Movement Analysis

what is laban movement analysis?

Dance professionals and professors, fitness educators, elite athletes, physical and dance therapists alike find new ways to expand their personal movement vocabulary and, more importantly, to increase their connection to their movement style through the lens of Laban Movement Analysis. By becoming more aware of how we intuit and sense what our bodies are doing and feeling, and developing our ability to critically analyze movement in more meaningful ways, we expand our capacity for creativity.

For many of us, the natural ease and expressivity which many of us develop through infancy into adolescence, can be diminished - by habit, environment, inner thoughts and feelings - in our adult lives. The practice seeks to re-enliven the natural breath, dynamic alignment, initiation, sequencing, and coordination of the most easeful and expressive movement for our own body. The exercises are practiced on our sprung maple floor, in a relaxing environment which allows greater awareness and attention to the mind-body connection.

Specifically, we teach Bartenieff Fundamentals developed by Irmgard Bartenieff, whose holistic approach employs theories developed by her during her practice as a physical therapist, and Laban Movement Analysis, movement practices developed by Rudolf Laban, a key innovator in the fields of Modern Dance and dance notation.

The Laban Analysis framework gives us a theoretical structure with which we can organize our inquiries. A dancer might ask: How can I move more authentically as myself, and not as a carbon copy of a dance teacher? An athlete might ask: How can I move with more efficiency, and conserve my energy for when I really need it? A massage therapist might ask: How can I better take care of my own body, while helping another to heal?

We all have questions, questions which, through deeper inquiry can either lead to greater understanding, or by avoidance result in stasis – things just sort of stay the same and change by chance or outside forces. The dancer might chance to have some recognition of true inner self or his personal style, the athlete might chance upon how clear spatial intent will help her body organize to get her to her goal more efficiently, and the massage therapist might find that the relationship between shifting body weight and structural alignment helps him to both be a more effective therapist and feel better in his own body.

We can chance upon these helpful revelations, find teachers who offer “just the part” that you need to address that one thing, or we can endeavor to study holistically through Laban’s framework of analysis. It isn’t the analysis or dissection of movement that increases our awareness and ability. It is the synthesis, how all of the discoveries resulting from the inquiry are applied in real time, in real life.

The true value of developing movement awareness is something that is often only be recognized in retrospect: It is usually only after becoming aware of something that we realize the value of it. Many of us are content to function from the “not broken, don’t fix” attitude, not realizing what they are missing in life… the possibility of - well, endless possibilities.

These days, many of us are stuck behind desks, in cars, or in jobs with either continuous repetitive movement or very limited in terms of variety, always doing the same kind of thing every day. Our posture and movement patterns adapt - often out of alignment and with uneven muscular strength resulting in pain, injury, and even boredom or lethargy.

On the flip side, we might be one of the very strong, coordinated, and apparently indefatigable individuals, always seeking to know what new activity is over the horizon, muscling our way through every challenge. This can result in over-use injuries, joint destabilization (or dislocation!), and muscle spasms from strain (both physical and mental) and uneven strength around the joints, or simply from enthusiasm beyond the boundaries of the body.

For all of us, movement patterns are integrally woven with our inner attitude, internal thoughts and feelings, and even our inner spiritual life, and as a result our lives can become limited to a few types of activities. For the eternal enthusiast, true relaxation or intimacy may never be possible, and for the lethargic, anything different will be avoided, and nothing requiring endurance or whole body strength will likely be attempted.

For many, whether it is getting exercise, going out dancing, or get yard-work done, we often find that our physical and mental structure limits us to a very narrow range of movement qualities. The enthusiast can muscle her way through almost anything - not realizing her movement patterns will soon result in a herniated disc or worse, and the lethargic person simply suffers aches and pains from over exertion.

True, these two examples are extremes, and though most of us live our lives somewhere in the middle, we are more like these extremes than we think. Many, if not most people I know frequent massage therapists, physical therapists, and chiropractors as a way to help "adjust" or fix the body. A good physical therapist will look at your movement patterns and give you helpful feedback about the "what" of what is going on, which helps if we remember to think about it. And the exercises will likely help if we remember to do them! Many massage therapists and chiropractors are great at helping us to identify the "what." "What are you doing while you are walking, sitting, skiing?" Many of the corrections are extremely helpful - the adjustment is made, the kink is massaged out, or the strength is gained for functional movement of a specific part of the body. This is all very helpful.

Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals can help you see your situation from another perspective. The practice helps you to understand not only the "what," but the "how" and even possibly the "why" of our movement. So, if your sacro-iliac joint is out of whack, if you always have tension in your shoulders, you keep re-injuring your hip, or any of the other myriad possibilities, you might find that there is a way to understand the "how" and "why" of movement. You might be asking "What good is knowing the 'how and why,' can't we just fix it?

Do you remember the paragraph above about awareness? When we move with awareness we open up endless possibilities, the nature of which we can't anticipate because in this moment we are unaware of them. That probably doesn't help, so you might have to think back on something that you became aware of that totally changed everything about how you move.

I know of someone, a person who for several decades was perpetually creative, and referred to her life as 'being in her element.' Although financially poor she had the rich capacity to spring-board from one media to another, never imagining that the source of her creativity would end - until she was told by a colleague that her age was preventing her from qualifying a job she had applied for. She knew that if she spoke up about it that she would lose everything, and that if she kept quiet, she would lose her sense of self. She knew that keeping quiet would eventually manifest itself in illness, and that ultimately the best thing to do is speak the truth. When she spoke up about it, most of her colleagues and peers (even those who had encouraged her to apply for the job), turned away from her, taking away any chance at ever finding substantive employment. The legal proceedings were twisted to favor the guilty, and this otherwise gifted artist was effectively silenced.

During the following year with her spirit basically gone, her health diminished, she could not maintain pleasant personal relationships, and any impulse toward creativity was met with an unyielding pain from within. Due to her ill health and poverty, many of the people with whom she worked regarded her with disdain. Almost one year to the day after the legal challenge was lost, she won the lottery.

The people who rarely acknowledged her over the past year were suddenly very interested, even generously offering gifts, vacations, and parties! She, by chance, was able to see the world through a new lens, one that revealed a not-so-wonderful aspect of the human race, but one that allowed her just to be herself - to value herself in a way that she had never recognized because she had been looking at herself through the eyes of those who never really trusted, liked, or valued her.

So, what does this have to do with aches and pains, movement patterns, enthusiasm, lethargy? Our inner attitude informs the "how" and the "why" of our movement. In the case of the lottery winner, her posture had become so sunken that she experienced a multitude of health problems. She had been oppressed and depressed and her movement was an outer manifestation of her inner experience. She had lost her wish to be, and her body was 'dis-integrating.' Over time, and with the practice of Bartenieff Fundamentals, she developed a new perspective about her possibilities and became more active and alert. She found the real meaning of "integrative movement" in Bartenieff Fundamentals. As it seemed most of her friendships, collaborations, and the possibility of a creative career disintegrated, she found that the movement itself helped her to re-establish her personal integrity, despite everything going on around her. She was able, in effect, to hold on to her sense of self.

Her posture changed with her changing inner attitude and, although she has not rebuilt her pursuit of creative endeavors, today she is a competent, kind, and generous individual who shares an active life with people who truly value her contributions to a better way of life. Had she gone to the massage therapist, chiropractor, or physical therapist, they each would have helped her greatly with the symptoms and finding constructive ways to strengthen and align the body, but the real challenge was on the inside.

During her sessions with movement analysis she saw the relationships between her inner life and her posture. She practised a specialized series of movements and phrases that would ultimately actively re-pattern her neuro-muscular system in ways that are humane and restorative, enlivening her inner experience in ways that she could not have predicted.

Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals sessions result in personal development, sometimes quite profound in nature, and in a new relationship with how we are in the world. A new perspective is often what is needed to better address creative challenges on the job, relationships in work and family, and with oneself. With practice, we can begin to understand the meaning in movement, experience a full range of possibilities, and enjoy whole body movement with ease and pleasure.

Everyone who moves can benefit from movement analysis. You can schedule private appointments with me for anything that has to do with movement - from simply finding the easy rotation of your shoulder girdle to creating a full dance production. I attend to every session with enthusiasm, creativity, and optimism, and look forward to meeting each student where they are that day, in that moment.
Lucille Dyer CMA


Lucille L. Dyer, a Certified Movement Analyst, offers private and small group sessions for those who wish to expand their expressive range, as introductory movement for people just starting out with a fitness program, and for experienced exercisers who seek to develop and integrate bodily awareness into their daily lives.


Bartenieff Fundamentals

For Better

  • Body Awareness
  • Muscular Balance
  • Range of Motion
  • Spinal Mobility

For Movement that is

  • Efficient
  • Expressive
  • Integrated
  • Recuperative