Laban Movement Analysis

Laban Movement Analysis deeply influences the way I experience movement. I teach LMA at The Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and I will be exploring it within this blog so here's a little introduction:

Rudolf Laban, photo from limsonline.org

LMA is a system for observing, describing, notating, and delving deeply into movement. It looks at movement through the primary lenses of Body, Effort, Shape, and Space.

First developed by Rudolf Laban in the early 1900s and best known for its notation system, LMA is continually expanded by the people who use it. These people include anthropologists, choreographers, yoga teachers, martial artists, actors, physical therapists, psychologists, dancers and political consultants. Choreographers Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, Hanya Holm, Pina Bausch, and William Forsythe descend from Laban’s work.

A holistic system, LMA recognizes that the way we move both reflects and influences the way we live our lives. LMA strengthens and clarifies the work of professional movers and offers insight and movement choices to people in their daily lives.