit there, stand up.  Better yet, take a five minute walk!