As students are grappling with the general concepts and descriptive terms of Laban Movement Analysis, they often ask hypothetical questions. For example, “If I were on board a ship crossing the international dateline while balancing an ice cream cone on my nose, would that be lightness?”

Laban Movement Analysis may be a parsimonious taxonomy of abstract terms, but it was developed to provide an empirical description of concrete physical actions. So whenever I get a hypothetical question like the one above, I always ask the student to demonstrate. It is simply not possible to analyze a hypothetical movement accurately.

Similarly students will describe something they have seen and ask the instructor (who has not seen the event) if it was X or Y? Again, it is not possible to analyze something one has not observed accurately.

So while students need to be out in the world, watching people move and trying on their Laban glasses, this does not suffice. They must be seen seeing. They must have what they have seen confirmed by a more experienced observer.

The Embodiment Project is one assignment I have developed to address this need. Students are assigned to observe a repeated action of some sort, learn to perform it, and write an analytic description of the action. Then in class the student performs the action and discusses his or her analysis. This allows the instructor to see what the student has seen (at least approximately) and confirm or correct the student’s analysis.

Tip #4 – Make movement observation and analysis concrete so that students can be see and be confirmed and/or corrected in what they are seeing.

It has taken me years to realize that Laban’s movement analysis system is abstract. The descriptive terms are quite general. Take effort – there are only four motion factors and eight effort qualities for describing any movement a human being can do. This means that the same effort quality can be in movements that look nothing alike, occur in different contexts, and are performed for different reasons.

A student can do strong movements in the studio and concretely experience the physical sensation of increasing pressure. But to transfer that “felt sense” and reliably identify the effort quality of strength in a variety of movements is quite another thing. The student really needs to build a bank of images – strength used in shoveling, strength in a stamping dance, strength in a hand gesture, strength with sustainment, etc. And this is where video can be enormously helpful when used wisely.

Using video wisely involves two things: finding clear examples and giving students an appropriate point of concentration. It doesn’t do much good to bring in a video clip and ask a group of 15 students, “What did you see?” The instructor will get 15 different answers, simultaneously raising the observation anxiety level by 200%. (I know because I have been there and done that!)

In contrast, students can be directed to look at how the weight effort is used in a video clip that has clear examples. This approach allows students to look for what is there. When they see it and identify it, the instructor can confirm their analysis. This procedure not only builds students’ confidence, it also builds an inner bank of images to which each student can refer later when observing solo.

Tip #3 – Prescreen video to find clear examples of an effort or space element, then direct students to watch for that element.

Human movement exists at a perpetual vanishing point, disappearing even as it is occurring. With no fixed points, movement is devilishly difficult to observe, let alone to pin down and analyze.

Thank goodness for video recording. The rewind button makes it possible for students to see the same event repeated exactly as many times as they need. Live observation, of course, is richer. It is life size, genuinely three-dimensional, and many fine details blurred on a video recording are clearer in the flesh.

However, even simple repetitive working actions or choreographed sequences vary with each performance. I have found these subtle variations to be very frustrating for beginning observers. I still use live observation. But I supplement it with video examples. And this has never been easier, because there is so much visual movement material available now via the internet.

Tip #2 – Use video wisely and don’t be afraid to hit the rewind button. For more about using video wisely, see the next blog.

Learning to analyze movement takes time. Because at least 60% of human communication is estimated to be nonverbal and behavioral, everyone has developed his or her own way of seeing and coding movement. That is, everyone possesses body knowledge and body prejudices. Learning to observe movement objectively using Laban’s taxonomy of effort and space necessitates setting aside pre-existing approaches.

In my own development as a movement analyst, I found I “went blank” for a while when first attempting to observe a movement event. I felt as if I wasn’t getting any information or seeing anything, and this was quite disturbing. Gradually I realized that blank period served a purpose. It gave me time to set aside my customary ways of seeing movement. And this readied me to put on my Laban glasses.

Analyzing movement is like any other physical activity – one needs time to warm up. Warming up has two elements. First, the observer needs to relax, to let go of  preoccupations and to go blank, in a sense.

Secondly, the observer needs to begin to focus attention on the movement event to be observed. This initial focus can be soft and fuzzy, a kind of attuning to the movement without attempting to be analytical and precise. Because movement perception involves multiple senses there are many ways for student observers to attune. Several practical ways to attune are demonstrated in the video chapters of Beyond Words.

Attuning opens the gates of movement perception in a gentle way. So my first tip: don’t ask students to see a movement only once and analyze it. Give them some time to warm up, to relax, and to attune to the movement.