The Value of Movement Study

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LabanThe diversity of applications of movement analysis showcased at the June conference in Montreal was awesome.  And that is just the beginning….

As the sociologist Bryan S. Turner noted:  “The body is at once the most solid, the most elusive, illusory, concrete, metaphorical, every present and ever distant thing.”  Surely the same can be said of bodily movement – it is omnipresent in human life, yet elusive to perceive and interpret. Nevertheless, it has enormous potential.

According to journalist Olive Moore:  “This science of movement study is so remarkable that at first its significance is difficult to grasp.  But if we think of human movement as we should – as the outward and visible symbol of man entire, his spirit mirrored indelibly in every conscious and unconscious movement he makes – we have for the first time in human history a complete diagnosis which allows no error and cannot lie.”

It is true that disciplined movement study like Movement Pattern Analysis profiling can provide objective insight into human behavior; it can enhance the understanding of self and others.  But movement study can be more — it can bring us closer to something fundamental in existence, something of great intrinsic value.

As the philosopher Henri Bergson observed:  “Movement is reality itself.”  Once we recognize this, “What was immobile and frozen in our perception is warmed and set in motion.  Everything comes to life around us, everything is revivified in us.”

Comparing Movement Analysis Practices

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LabanAs one of 12 Laban Movement Analysts who participated in a 2014 research project comparing our observations with those of 12 experts in the French system of Functional Analysis of the Dancing Body (AFCMD), I was keen to hear the preliminary results of the study.

The presentation of the project by co-researchers Nicole Harbonnier-Topin, Genevieve Dussault, and Catherine Ferri at the Montreal conference in early June did not disappoint.  Here is a brief report on their findings.

The study focused on making explicit the “tacit knowledge” employed by expert movement analysts.   To clarify not only what experts see, but also how they accomplish skilled movement observation, Harbonnier-Topin utilized a structured, phenomenological interview technique while asking each analyst to respond to the same videotaped dance sequence.

Eight interviews from each analyst group were chosen and transcribed.  Then these transcriptions were coded as to the various observation processes each interviewee employed, such as describing, identifying, prioritizing, inferring, evaluating, constructing meaning, etc.  Some interesting differences in choice and frequency of process use emerged between the two groups of analysts.

A secondary aspect of the research addressed convergence and divergence between the analytic systems themselves.  Based upon emerging data, the areas of flow, weight, and relationship of space emerged as areas needing additional research.

The Montreal seminar provided an opportunity for additional data collection, as participating analysts were asked to run movement workshops focused on these aspects.  Learn more in the next blog.