Big and Small: Impacts of Laban Movement Analysis

This past week marked my certification as a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst. This occasion marked just over a year’s worth of hard work. As candidates we had to pass a Written Evaluation, a Movement Evaluation, and a 30 minute presentation. This program has impacted my life in so many ways—big and small. I decided to post one of my answers on the Written Evaluation here to show one of the small (and yet huge) ways this program has influenced me.

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For the past several days, I’ve been in our office taking my written evaluation for the Integrated Movement Studies (IMS) program. To the left caddy corner to my desk is a fish bowl in which my boyfriend’s Betta fish lives. Or maybe I should say MY Betta fish. I’ve been caring for this fish even before I moved in here. When I first met Mr. Fish, as I call him, he was barely alive. He laid down at the bottom of his bowl barely moving. When I realized Mr. Fish had not been fed very often, I took up the task. At first, Mr. Fish could barely make it from the bottom of the bowl to the top of the water to reach the food. If he missed one of the little pellets on his first desperate attempt, he would have to rest for a good five minutes before trying again. Slowly, I’ve been nursing him back to health—mostly just by feeding him on a regular basis (who knew right?) and now more often than not, he’s actually swimming around his bowl.

However, now that he’s more active, my cat Shashka has taken a greater interest in him. Most of the time, she just likes to lay on the desk and watch him. And, oddly enough, the fish loves her. He swims joyously around his bowl and looks at her when she jumps up. Every once in awhile, she decides that sticking her face into the top of the fish bowl would give her a better view. I don’t want her doing this because I fear it could lead to her “playing” with the Mr. Fish and killing him. And I’ve grown attached to Mr. Fish. So, every time she puts her nose into the bowl, I snap my fingers at her, with Quickness  to get her attention, Directness to intimate that I am indeed intending the motion to her, and Strength, as if to say, “No!”
(For those of you not familiar with Strength, Quickness, and Directness, they are all considered Effort Factors in the Laban system. Effort refers to the attitude of the mover toward their intention to move. The Weight Effort Factor (Strength is one) is the “me-ness” in the intention to move. It’s how much of themselves a mover takes into the action. Often Strong Weight is seen as the amount of confidence or power a person has at a given moment in time.  Space Factor (Directness is one) is the mover's attention to the space or environment. Direct Space Effort is focusing very specifically on one focal point. In this case my Direct focus was on my cat specifically. Quickness is a Time Effort Factor which refers to the mover's intention to act in the moment “now.” When someone responds with Quickness, there is a sense of immediacy in their actions.)

When I notice her, placing her face into the fish bowl from the corner of my eye, I turn my body from my waist, initiating the movement from my feet on the ground, slowly with Sustainment (a Time Factor, the opposite of Quick) and Directness. As I finish turning and verify that she does indeed have her nose in the bowl. Nose in the bowl verification complete, I snap my fingers at her with Strength, Quickness, and Directness leaving my hand at the edge of my Kinesphere, closer to her than me. After the snap there is a brief moment of Strong Weight and Direct Space (Stable State) where my attention remains directly and forcefully on her, as if to say “Yes, I really mean it.”

The revelation here was based in my success or failure to use Strong Weight in that snapping (Action Drive Punch) moment. Over the past few days of writing this evaluation, I have had the opportunity to experience this movement many times. I’ve noticed that when I don’t quite get all my weight behind this movement and end up using Lightness (a Weight Factor on the other end of the spectrum) instead, my cat responds as if I’m giving her the option to take her head out of the bowl but not commanding it. She hears “Well, if you could maybe remove your head from the bowl, I’d appreciate it, but if not that’s OK too.”

And, not surprisingly, she chooses to leave her head exactly where it is. On the other hand, if I am able to really get behind my weight and manifest Strength in that snapping moment (an Action Drive Punch), she responds by quickly removing her head and taking a few steps back from the bowl, blinking in surprise and annoyance. So, by really clarifying my intent and my Strength I am able to communicate what I intend (for her to take her head out of the bowl) more clearly.

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I’ve found that this short moment with my cat plays into my life as well. When I first began my study of Effort, Strong Weight felt very uncomfortable to me. As the IMS program progressed, I realized that when I used Strong Weight, I felt like I was being pushy. I didn’t want to be pushy. So, because I had a negative value placed on using Strong Weight, I was resistant to using it and tended to see Strong Weight as a negative quality in other people.

The more I practiced Strong Weight, the more I recognized that Strong Weight is not innately negative, but is perfectly applicable in certain situations—like motivating a large group of my dance students to move. And, as a result, I am able to use Strong Weight where I deem it appropriate (like when I want my cat to GET HER NOSE OUT OF THE FISH BOWL).

In Dance, Winner Gives All: On Sports and Competition

After having the National and American Football Championships as background while working and reading over past posts, another valuable lesson that dance has to teach us came up for me. Dance offers an alternative to the dualistic notion of competition found in sports. Dancers train intensely but not for quantitative, scientific or competitive goals. Instead, dancers train their bodies to create a means of being more qualitative, emotive, articulate and expressive human beings.

In the field of dance, there is still camaraderie , intense training, and public acknowledgment of talents and gifts. Where dance differs from the world of sports is in its rejection of the dualistic notion of winners and losers, quantitative notions of a first place, second place, and third place winner. Dance provides a complexity of experience, not a uniform or repetitive sensation of joy or disappointment when the team of choice either wins or loses. Instead, audience members are faced with more complex quandaries than who won the contest. Audience members of dance experience emotional reactions, ponder questions, and admire the potential for fuller expression of human nature and physiological articulation of the human body. Whether this is a positive or negative experience for the audience member, it is in fact very different from that of competition. Dance calls upon the viewer to experience complex constellations of emotion such as apathy, anger, impatience, humor, sorrow and passion.

In this way, dance is inclusive. It is inclusive of all voices through which the dance is performed, processes by which dance is created and reactions by those experience the dance. There is no one final winner in dance that excludes and obscures all who lose. Notions of facts and figures, statistics, and unilateral results are not primary to the field of dance. There is space for many dancers to express themselves. In these spaces, dancers are honored and revered, not for being the winners in their field but for articulating something about the human condition that has never been expressed in that exact way before. There is enough room for all of those who commit to the process of creating dance to be appreciated and admired for doing so.

Now of course I am not oblivious to the idea of how people create a hierarchy of performers, choreographers, and companies within the dance community. I would argue, though, that this hierarchy is a symptom of the dualistic, hierarchical, Cartesian world-view in which we all live and not a part of the nature of dance itself. Before there was Western concert dance, people danced as a means to express uniqueness of self or a group identity. In cultural contexts other than Western concert dance, many dances were performed in a way that all could be included and honored. There was no winner who was set above all others in these inclusive forms of cultural dance forms. Instead there was a collective of individuals whose unique place in the larger community only strengthened the whole. Dance offers solace to those beaten down by the aggression, dualist thinking, and “winner takes all” mentality of competitive sports. It offers people a place where their voices can be heard, where the individual competes with their best self not with others. It is a place where there can be more than one “winner.” The winner in dance is the person who finds effective and creative ways to better articulate their bodies and their message. Dance’s potential to honor the voice of each and every individual is another invaluable gift it offers society.

The Mind and the Body

The end of the last blog got me thinking about how little the body is considered within Western culture. Part of this most likely stems from Cartesian dualism, beginning with Decartes and continuing through the present day.

Dualism is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “the condition of being double,” with “the view that the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities.” In other words, dualism operates on the assumption that everything has a polar opposite. Every whole has two opposing parts. Masculine, feminine; rational, emotional: the idea of complimentary (and polarized) opposites is pervasive Western society and culture. 

In the dance world, the concept of dualism has resulted the metaphor that the body is a tool or instrument subject to the mind where the body is inferior to the mind. The mind dictates, the body does. Mind over matter. People in Western society often “push” (with their mind) through tiredness, sickness, and emotional distress, ignoring that these are all signals from the body of what it might need. If ignored for long enough, the body will eventually rebel by breaking down.

When injury or sickness does occur, an attitude of indifference to the mental and emotional ramifications the bodily injury might have on the mind are ignored. Your ankle may be sprained, but you’re fine. A bodily injury (depending on the severity) should not affect your mind—your rationality, the “essence” of your being.  In other words, “you” are not your body, “you” are your mind.

The dualism of body and mind can even result in a sense of accomplishment when we are able to “overcome” the body using the mind. For example, as a dancer I would push myself to dance when my body clearly needed rest. I remember I insisted on going to class one day when I was sick. I danced through the entire class and returned home to find that my temperature was 102 and that I had strep throat. Even once I realized I was sick, I did not admonish myself, instead I congratulated myself on my dedication. I was proud of myself for “pushing” through.

What would society be like if we were able to overcome this polarized duality? What would it mean for how we deal with physical pain?

Perhaps, there could be more acceptance of physical pain being connected to the mind and emotional duress connected to the physical. Perhaps it will become more common to treat a person as a whole rather than as separate parts.

It seems like quite a long road, however. This way of being is completely integrated into our society and culture so that  we don’t even notice it or think twice about it. Dualism is ingrained in our speech, our thought, our movement, our value system. It will take a lot of conscious effort and intent to change, and, of course, a lot of time.

Dance: So What's the Point?

This past year I have temporarily moved from New York City back to my small hometown in North Carolina. I will spare you the details of the challenges and difficulties adjusting to the pace and culture of life here. Instead, I'd like to address what I've learned about artists and dancers specifically while surrounded by a culture who lacks exposure to dance. From the difficulty of my transition I have come to understand the value of dance within a community in a way that was just words before I moved from New York. I know those of us working in the arts are always hearing the bullet points of why the arts or dance are important. But I have come to understand my value as a dancer in a deeper way.

Since my move, I've been stuck with the eternal question, "Why does living here feel so different for me as a dancer?" I've struggled with so many questions in terms of my value and identity while in my hometown.

Am I a dancer any longer without a community that values my profession?
What makes me or ever made me a dancer in the first place?
What makes me fundamentally different than the rest of my current community of non-dancers?
What is it exactly that I feel is lacking in terms of support that I would get in a community of artists or dancers?

These questions have lead me to powerful realizations about dance and what it provides within a community. Much of what I've learned can also be provided by other art forms, but there is something about using the body in such an articulate way where words are not a requirement that makes dance so unique. The last blog post is about lack of appreciation of dance. This blog is about what values go unseen by most in terms of what dance brings to our society.

Dance brings creativity. Ok so we already know that. Yes? But dance brings a very specific type of creative thinking. For many who aren't artists, the status quot of how society and culture work is static and fully accepted as reality. But this isn't the case for dancers. The impulse for me as a dancer is to create, not only something that fills my soul but that expresses that potential to each audience member. In each and every dance, dancers create new worlds that did not exist before the dance was brought into existence. And we do this in a fully physical way. We actually do something instead of just thinking or talking about it. Dancers are attentive to questions of perfection, specificity, problem-solving, and clear intention that those who are on procedural auto-pilot at their jobs rarely experience. We see possibilities, not just static structures and protocol. We don't accept current realities as final realities. We just create new ones, more fulfilling ones, better ones for ourselves. And we share them with our audiences in such a way that we open them to those possibilities as well.

Because of this expertise in creating evocative worlds of clear intent and problem resolution, it is a part of our lives as well. It is incredibly difficult for me to hear a phrase I hear so much as of late, "But that's just the way things are." As a dancer who creates new worlds, I see this as the death of artistic and societal potential. . . the death of infinite possibilities that have the power to improve the status quot. It is unfathomable to me that people who have little experience creating and problem-solving see an issue and have difficulties not only resolving the issue but even articulating or understanding that it can be solved. I've been in meetings where nothing was accomplished and nothing was discussed in a generative, progressive way. People just stated their opinions either about the topic or about someone else's opinion of the topic. And then everyone went home. That's not in the make-up of a dancer. We identify, articulate, frame the problem or question, and create ways to solve that problem or question. Then (and here's the kicker) we actually solve the problem or question all while still acknowledging there are an infinite amount of alternative ways to approach and resolve that same problem or question. We do this in an inclusive way, where other perspectives are creatively integrated into the whole of the solutions. What we often miss in our dance communities of support, is that the rest of the world outside of arts and dance are not as able to accomplish this phenomena. They have limited experience in this process.

Another powerful thing that we often take for granted is that dance brings awareness and integration. What I mean by that is we as dancers have an intimate and infinitely knowledgeable relationship with our bodies that most do not have. We know how to communicate with others using our bodies and also how to communicate with our own bodies. A small and seemingly inconsequential example is that moment that I would have so often in New York of being in an elevator or crowded train noticing how unaware the general public is of the use of space and how they fill space. It may seem small and inconsequential at first, until you see the frustration that bubbles to the surface from people who feel that others are being inconsiderate. These small moments have escalated to arguments and even physical altercations. Now when you think of a society who is aware of their personal space and how they use space in public, how small is it really when we know that these situations can escalate to such a degree?

This knowledge lends itself to understanding the complexities of not only our bodies but of other concepts. We know that just because we are kicking our leg that this doesn't mean that other things aren't happening simultaneously. We understand the layers of bodily movement. We understand there is emotional connection, physical chain reactions to the rest of the body, purpose or intent, bodily history, strength and coordination, and relationships to others that color that leg kicking up in the air. Nothing is ever just one non-dynamic event. Whether we are speaking about our bodies or about other things, we understand that there is always emotional connection, relationship to the whole, purpose or intent, personal history, skills and training, and relationships to others that color any moment in our lives.

Consider thinking for a moment about your body as a life partner who has been physically present with you for every single moment of your life. Then think about not ever really attending to that partner even though it's there, working with you and relating to you at every moment. I can't imagine the suffering of those who don't have an attentive relationship to their bodies. I can't imagine what life would be like to mindlessly or superficially bring my body along for the ride throughout my life, and then think of it as "failing" me when it refuses to comply with my expectations of it. What an awful partnership to suffer through considering how much of our lives are spent with this "partner."

Because we are aware of our bodies, we are able to pull from the knowledge we have of learning from our bodies and communicating through and with our bodies that most don't have the opportunity to experience. Many people who are not used to working with their bodies see their bodies as an environment of failure. They have not attended to how they move their bodies or how they treat their bodies. And when the body begins to fail them in terms of what it looks like, how it feels, or what it's able to do, they see their bodies as a site of failure only to be corrected or ignored. But for the dancer, this site is a rich site of new experiences. Whether failure in the body is seen as a deeply emotional experience, a positive challenge, a learning process, or a new discovery about ourselves, it is never a site simply to be discarded, despised, rejected, or given up on.

The relationship anyone has with their body is ultimately a quality of life issue. It can make functioning physically, expressing ourselves emotionally, and valuing ourselves either a positive experience or an incredibly difficult experience. And as dancers who encourage others to move or value movement, we are the wielders of a powerful gift, the gift of improving the quality of life for ourselves, our communities, and the greater society.

Devaluation of Dance

Recently, I've been thinking about the value or non-value of dance as an art form in our culture. Dance as an art form tends to be the least recognized and valued, and as a result the least supported. Dancers are considered less intelligent and dance itself is considered to be something that does not have merit and is an intellectual void.

In a conversation with a friend about my experience in the dance program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and in my experiences applying for a masters program, she was stunned that getting a BFA or an MFA in dance might be difficult and require more than just flinging ourselves around all day—that we actually write papers, create work, and have to think and justify what we do.

Why is this specifically? Is it because our culture society sprang largely from a protestant religion that believed that the body was something to be hidden and that movement (other than for daily activities) lead to damnation? (I have an image of a poster from the late 1800s that describes all of the horrible things that happen if someone participates in dance, including divorce, adultery, and damnation.)

Or does it have more to do with the value of cognitive intelligence which is placed far above experiential intelligence that comes with the scientific method in our culture?

What do you think?

~RLS