In the beginning of her 1962 lecture, Irmgard Bartenieff explains: “My work in rehabilitation has been almost from the start research into the nature of physical disability (distorted functional movement) and of mental illness (disturbed emotional or expressive movement).”
She goes on to note that “thinking in terms of EFFORT eliminates the arbitrary separation of the physical and the psychological.”
She closes by recommending that the Dance Notation Bureau promote effort notation and observation in addition to Labanotation. “The existence of both systems, supplementary to each other, opens up new possibilities for research in all areas of human movement, whether it be dance, science or industry.”
While enjoying that turkey dinner, I hope you will mull over Bartenieff’s final sentence:
“Movement notation and observation can make a valuable contribution to the study of the behavior of man.”