Motus Humanus Turns 25!

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birthdayIn 1991, Charlotte Honda, Kaoru Yamamoto, and I formed Motus Humanus, a professional organization for Laban-based movement specialists. Over Labor Day weekend, we celebrated our 25th anniversary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with over 30 movement analysts and invited guests.

“Six Conversations about Human Movement” provided the theme for this, our 8th Roundtable on Professional Issues.  In this unique event, each of our six volunteer Board members (David Bauer, Cate Deicher, Alison Henderson, Becky Nordstrom, Kaoru Yamamoto, and myself) invited a special guest for a chat.  Six stimulating exchanges resulted on a variety of topics.

David Bauer and Mindfulness instructor Steve Flowers discussed “Mindful Paths to Healing Our Minds and Bodies in Post-Modern Culture,” Cate Deicher and philosopher Amy Shapiro explored “Thinking Movement/Moving Thought,” Alison Henderson and British movement-for-actors specialist Juliet Chambers-Coe shared their experiences with “LMA and the Role of Movement in Theatre Training,” Becky Nordstrom and choreographer Claire Porter had “A Conversation about Moving while Moving,” Kaoru Yamamoto and dancer/martial artist Charlotte Honda discussed “Human Movements: Varying Points of View and Life Courses,” and Waldorf educator Robert Schiappacasse and I compared the careers and aims of Rudolf Steiner and Rudolf Laban in “Spirited Forms – Art, Individuality, and Impulses for a New Age.”

Many of these conversations incorporated movement experiences, including a wonderful performance of “Happenstance” by Claire Porter.  In addition, there were morning movement sessions led by Charlotte Honda (Tai Chi), Becky Nordstrom (improvisational explorations of reach space and indulging effort qualities), and Claire Porter (dance composition techniques combining movement and words).

The gathering provided an occasion to honor loyal members and reflect on the organization’s service to the field of movement analysis.  Find out more in the next blogs.

Tensegrity – Did Laban Beat Bucky Fuller?

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tensegrityIn 1975 Buckminster Fuller coined the term “tensegrity” by contacting two terms —  tensional and integrity.  Simply defined, tensegrity refers to “compression elements in a sea of tension.”

“Tensegrity structures,” cantilevered struts held together by strings, appear in photographic records of sculptures created by Rudolf Laban during his convalescence at Dartington Hall (1938-39).  Of course, Laban was modeling Choreutic trace-forms.  But he seems to have happened upon the concept of tensegrity, or more accurately, to have grasped intuitively today’s emerging models of the body as a biotensegrity structure.

In this biotensegrity model, central to what is now called “spatial medicine,” our bones (typically viewed as compression elements) float in a sea of tension provided by the fascial network, muscles, tendons, and ligaments.  Our bodies move and retain their shape through this interconnected network of compression and tension elements.  As Deane Juhan notes, “We will be closer to the complex truth in our conceptualization of muscular activity if we regard the body as having only one muscle, whose millions of fibre-like cells are distributed throughout the fascial network and are oriented innumerable directions, creating innumerable lines of pull.”

Laban’s concept of “spatial tension” takes on new resonance when viewed from this perspective.  In the “first fact of space-movement” in Choreutics, Laban affirms that “Innumerable directions radiate from the centre of our body and its kinesphere into infinite space.”    Among these many lines of pull, Laban goes on to identify two main types, counter-tensions  and chordic tensions.   The first is simply a kind of reflective body symmetry in which one limb reaches in one direction while another opposes this reach by extending in the opposite direction.  Chordic tensions accompany plastic poses and movements in which three or more “spatial/tension paths radiate in space simultaneously.”

Challenge your biotensegrity in the forthcoming “Advanced Space Harmony Workshop,” December 3-4, in New York City.

“Summer of Dance” Dissed

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Untitled design (4)I may think the Denver Art Museum’s “Summer of Dance” is splendid, but the Denver Post’s critic disagrees.  He writes, “As a theme, ‘dance’ is, frankly, thin, a fringe topic that’s wholly without risk and lacks the kind of gravitas that a serious museum has the skill and resources to tackle.”  Other phrases are similarly dismissive:  “escapism,” “light touch,” “fun,” and finally, in response to the display of Anna Pavlova’s tutu – “This year, its feathery fluffiness feels like a metaphor for the whole lineup at DAM.”

As a dancer, it is difficult for me to see this merely as a criticism of the museum’s exhibitions – it seems to be a denunciation of dance itself.  In this critic’s eyes, at least, dance is ornamental, trivial, light weight — an art that lacks “gravitas.”   While I may disagree, I fear this writer’s views are reflective of more general public perceptions of the nature and value of dance.

Over a hundred years ago, when the painter Rudolf Laban decided to pursue dance, he confessed that he felt he had set his heart on “the most despised profession in the world.”  Dance may no longer be regarded as a profane or disreputable enterprise, but its profound value, its “gravitas,” has yet to be appreciated by art critics and the general American public.

The United States is not a dancing culture.  Yes, we have popular dance, theatrical dance, even competitive dance on television.  But most people do not participate in dancing on any regular basis.  In my view, dance is meant to be done.  Its value and meaning are only revealed through the experience of doing it.  Seeing is nice, but dance should not be merely a theatrical spectacle and certainly not a competitive sport.

Until we find a way to embed dance in the lives of everyday people, dance will continue to be dissed and dismissed as a fringe topic – feathery, fluffy, fun — and largely without serious value.

Denver Art Museum’s “Summer of Dance”

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Untitled design (3)My home town’s major art museum is hosting four separate exhibits on dance this summer.  Art and Dance have many close connections, so I think it’s splendid to see dance featured so prominently in a major museum setting!

My favorite exhibit is “Why We Dance: American Indian Art in Motion.”  This exhibit, assembled by in-house curators, draws upon paintings of traditional dances and displays of dance costumes, drums, and other artifacts.  It also incorporates videotaped interviews with Native American dancers who participate in the yearly powwow held at the Denver Art Museum.  These dancers speak about what dancing means to them as a way of maintaining their culture and linking their contemporary experiences with this culture.  Anyone who has danced will appreciate these interviews and the way in which they touch upon the meaning of dance in people’s lives.

The major exhibit is “Rhythm & Roots; Dance in American Art.”  Mounted by the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the exhibit includes paintings, photographs, sculptures, and costumes relating to American dance from 1830 to 1960.  The collection addresses popular and theatrical dance across these eras, touching on issues of race, class, and historical events.  It is accompanied by an appropriately handsome catalogue, with essays by both dance and art historians.

In addition to hosting this traveling exhibition, the Denver Art Museum mounted three additional exhibits, drawing on local talent.  “Dance Lab” is a massive interactive instillation created by animators at Denver’s Legwork Studios and members of the local Wonderbound ballet company.  “Performance on Paper” features posters by graphic designers Phil Risbeck and John Sorbie spanning a 30-year period of dance performances at Colorado State University.

Dance’s Duet with the Camera Published

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Dance's Duet coverI am happy to announce the publication of Dance’s Duet with the Camera.  This collection of essays, edited by Telory D. Arendell and Ruth Barnes and published by Palgrave Macmillan, “takes on the difficult task of verbalizing how the live aspects of present, sweaty, energy-driven dancers might collaborate with the more staid, focused, and digitally manipulated forms of either 2D or 3D film.”

My own contribution to the book is a chapter on Fred Astaire.  This marvelous dancer’s best work was captured on film.  Moreover, Astaire exercised considerable control over how his work was recorded.  My study tracked the development of his inimitable style across the two decades of his Hollywood career, through a movement analysis of solos drawn from three films, one from early in his career, one mid-career, and his final staring role in a musical.

Dance’s Duet with the Camera began with a call for papers early in 2011.  It took five years and enormous perseverance on the part of the two editors to bring the book into being.  This was not due to any lack of commitment on the part of the contributors.  Rather the arduous journey of this publication from conception to reality reflects the difficulty of publishing books about dance.

Walk into any brick and mortar bookstore today and see how much shelf space is devoted to dance and/or movement books.  This will provide a pretty clear picture of the challenges that Arendell and Barnes faced.

Consequently, the publication of Dance’s Duet with the Camera is a great triumph.  It’s multiple and varied essays are written from the dancer’s perspective in five parts addressing “Site/Sight and the Body,” “Movement Beyond the I/Eye,” “Querying Praxis,” “Bodies, Spaces, Camera,” and “New Technologies: Dance as 3D’s Ultimate Agent.”

The Value of Choreutics Part 2

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Untitled design (2)In addition to developing physical skills, Choreutic practice also challenges movers intellectually.  It gives us a way to think about space.

Generally, if we think about space at all, we think of it as a void, an empty place. In other words, for us, space is an absence.  Laban, on the other hand, asserts that space is a presence, a “superabundance” of potential movements.  And he provides a geography to help us visualize the many possible pathways our movements may take.

Cognitive maps of movement space are generally confined to the cardinal dimensions (up, right, forward, etc.) and the cardinal planes (vertical, horizontal, and sagittal).  Laban, on the other hand, introduces a host of deflected directions and oblique lines.  His Choreutic scales never stay in a single dimension or plane, but shift among these lines and surfaces in complex and highly symmetrical patterns.  They ask that we break out of our habits of thought; they become a kind of brain gym.

Why do we need to think about space?  Because we live there.  If we want to reach up, and something is in the way, we need to deflect our trajectory to reach our goal.  Laban gives us all kinds of possible modifications – up and forward, up and to the side, up/across/backward, etc.  If, due to injury or disease, our capacity to reach straight up is limited, we need to be able to rechart the path.  Laban’s notions provide many options.

In the “Advanced Space Harmony Workshop,” we will be introducing more options for exploring and thinking about space.

The Value of Choreutic Practice

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Untitled design (1)“Why are we learning this?”  Anyone who has ever taught Space Harmony will have heard this question from students.  In fact, many Certified Movement Analysts have themselves struggled with this part of Laban’s work.   But the study of Choreutics is worthwhile, and in blogs across the next two months I will explain why.

To begin with, performing well-known sequences — the Axis, Girdle, and A and B Scales — helps to develop many body-level skills.  These peripheral and transverse sequences follow oblique trajectories in the space around the body. To reach the signal points in the kinesphere prescribed by Laban, the mover must abandon the security of remaining vertically aligned (i.e., in plumb with gravity) and tilt the whole body, shifting between the cardinal planes in big movements that sweep through space.

To do so necessitates active mobilization of weight shifting through the lower body, as well as a full range of motion and the use of gradated rotation in the upper body.  And that is not all.  To execute these sequences well, the mover must establish a good upper/lower connection, integrate three-dimensional shaping through the torso, and utilized active counter-tension among the limbs.

When Laban designed these sequences nearly a hundred years ago, he wanted dancers to break out of the stasis of ballet, with its emphasis on the cardinal directions.  He certainly succeeded, for his Choreutic sequences require a synthesis of bodily skills.  Rather than finding and maintaining a fixed placement, the dancer is asked to develop a mobile balancing capacity. The reward is full access to three-dimensional space!

Challenge your own understanding of Choreutics in MoveScape Center’s “Advanced Space Harmony Workshop” in New York City in December.  Find out more….

Navigating the World of Movement Analysis

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labanby Kathie Debenham

The wonderful world of Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals is  “foreign territory” to most university students who encounter it for the first time as dance majors at Utah Valley University where I have taught Introduction to Laban Studies and Bartenieff Fundamentals for 20 years. I am always on the lookout for resources that can help students enter and successfully navigate the world of movement theory and practice. My goal as a teacher is to provide the students with many opportunities to embody the concepts of Body, Effort, Shape and Space and to make meaning and discover personal application of these concepts in both their “dancing life” and the world beyond the dance studio.

When Meaning in Motion became available several years ago, I was excited to find a text that gave not only clear examples of theoretical concepts but also included suggestions for creative exploration that the students could do on their own outside of class. After using the text since it first became available in 2012, I have found it to be an invaluable resource for my classes.

Carol-Lynne writes with clarity about the LMA theory, placing it in both historical and contemporary contexts. Overall the level of writing is accessible to my students and gives them a reference to return to when preparing assignments for class.

Last Spring when we were studying and exploring the Effort category, I asked the students at midterm to fully embody one of the Effort Drives and the surrounding States.  The students approached the assignment in varied ways; some of them used the prompts in the Effort section of Meaning in Motion, others used those prompts to create their own Effort-laden scenarios, others came at it kinesthetically from their own Effort-full exploration and then named the most salient States and Drives.

When the students performed their Effort studies, the rest of the class practiced observing and naming  (and symboling if they could add that layer of complexity!) what they saw. Each student was also assigned to share their observation of a fellow student so that I could “see” what the students were seeing. It was delightful to see the students developing their “Effort chops” both as performers and as observers, and it was clear they were excited to have language to describe what they were seeing.

The Challenge of Teaching LMA

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labanby Laurie Cameron

It is always a challenge to create a syllabus for Laban Movement Analysis.  At Pomona College, my goal is to cover the theoretical bases of LMA while encouraging embodiment of the material through regular practice of the Bartenieff Fundamentals and creative explorations that lead students to an understanding of the material within their own physical capabilities.  This has to happen in two one-hour and 15 minute sessions per week for 14 weeks.

Meaning in Motion has become an anchor for my course.  The opening chapters (History and Development and Overview of LMA) provide context and introduce the important characters.  As I move through the Space material, the students read all of Part 5.  I generally do not assign creative exercises for them to do on their own, simply because there are always students who need immediate reinforcement before confusion sets in.  I do plan to modify a few of the suggested exercises to try in class, possibly in groups.  For instance, students (in groups) might be given a simple score:  one group will be asked to interpret it through peripheral pathways, while the other group uses only central pathways.

I always seem to run out of time and wish that students could concentrate more on Effort.  I am determined to push us faster during the first third of the course so they can play more.  Students with strong interests in Psychology, Sociology, and Neuroscience often become really engaged as they observe Effort Drives.  I do plan to include creative explorations derived from those suggested in Part 4.

I am grateful to have this book as a way of keeping me on track.  Students who want more information can refer to it and be led to original source material.  It is an excellent study guide in preparation for quizzes and tests and provides more material than I am able to deliver.

LMA and the “Vaccination Theory” of Education

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labanIn the Vaccination Theory of Education, students are led to believe that once they have “had” a subject, they are immune to it and need not take it again.

Though Postman and Weingartner proposed the vaccination theory in 1969 as a criticism of educational practices, it is hardly a dated critique.  Courses in higher education and professional training are still arranged as seemingly finite subjects.  Laban Movement Analysis is no exception.

Certainly there is more to movement analysis than can be gleaned in a one-semester course.  Yet far too many students are inclined to feel that they have “had” Laban once the course of study is complete.

For this reason, I have put more material in Meaning in Motion: Introducing Laban Movement Analysis than can be covered in a single semester.  I’m hoping that some students at least will see that there is more to learn about movement.  Four separate bibliographies in Appendix A are also there to show that the field of study is deeper than one slim text.

The textbook is also designed so instructors can tailor courses.  In the next blog, see how Laurie Cameron uses selected parts of Meaning in Motion in her LMA classes for dance majors and non-majors at Pomona College.