Laban Movement Analysis | Lisa Sandlos Dance

Laban Movement Analysis:
Unlocking the Mysteries of Movement

BY LISA SANDLOS

The beating of a human heart, the graceful orbiting pathway of the earth around the sun, the vibrations of tiny microorganisms, and a small child reaching for a favourite toy… What do all these have in common? They all involve movement. Movement is all around us, all the time.

The study of movement holds many secrets and truths. It is an essential key for the understanding of human expression, as well as patterns in nature and the universe. Because movement can be mysterious and ephemeral, it is rare that most people take the time to consciously observe it. Observations about movement are often interpreted as intuition. Do you remember a time when you had a feeling or a hunch about someone, positive or negative, but you could not quite put your finger on it? Your “feeling” may very well have been your unconscious observations of that person’s movement.

Laban Movement Analysis (L.M.A.): A Language For Movement

How can we become more conscious of the movement all around us? How can we understand and make use of the information movement offers? One very valuable tool is Laban Movement Analysis (L.M.A.).

L.M.A. is a system and a language for observing, describing and notating all forms of movement. A movement analyst can use this language to describe and interpret human movement from the gesture of a hand in conversation to the complex action of a skilled athlete. L.M.A. can be used as a tool by dancers, athletes, physical and occupational therapists, and anyone wishing to enhance, refine, and clarify movement.

Movement reflects our innermost feelings and ways of being in the world. For this reason, many embrace L.M.A. as a philosophy of life and a world view.

Rudolph Laban: Visionary, Artist, and Theorist

Rudolph Laban (1879-1958) was a dancer, choreographer, and movement theorist. His contributions to the field of dance were vast. He developed a system of dance notation (Labanotation) which helped to raise the status of dance as an art form in his time. He was also an initiator and facilitator of large-scale community dance, and he created Movement Choirs for professional and amateur dancers alike. After World War II, Laban lived in Great Britain, where he reformed the role of dance in education. He believed passionately that dance, in some form, should be available to everyone.

Laban leaves an important legacy beyond dance. His broad vision revealed the general laws of human movement as they occur in work and at play, in expression and relationships, and in everyday life. Laban believed that movement of the body and of the mind is the basis of all human activity.

L.M.A. was derived by students of Laban to further codify and develop Laban’s theories and practices. In light of Laban’s global view, it is evident that the possible applications of L.M.A. are extremely broad. Consequently, the system has been used by a wide and diverse range of groups and individuals including dancers, athletes, actors, researchers, sociologists, psychologists, therapists, and educators.

L.M.A. Today: Theory and Practice

Since Laban’s death in 1958, his students have continued to develop the system. The ideology behind L.M.A. as it is practised today encompasses four main categories: Body, Effort, Shape, and Space (B.E.S.S.). Each of the B.E.S.S. components can be studied in depth. The B.E.S.S. approach allows for systematic analysis of the complexity of human movement, both functional and expressive.

The Body aspect of B.E.S.S. deals with principles such as the initiation of movement from specific body parts, the connection of different body parts to each other, and the sequencing of movement between parts of the body.
The Effort dimension is concerned with movement qualities and dynamics, and is subdivided into Weight, Space, Time and Flow factors.
Shape is about the way the body interacts with its environment. There are three Modes of Shape Change: Shapeflow (growing and shrinking, folding and unfolding, etc.), Directional (Spokelike and Arclike) or Shaping (molding, carving, and adapting).
Space involves the study of moving in connection with the environment and is based on spatial patterns, pathways, and lines of spatial tension. Space Harmony acts as a framework for Space, Effort and Shape in the form of established scales of movement within geometric forms. These scales can be practised (much like a musician practises harmonic scales) in order to refine and broaden one’s range of movement. By practising the Space Harmony scales, an individual’s preferences in movement (functional and expressive) may be revealed.

The Fundamentals of Movement

Bartenieff Fundamentals (B.F.) is an example of a specific application of B.E.S.S. This extension of L.M.A. was originally developed by Irmgard Bartenieff who had trained in dance with Laban before becoming a physiotherapist. She had a reputation for her innovative ways of treating polio patients. She worked mainly within the Body aspect of B.E.S.S., concerning herself with some of the most basic principles of human movement such as coordination, initiation and sequencing, and mobility/stability.

A Bartenieff Fundamentals class might involve a series of exercises called “The Basic Six”:

Thigh Lift
Forward Pelvic Shift
Lateral Pelvic Shift
Lateral Condensing
Knee Drop
Arm Circles

“The Basic Six” exercises are practised either on a subtle level to enhance awareness (i.e. lying on a mat or moving very slowly) and/or in complex actions like running, turning, reaching, balancing, and jumping. Bartenieff Fundamentals are currently used by dancers, actors, athletes and anyone interested in improving the ease, efficiency, and quality of their movement.

Integrating Our Movement – Rebalancing Our Lives

In my opinion, the real beauty of L.M.A. as a system is the way it integrates all of the modalities of B.E.S.S. The theme of integration is extremely relevant to our society at this time in history, when more and more people are experiencing fragmentation and compartmentalization in their lives. The late Peter Madden, a Laban theorist, practitioner, and writer, has stated that “Laban promoted movement study as a means of fostering human capacities for creativity, imagination, and wisdom. He hoped to counterbalance [society's] growing fascination with machines and technology. As a visionary he saw the advantages of the new tools, but he remained acutely aware of the dichotomy between progress and spiritual decay that was emerging…”

The integration of B.E.S.S. in movement correlates with the idea of connecting body, mind, and spirit in ourselves individually and in our collective human experience. Peter Madden alludes to this in saying: “The body-mind connection lies in movement – in fact, is movement… Movement is the constant change and interplay in the relationship between body, mind, and psyche.”

Interestingly, studies have shown that the four modalities of B.E.S.S. correspond with the four modes of human perception as identified by Carl Jung and developed by Myers–Briggs: Body-Sensing, Effort-Feeling, Shape-Intuiting, and Space-Thinking. By comparing these modalities, it is apparent that movement really does express our ways of being in and interacting with the world around us.

Through movement, we can begin to interconnect all of our inner attitudes, and achieve a greater sense of balance and wholeness in our lives. Laban Movement Analysis is one system with the potential to launch us and support us on this journey.

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