Having a Good Fight

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Many years ago while studying counseling psychology, I analyzed the “Gloria tapes.”  In these films three famous psychotherapists – Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, and Albert Elllis – each interview the same young woman, Gloria.   Through my focus on the nonverbal dimension of the therapy session with Perls, I learned something about movement and fighting.

Mirroring, echoing, and synchrony are indicative of rapport. As I watched the videotape without sound, I saw many instances of these behaviors between Gloria and Perls. For example, Gloria would retreat, then Perls would lean back. Or Perls would advance, and Gloria would echo this postural shift.  When Gloria executed a series of rapid hand movements, Perls repeated the motions in a more leisurely fashion.

 

Nevertheless, I was aware that they two quarreled at one point during the session.  I was shocked, however, when I finally listened to the tape. Then I discovered that their quarrel began almost at the very beginning of the session!

 

This discovery cast the nonverbal indicators of rapport in a different light.  I had to surmise that “having a good fight” involves some degree of coordination between the combatants.  Perhaps this explains why some couples seem to enjoy fighting….

Rapport through Movement

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Human movement occurs in space and time.  Nonverbal communication research has shown that rapport is established both spatially and temporally.  Both facets are so ubiquitous as to escape our attention, yet they are nevertheless profound – the very bedrock on which congenial human interaction is based.

The arrangement of body parts in space – the way in which an individual poses and positions himself – holds clues to rapport.  Symmetry is critical. Researchers have found that when two people sit in identical positions or as mirror images of each other’s pose, this shared posture indicates that they share a point of view.  When this phenomenon of posture matching is not simultaneous but sequential, it is called echoing. Echoing another’s posture has also been found to be a way to promote rapport.

Keeping together in time is also essential for satisfying interaction. Synchrony was discovered by William Condon through painstaking analysis of films in slow motion.   He found that when individuals converse, not only does the speaker synchronize his/her movements with speech, but also the listener moves in time with the speech of the speaker. There will not be an exact mirroring of gestures.  For example, the speaker’s head may tilt and exactly as it does so, the listener will lift one hand. “Entrainment” is the term Condon coined for the process that occurs when two or more people become engaged in each other’s rhythms.  

Mirroring, echoing, and entrainment are naturally occurring phenomenon noted when movement is taken seriously as an essential aspect of social behavior.  And this has profound implications for dance. Find out more in the next blogs.

World of Movement, World of Wonder

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Guest blog by Juliet Chambers-Coe

Laban characterized the dynamic yet ephemeral world of movement as “a jungle of sudden appearances and disappearances, a glistening and colorful wonder-world which awaits exploration.”

Girl-in-Flowers

The www.Labanarium.com  is a part of this ‘jungle’ and ‘wonder-world’ of which Laban speaks.  Members from across the globe meet through the network to share practice, ideas, research and inspirations from the world of movement, and it awaits your exploration!

In the spirit of movement and dance theorist Rudolf Laban, the Labanarium seeks to foster an exchange between members of the movement community and is open to the breadth and diversity of practices that explore all human movement.

Anyone can become a Member of the Labanarium – it’s free to join https://www.labanarium.com/register/

Benefits of membership:

  • connect to others in the movement community
  • have access to resource pages including Podcasts
  • create your own Group and invite others to join
  • get your activities featured on ‘Featured Contributors’ page
  • promote your events
  • increase your visibility in the field
  • engage in Laban theory with expert, established practitioner members
  • receive newsletters, articles, event invitations via the free mailing list subscription
  • participate in forum discussions

Check out some of our community’s expert contributions so far: https://www.labanarium.com/featured-contributors/

Laban reminds us that “dance is never the end of a development, it much rather seems to indicate the beginning of an unfolding…it is the spring-time of a new period….”

 

So, come to ‘jungle’ and have a look around, and join us in the unfolding of new beginnings in movement and dance!

Mastery of Movement, Mastery of Self

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Michael Murphy theorizes that “flesh and consciousness tend to coevolve” through the practice of movement and somatic disciplines.  Thus virtuosity – effort economy or the technical perfection of “effortless-ness” – may indeed have a higher function.

Asian-Man-Doing-Karate

“Cutting Up an Ox,” by the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu, mirrors this idea.  

 

In this parable, a Chinese prince observes the virtuosity of his cook butchering an ox.  The cleaver “murmured like a gentle wind” and the ox “fell apart with a whisper.”  The prince exclaims, “Your method is faultless.”  But butcher explains otherwise:

 

“When I first began to cut up oxen, I would see before me the whole ox, all in one mass.  After three years, I no longer saw this mass.  I saw the distinctions.”

 

“But now, I see nothing with the eye.  My whole being apprehends… my cleaver finds its own way.”

 

“There are spaces in the joints; the blade is thin and keen:  When this thinness finds that space…it goes like a breeze.”

 

“Then I stand still and let the joy of the work sink in.”

 

“This is it!” the prince exclaims.  “My cook has shown me how I ought to live my own life!”

Seductive Virtuosity: The Winter Olympics

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Although I’m not a big sports fan, I must confess that I am completely seduced by the virtuosity of the Olympic athletes. The dangerous things they do so well are truly mesmerizing.

The danger is part of the appeal. Ice, snow, and steep slopes make perilous surfaces for even normal locomotion. What amazes me, however, is the extent to which the skiers, snowboarders, and skaters are increasingly airborne – turning, twisting, somersaulting – and somehow returning to earth intact and sliding on to the next fantastic trick.

skier-snowboarder-on-mountain

Laban’s comments on virtuosity in Mastery of Movement are interesting in this context. Virtuosos, like highly skilled laborers, show an economy of effort “that makes the movement look almost effortless. Expressive details remain almost accidental … because the whole effort is concentrated on the actions necessary” to the task.  

The commentators like to emphasize the athletes’ dedication and struggles to overcome obstacles, and this certainly adds a background of drama to the competition. However, the Olympics are riveting primarily because of the technical perfection of the athletes’ physical performances. From Laban’s perspective, such movement virtuosity functions as escapist entertainment, allowing spectators to “find comfort and relief” from “workaday sorrows.”

Are these spectacles of perfection merely escapist entertainment? Find out more in the next blogs.

Living Fully in Three Dimensions

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As bipeds with mobile shoulder and hip joints, human beings have a wide range of motion available.  Yet physical challenges, such as the force of gravity and our heavy heads, limit the extent to which we actively tap fully three-dimensional movement. And mental habits can also limit our access to space.

 

Rudolf Laban succinctly identified two cognitive maps of space. The first is the dimensional cross and the cardinal directions of up and down, right and left, forward and backward. Laban relates these movement directions with stability.

Living-Fully-3-Dimensions

 

In contrast, Laban also identified four diagonal lines of motion. Think of these as radiating lines that connect the opposite corners of a cube or rectilinear room. Laban relates these sharply tilted lines with mobility.

 

Then Laban makes an interesting observation. Since most movements are neither completely stable or totally mobile, “the trace-forms of living matter” follow trajectories that lie between the dimensions and diagonals.

 

Laban went on to develop lengthy sequences of movement that follow these deflected pathways. These lines of motion, which are more subtle than normal cognitive maps of space, are mentally challenging.  Moreover, they physically test balance and range of motion.

 

Nevertheless, Laban’s choreutic models encourage living fully in three dimensions.  Find out more in the forthcoming MoveScape Center correspondence course.

Comments on “Decoding Choreutics”

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I created the correspondence course, “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics” last year for two reasons: 1) I wanted to push myself to study this seminal book deeply, and 2) now that it is back in print, I wanted to encourage other movement analysts to read it, too.

Decoding-Laban-Choreutics

I’ve read Choreutics more than once, and it has always been my favorite of Laban’s books. I learned a lot by organizing the reading assignments, and re-reading along with fellow movement analysts. Here is what some of them had to say:

“The course provided me with a most satisfying and fulfilling re-engagement with the world of LMA.”

“I gained the chance to digest/redigest this material 30+ years hence my original training – which allowed me to bring MY experience into the mix.”

“The pace was just right. The work load was enough to be engaging but not so much as to be overwhelming.”

“The commentaries are very interesting; they add more information and insight to the writings of Laban.”

“I’m inspired to rethink how I engage my students in the Space Harmony material.”

“Decoding Laban’s Masterpiece Choreutics” starts again in October.  Register now.

Advancing Laban’s Ideas in the Movement Studio

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During the recent MoveScape Center workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere,” in New York City, we all had an “ah ha” moment about Laban’s effort theory. Here is how this insight unfolded.

Laban identified four effort drives. Of these, the Action Drive is the best known, for it deals with practical movements involved in working with tangible objects. The other three drives – Vision, Passion, and Spell – are called “transformation drives.” These are more subtle and complex effort combinations that have less to do with physical actions and more to do with mental activities such as thinking, feeling, and willing.

Advancing-Labans-Movement

For Laban, mental activities also involve moving. I’m sure he would agree with Mabel Ellsworth Todd, who wrote “For every thought supported by feeling, there is a muscle change.” Laban obviously characterized the combination of space, time, and flow factors as the outward embodiment of visionary states of mind – those mental acts of following a line of thought, steadily concentrating, soaring on the wings of imagination, catching a sudden insight, coming to a gradual realization, and so on.

Yet, when workshop participants were asked to identify associations with the various combinations of Vision Drive, they kept coming up with practical actions, like throwing darts and quenching fires. They reverted to physical actions that were not visionary in the least.  

This made us all realize that while we movement folk complain about the mind/body split, we tend to privilege the body over the mind. This sometimes leads us to think about effort in strictly physical terms.  

Laban was way ahead. He realized that movement is a psychophysical phenomenon. And he stuck to this view, finding effort in thinking, feeling, and willing as well as in acting.

Advancing Laban’s Ideas

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I am dedicated to advancing Laban’s thinking – on the printed page, in the real space of the movement studio, and in the virtual space of the internet. I’ll be working in all three areas this autumn.

Advancing-Laban's-Ideas

Irmgard Bartenieff observed that Laban’s life was “one great unfinished symphony.” She wanted her students to understand that Laban’s notation and movement analysis systems did not come about all at once. According to Irmgard, Laban was counting on future generations to carry the study of movement forward.

Of course, I think Laban developed his ideas to a greater extent than generally recognized.  Laban’s unpublished papers and drawings show that he continued to expand and refine his theories of human movement across the final two decades of his life. Unfortunately, he did not live to see this mature theoretical work published.

I have published some of Laban’s mature theories in The Harmonic Structure of Movement, Music, and Dance. But his notions are not entirely easy to grasp just by reading about them. Consequently, I’ve been developing additional approaches to make these exciting concepts more concrete. Find out how in the following blogs.

Body or Soma?

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Laban Movement Analysis allows one to approach the body both objectively and subjectively. Labanotation and motif writing provide means to analyze body actions objectively, while the somatic practice of Bartenieff Fundamentals is focused more on internal self-awareness.

body-or-soma

Both bodily perspectives are presented in Meaning in Motion. The first section provides a terse illustration of how bodily actions are analyzed and recorded. The second section places the work of Laban and Bartenieff in the broader context of the somatics movement. A third section discusses principles and exercises of Bartenieff Fundamentals. The chapter closes with a compilation of body level concepts.

By incorporating both perspectives, instructors can tailor the “body” component of an LMA course to their specific needs. For some courses, a more basic and objective approach may be appropriate. What are the parts of my body? What are the types of actions I can do? How can I make simple sequences of actions? Studio activities around these questions can lead on to experience with simple notation or pave the way for another course in Labanotation.

Other instructors may prefer to focus on somatic dimensions. Some students relish this, others may resist. In the context of this, I have found that the key is to link the seemingly simple Bartenieff Fundamentals exercises to more dynamic and demanding movement sequences so that students experience links between body, effort, and space.