THE HABIT OF BREATH IN FLOWING MOVEMENT

THE HABIT OF

BREATH IN

FLOWING

MOVEMENT

A phenomenological explanation of habitual movement

patterns in dance

Jaimy Stregels

1 Faculty of Arts Bachelor thesis Statement, University of Groningen

Name of student: Jaimy Stregels Student number: S2239485

Bachelor degree programme – specialization: Arts, Culture and Media – Theatre Major

Title of final-year thesis: The Habit of Breath in Flowing Movement Name of thesis supervisor: dr. L.D.M.E. van Heteren

I hereby declare unequivocally that the thesis submitted by me is based on my own work and is the product of independent academic research. I declare that I have not used the ideas and formulations of others without stating their sources, that I have not used translations or paraphrases of texts written by others as part of my own argumentation, and that I have not submitted the text of this thesis or a similar text for assignments in other course units.

Date:05-02-2021

Place: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Signature of student:

N.B. All violations of the above statement will be regarded as fraud within the meaning of Art. 7.18 of part A of the Teaching and Examination Regulations.

2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to express my gratitude to the faculty Arts, Culture and Media for their continued support and encouragement. Here I was provided with all the ‘know how’ and skills through learning objectives. I came to Groningen carrying a passion for dance, seeking to understand it in every way possible. My enthusiasm ran me from the Theatre and Music Major to all sorts of Minors. Once I left the city, I was already well prepared in sharing and writing about dance to others.

But the balancing act in writing a thesis happened with hampered continuity. Each moment of stopping paired with ‘falling’ and ‘recovery’. Unfortunately, each phase of recovery was taking longer than before. In short, emotions running high, time running short. To my

carrying and loving girlfriend Jade; my deepest gratitude. You helped me back in flow again, pushing me forward as hard as needed.

I therefore want to sincerely thank everyone involved for holding their breath. With a special thanks to my supervisor dr. Lucia van Heteren. Our conversations always filled me with drive, wanting to put in the effort. I am thankful for the patience in achieving the final product.

3

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

Limitations of Motion Capture 4

Embodied Knowledge 5

Breath and flowing movement 6

Research question 7

Methodology 8

CHAPTER ONE: OBSERVING MOVEMENT AS EXPRESSIVE 9

1.1 Significance of movement 9

1.2 Explaining effort 11

1.3 Expanding to a whole-body perspective 13

CHAPTER TWO: HABIT AND THE DANCING BODY 15

2.1 Understanding embodied knowledge 15

2.2 Shifting towards the living body 16

2.2 Meaning inscribed to the body 17

2.3 The role of Corporal schema 18

2.4 Everyone is a habitual Body, even dancers 19

CHAPTER THREE: DIALOGUE OF FLOW AND HABIT IN BREATH 22

3.1 Use of breath in dancing methods 22

3.2 The influence of Breath on movement 24

3.3 Relating dynamics of Flow and breath 25

3.4 Breath as reflective perceptual tool 27

CONCLUSION 29

BIBLIOGRAPHY 32

4

INTRODUCTION

In the course of history, dance – while being one of the oldest cultural expressions – always had to fight for its autonomous appreciation. First to be considered an art form, since the last four decades to be considered worthy of theoretic research of its own. This may have

originated from a certain resistance coming from the field of dance itself, especially present with the practitioners. Dance scholars Gabrielle Brandstetter and Gabriele Klein claim that: “early in the era of modern dance, Mary Wigman stated that dance and talking about dance have nothing to do with each other.” (Brandstetter 11)

In their introduction of Dance [and] Theory, Brandstetter and Klein paradoxically note that Wigman’s remark originates from the same period in which “theories of dance were emerging which have had a major influence on the history and aesthetics of dance, for example the spatial theory and Choreutics of Rudolf von Laban (1966), who is remembered as the philosopher of Expressionistic Dance.” (Brandstetter 11) Laban’s work is started with mapping the human ‘kinesphere’, a term he created to describe the 3-dimensional space of human actions. This theory of Space Harmony was developed, together with his theory of Effort being the recognition of the inner attitudes with which people move, from the 1920s through the '50s as a means of notating movement in space. Laban called it 'Dance Writing' (Schrifttanz), which later became known as ‘Labanotation’. His work laid the foundation of what his students named the Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), most notably further developed by Imgrad Bartenieff.

When Brandstetter and Klein wrote their book in 2013, almost a hundred years after the first dance theories emerged, they still noticed a clear division between practice and theory. (Brandstetter 12) This is caused by the difficulty of characterizing dance, resulting in

ambiguous categories and taxonomies of dance. With the exchange between dance and theory coming from the pursuit of the historization and archiving of dance. (Brandstetter 12)

L

M

C

In the development of archiving dance, digital technologies have emerged such as motion

capture. These have created the possibility of capturing and describing movement in a highly

detailed manner. In her dissertation The Motion Capture Imaginary: Digital Renderings of Dance Knowledge (2017), Laura Karreman explains the specific opportunities as follows: “The mapping of dance movements onto motion data not only offers the possibility of dance recordings that can be navigated three-dimensionally, it also opens the door to endless possibilities of visualizations, manipulations and calculations based on this motion data - including the ability to map data onto other ‘bodies’, both real and virtual. (Karreman 8) While this supports analysis, documentation and re-creation of movement in dance by providing mostly quantitative data on movement, Karreman tells there remains a heated debate whether motion capture can actually ‘capture’ dance as it “fixates on images of the body, and thus radically reduces the complexity of its phenomenological wholeness” (Karreman 8). In other words, data in motion capture lacks an understanding of how bodily

5 actions belong together so movement can be understood as an experience instead of arriving at individual body positions.

What makes capturing dance challenging is that, even with new technologies which have the ability to pause at any moment, the effective relationship between the mind and body remains unclear to an outside observer, not only for the trained eyes of a dramaturg but especially for (cognitive) scientists. Because digital notation radically abstracts the complex experience of a moving performer, this thesis will be part of the discussion why dance scholars behold

theories of founding theorists like Laban still useful. One of the reasons is that movement notation systems devised to record dance can be used to describe behavioral processes, like Martha Davis explains in Movement as patterns (1974). She refers to her study in 1970 in which she did an exploratory and methodical study of movement characteristics of

hospitalized psychiatric patients as a use of Effort observation in formal research. These formal studies by students of Laban helped LMA as being recognized by experts as a reliable research parameter in other fields of study as well.

The concept of Effort observation within LMA allows for a person to understand the inner emotions and intentions behind movement. As an example, when a door is closed, the

movement is intentional. Closing a door is generally calm and determined. A hand reaches for the knob, and the door is pulled to a closing position. However, you could also slam the door in anger. This is a more sudden and harsh movement. The same body parts are used, and the same action accomplished but in two different ways. The behavioral intention, being an emotion, on a deeper level is different, which makes the movement different. This is not something which can be captured with motion capture.

E

K

In recent decades, dance scholars turned more to practice, embodiment, and kinaesthetic experience as a means of understanding the mind-body processes when moving. Current theorists like Andre Lepecki refer to ‘the body as an archive’. In The Body as Archive: Will to Re-Enact and the Afterlives of Dances (2010), he considers dancers to have embodied

knowledge. Embodied knowledge implies that there is a type of knowledge that tends to be

hard to understand in words, but what the body immediately grasps and remembers. With this knowledge it is not the mind but the body that is the knowing subject. (Tanaka 149-157) This understanding of knowledge within the body rather than in the mind, derives from the

discourse around ‘tacit knowledge’ as first introduced by Michael Polanyi in Personal Knowlegde (1958). Karreman tells he elaborated his observation that “there is an unarticulated intelligence in skillful doing and knowing” further in The Tacit Dimension (1966). (Karreman 79) She writes that according to Polanyi a skillful doing and knowing of the body is a type of (yet) unarticulated intelligence. (Karreman 79)

Interestingly, where Laban explains the ‘humane effort’ of inner attitudes to originate bodily action as pre-existing, Polanyi seems to regard the tacit component in need of feedback processes for the bodily transmission of knowledge. In order to fully understand a specific skill, people need to experience it firsthand, either by watching or doing rather than merely

6 listening to what others state about it. In the process of learning a dance, movement is mostly learned by experience and repeating, or mimetic transmission. Karreman however used Polanyi’s theory to analyze the rehearsal process of dancer Fumiyo Ikeda of Rosas danst Rosas by Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and concluded that the dancer obtained ‘focal knowledge’ by doing a thorough analysis of the skills and patterns of the dance. (Karreman 81) Focal knowledge narrows the term of Polanyi being the certain premises of a skill on which we act, but focally ignorant or unaware. But still a tacit ‘know how’ of the body, which seems to be the common denominator of embodied knowledge. Karreman further noted that “many features of embodied knowledge of the dancer continue to receive scant attention. One example of such embodied expertise is the dancer’s use of breath in performance.” (Karreman 226) It is not only because motion capture can hardly register breath, but also because “deep-rooted focus on the expression of speech and written language has concealed the strength of the body as a meaning-producing force”. (Karreman 97) Based on Luce Irigaray philosophical exploration of breath starting from The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger (1999), western society has drawn its attention away from breath and embodiment. She therefore calls for more research on breath as a principal subject in dance studies.

This thesis will further research the utility of Effort observation, the aspect of LMA that describes the dynamic qualities of movement, in a way that it can account for the condition of embodiment when using breath in dance. Both of which, Karreman concluded her doctoral research, motion caption imagery failed to capture.

B

The work of many prominent 20th _{century choreographers, starting with Martha Graham}

(1894-1991), is entangled with a specific understanding of the use of the breath. Graham’s method of contraction and release in dance phrases relates to the inhaling and exhaling of breath (Freedman 56). Also, breath seems to be a returning central element in the teaching of modern dance icons such as Mary Wigman (1886-1973), and in dance methods of

choreographers like Limón – still being taught on dance academies today for its organic way of moving. Most of these understandings can be traced back to Laban’s notion on movement which clearly have an influence, Laban often being a friend and tutor to these choreographers. While earlier being opposed to dance discourse, Wigman nonetheless wrote a book whose very title explored the relationship between language and movement, and which conceded that dance and language are not mutually exclusive: The Language of Dance (1966). (Brandstetter 12) Wigman wrote the following passage on the relation of breath and dance:

“For the breath is the mysterious great master who reigns unknown and unnamed behind all and everything—who silently commands the function of muscles and joints—who knows how to fire with passions and to relax, how to whip up and restrain—who puts the breaks in the rhythmic structure and dictates the phrasing of the flowing passages—who above all this regulates the temper of expression in its interplay with the colorfulness of rhythm and melody.” (Wigman 11)

7 Wigwan calls the breath ‘the mysterious great master who reigns unknown and unnamed’, which hints that despite all methods developed by choreographers, the way dancers make use of breath in a flowing effort is often in a silent and unspoken way. She continues that a dancer must be able to breathe in every one of his movements. This is not an awareness or organic way of breathing, but a submission to the dynamically propelled power of breathing which reveals itself in the momentary degree of its intensity and strain in the movement. (Wigman 11) So with practitioners of dance like Graham and Wigman being convinced about the relationship between flow and breath, what remains is to connect the practice with the discourse on embodied knowledge.

Wigman’s expressive description of “flowing passages” defines precisely what Laban calls flowing movement in the observation of Effort. Since flow is a widely used concept, it should first be understood in Laban’s terms: flow is seen as a quality of ‘ongoingness’ when a body is moving. While LMA depicts ‘what’ is happening, being a system of observable qualities, it does not help us to understand why dancers are bodily ‘persuaded’ to make adjustments to their dance acts using breath. In search of the focal knowledge of breath, metaphorical wording and imagery do not reveal a direct connection between the inward and outward experience that is associated with breathing, like characterized by the work of breathing therapist Ilse Middendorf, who wrote, “Breath is a connecting force. It creates a bodily equilibrium and balance and helps us to make inner and outer impressions interchangeable. It connects the human being with the outside world and the outside world with the inner world” (Middendorf 77).

In LMA, the connection of the inner and the outer world are called patterns of total body

connectivity. But to articulate this focal knowledge of the kinesthetic experience of using

breath in dance, dancers need to be able to be aware of it. Patterns can be described with Effort observation, but a philosophical perspective on the phenomenological unity of mind and body is needed to give meaning to this embodied experience. By understanding a living and therefore moving body using philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s existential

phenomenological theories, this thesis aims to explain the role of embodiment and habitual patterns in terms of breath imposing bodily movement, for example dictating rhythm and phrasing.

The goal in this thesis is to combine a movement analytical explanation and a

phenomenological explanation on the same bodily principles experienced in dance methods, to understand underlying principles in the expressive qualities of breath, which Laban, and subsequently Wigman and others, like to call ‘flowing’ dance acts. This leads to the following research question:

RESEARCH QUESTION

Why can breath dictate change in the rhythm and dynamics of flowing movement and how does this articulate awareness of body patterns?

8

METHODOLOGY

The first chapter in this thesis explores Laban’s theory on Effort as a system of perception in which the expression of movement is based on certain categories or qualities. The inner attitudes or meaning of these qualities is linked to a phenomenological explanation of embodied knowledge to elaborate on Effort as a mind-body principle of wholeness. In order to understand why the concept of flowing movement is shaped through breath, chapter two explores the understanding of expressive qualities through the inextricable link of the body and habitual movement. To grasp the meaning of body patterns one first has to be able to see what is going on. An existential philosophical approach is used in conceptualizing the dancing body as a site for knowing movement by drawing on the phenomenology of the habit body. Phenomenology as a methodology investigates the lived experience, relying on a description of phenomena as they are perceived by an embodied consciousness. The thesis in particular will address Merleau-Ponty’s conceptualization of the body as a site for knowing the world.

By drawing a relation between Laban’s observable qualities and Bartenieff’s whole-body perspective, chapter three further investigates how breath is used in dance methods to reach desired movements. By addressing breath as a two-way linked corporal scheme responsible for the growing and shrinking of movement, it can serve as a reflective tool for bodily

consciousness. This thesis therefore aims to answer the question why breath is experienced by dancers and choreographers like Mary Wigman to be the driving force in flow resulting in movement qualities that make sense, just feeling right.

9

CHAPTER

ONE:

OBSERVING

MOVEMENT

AS

EXPRESSIVE

This first chapter explores Laban’s theory on Effort as a system of perception in which the expression of movement is based on certain categories or qualities. The inner attitudes or meaning of these qualities is linked to a phenomenological explanation of embodied knowledge to elaborate on Effort as a mind-body principle of wholeness.

Broadly accepted as most influential dance theorist Rudolf von Laban (1879-1958) attempted to reduce the gap between dance and theory by creating the Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), which provides an analytical framework to observe movement in conceptually distinguished components such as dynamics and expression. He created a system of dance notation in spatial models, an approach that became known as ‘labanotation’. This notation method has been widely appropriated in other fields and has been further developed by theorists and scholars, often students of Laban, like Irmgard Bartenieff (1900-1981), Warren Lamb (1923-2014) and Judith Kestenberg (1910-1999). This thesis will further elaborate on Bartenieff’s work on extending the topic of Effort in terms of total body connectivity. Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is an extensive method and language for interpreting, describing, visualizing and notating all ways of human movement. Laban is widely regarded by dance scholars today as the founding father of European modern dance not only as a choreographer but also as a visual artist and, more importantly, a movement researcher. (Brandstetter 11) His theories about the quality of movement, Effort, became more firmly established in the 1940s. His concluding thoughts and discoveries were only published in 1950 under the title The Mastery of Movement on Stage, shortly before his death in July 1958. Lisa Ullmann published several of his texts posthumously, with her translations and

annotations. Observing Effort, as Laban theorized, consists of recognizing movement qualities and correlating inner attitudes, represented by four elements, each with two opposite extremes on a continuum: Time (Quick/Sustained), Weight (Strong/Light), Space (Direct/Indirect), and Flow (Bound/Free). Refer to appendices 1 and 2 for a schematic overview of these movement qualities. While choreographers in general are anxious of applying broadly any rule of

interpretation, stating that movement is subjective and context dependent, Laban proved with his theory that meaning in movement can be found as observable qualities. Effort will be further explained in paragraphs 1.1 and 1.2.

1.1

S

Laban’s work on Effort explains the dynamic range of expression in movement. In his view, human movement is the common denominator in all performing arts, from acting and miming to dancing, singing and music making. Laban was interested in understanding the awareness of humans when moving, searching common ground on stage. In her preface of the revised edition The Mastery of Movement (1980), Ullman explained that “although his references were made to the stage in theatre, Laban used this much as a form to present his ideas on

10 movement in relation to the stage of life. He refers in his book to theatrical acting as being ‘the artistic enhancement of human action’. (Laban vii)

According to Laban, the meaning of movement derives from the rhythmic instinct of men, by which rhythmic languages without words occur. Movement observation means grasping the “meaning of underlying primitive rhythmic movement” (Laban 82). He clarifies languages of the body as being languages with a sense of rhythm and of mime elements, nowadays best observed in theatre. According to Laban, movement is the common denominator in the workings of theatre, where “each phase of the performance fades away almost immediately after it has appeared. [..] Ideas and sentiments are expressed by the flow of movement, and become visible in gestures, or audible in music and words.” (Laban 7) As a result of this temporal working, as (theatric) events unfolding over time, nothing remains static. Dancers’ movements for example are constantly shifting in shape and dynamics like rhythm and phrasing, only to be shortly interrupted at times, until the end of the performance. But where bodily movement in drama is mostly mechanical and focusing on role, speech and action, also using time and space, the ideas and sentiments of dancers constantly shape shifting is less evident.

Understanding the inner urges forces the spectator to submerge into this “flow of the ever-changing happenings which, given a real inner participation on part of the spectator, leaves no time for elaborate cognition and meditation”, like with static or visual arts. (Laban 8). This links to what was introduced earlier as ‘focal knowledge’, as understanding movement requires an embodied experience. But according to Laban, “one cannot say that this power is unknown, because we are able to observe it in various degrees of perfection wherever it exists.” (Laban 20)

Laban’s view is to see the centre of the body as the originator of movement into space. According to Laban, there are two forms of main action: gathering and scattering.

“[Scattering] goes from the centre of the body outwards into space, while [gathering] goes from the periphery of the kinesphere inwards to the centre. (Laban 83). He separates between movement initiated from the centre of the body and movement – i.e. extended moving limbs – near or at the end of the periphery of the kinesphere. While our limbs draw the body’s

circumferal outlines in space, they can make many combinations of these two actions as they can move independently in- and outwards.

Laban mentions that ballet has lost its connection to the primitive urges of gathering and scattering, thus showing only a “gentle picture of a satisfied state of mind” (Laban 85). To experience the symbolic content of ballet, like of an attitude or arabesque as two similar poses to gathering and scattering but filling the space in a different way, the spectator needs to be in a concentrated state of inner attention, for immediate comprehension of them not

signifying but symbolizing similar inner urges. Central initiation of movement seems to become somewhat the norm for expressive movement, implying that a movement initiated by a distal part of the body, like in ballet, is less harmonious and therefore without inner

11 rules of technique and acting, both common in classical ballet, to signify expression in

movement. It would therefore also be interesting what the role of breath in ballet would be, since the torso (and thus the breathing) should stay as still and upright as possible. And therefore, ballet doesn’t flow with actions of ‘gathering’ and ‘scattering’, but on symbolic actions.

Laban clearly favored a perspective of ‘pure dance’ – an important notion to keep in mind when reading this thesis. Pure dancing makes it impossible for spectators to depict the content of the dance other than to have them observe (and possibly describe) the movement itself. Laban explains with an example on different theatrical ways of depicting Eve in Paradise: “In pure dance the spectator could not know that a movement of grasping quickly into the air would express greed or any other emotion in relation to the apple. He would only see a quick grasp and experience the meaning of it through the play of rhythms and shapes which in dance tells its own story, a frequent happening in the world of not logically defined values and longings.” (Laban 3)

A dancer will create movement based on its own inner intentions, without creating tangible nor describable reference points to understand in pure dance. Choreographers who are anxious of applying broadly any rule of interpretation, stating that the content of movement is

movement, will agree with Laban.

This thesis therefore does not address movement in relation to any specific style (of dance). According to Laban, the combinations of gathering and scattering in various parts of the body, can show cultural and periodical characteristics. As some bodily attitudes during movement are preferred or repeated more than others, this classifies movement styles. ‘Style’ is created by tiny details of movement habits. It is something we tend to subconsciously evaluate all the time, provoking favorable or unfavorable opinions on people. The artist, however, has to represent more than typical styles or typical beauty. Laban defines him as somebody who is “interested in all the deviations and variations of movement”. (Laban 85) This can be interpreted as ugly or clumsy, fashionable or even extraordinary, but nonetheless happens with a finer shade of movement. To understand the style of an artist, according to Laban, we need a study of “the rhythmic content of the attitudes in which a definite series of effort combinations has been used”. (Laban 85). Evaluation of style requires study of the finer shades of effort rhythm. Rudolf Laban’s fundamental analysis of movement rhythm, or what he calls effort-rhythm, up until today still seems to be the most elaborate understanding of rhythm as a felt experience and mode of human expression.

1.2

E

According to Laban, movement is either used as “a means for external work or for the

mirroring of certain states and attitudes of mind” (Laban 20). Movement therefore always has a purpose, even when this happens unconsciously. Laban uses the word effort to give name to the “origin and inner aspect of every human movement” (Laban 21). It is in fact what inspires men to move, being the urge to which he acts.

12 There can be “simple effort manifestations'', which Laban explains as being habitual reactions like instinctive behavior seen with animals. But humans can ‘choose’ to make different combinations of effort qualities. This makes humans different from animals, creating the ability to change the effort quality with which ‘nervous energy’ is released even though we are aware of movement habits. (Laban 20) But why this is achieved often remains unclear, on which this thesis will elaborate.

Laban states that movement originates from ideas and sentiments because mankind is able to choose how “the weight of the body, or any of its parts, can be lifted into a certain direction of space, and this process takes a certain amount of time, depending on the ratio of speed.” (Laban 20) These so-called motion factors are regarded as mechanical conditions that can be observed. When observed in any counter-pull, like “a resisting, constricting, withholding, fighting attitude, or one of the yielding, enduring, accepting, indulging” in relation to ‘weight, space and time’, Laban speaks of a flow of movement (Laban 20).

“Effort and its resulting action may be both unconscious and involuntary, but they are always present in any bodily movement; otherwise, they could not be perceived by others, or become effectual in the external surroundings of the moving person” (Laban 20)

A flow of movement can be either conscious or unconscious and is what Laban calls: attuning towards Weight, Space, Time and Flow (Laban 11). Each of these motion factors can be broken down into opposite qualities, providing a continuum along which the element can be recognized (Appendix 1).

Laban thought of naming reoccurring effort combinations in a metaphorical way, like

thrusting and floating. Other examples and how this relates to the motion factors can be found in Appendix 2. Laban named the combination of the first three motion factors (Weight, Space and Time) the Effort Actions, or Action Drive. Flow, on the other hand, is responsible for the

consciousness or ongoingness of movements. Although flow is often referred to as only one

of the motion factors, there is reason to believe that flow can be seen as the control of weight, space, time, and thus effort. (Maletic 105) The more a dancer is counter-pulling to Effort Actions, the higher the level of control during the movement.

Laban concluded that when attuning to a quality or a combination of qualities, Effort heightens the feeling and emotionality of a movement. In other words, Effort makes the intention of movement observable in expressive qualities. The unique value of Laban’s theories lies in an understanding of body movement as an ongoing continuous flux, as it allows to describe movement as a process rather than moments of states or static positions. (Longstaff 22)

The problem however with Laban’s approach of understanding the meaning of movement only through detailed observation, according to researcher Dick McCaw, is that it would regard “movement as an observed rather than an experienced phenomenon”. (McCaw 224) Laban’s initial theory on Effort explains the ‘what’ – and his Choreutics the ‘where’ - but does not explain ‘how’ and ‘why’ embodying motion factors changed the physical

13 organization of the body. His final unifying theories on men’s universal movement patterns in space were developed further by his students.

1.3

E

-

While Laban analyzed movement into the smallest of body parts, Irmgard Bartenieff (1900-1981), who was a student of Laban, wanted to approach human movement from a whole-body perspective. She therefore expanded on Laban’s theories with the concept of Shape, as she was interested in questions like: “What forms does the body make? Is the shape changing in relation to the self or in relation to the environment? How is the Shape changing— what is the major quality or element which is influencing its process of change?” (Hackney, Appendix A) She also looked at movement exercise with the anatomical base of muscle function in

physical therapy. So, through her therapeutic experience she also incorporated ‘Body’ into LMA, thus differentiating the analytical toolbox into Body, Effort, Shape, and Space (LMA/BESS).

For Bartenieff, Shape is the interrelationship of the Body, Effort, and Space and is used to shape our internal and external environments. Shape begins when we develop as babies, these are patterns like shrinking and growing as we explore both our bodies and space. This links to what Laban thought of as the two main action forms: gathering and scattering. Shape is therefore the linking or main element in terms of exploring movement itself, through so called

patterns of total body connectivity. According to Bartenieff, the whole body can be organized

from connective patterns to see how movement travels through the body itself. These are: Breath, Core-Distal Connectivity, Head-Tail Connectivity, Upper-Lower Connectivity, Body-Half Connectivity and Cross-Lateral Connectivity. (Hackney, Appendix A) All are a wat to see what body parts are moving and on which level-plain or part of the body the movement originated.

Bartenieff’s student Peggy Hackney mentions in Making Connections (1998) that the

patterning of body connections is ‘fundamental’ to Bartenieff, because “we make connections within our own bodies through patterns or plans which our neuromuscular system develops for executing movement sequences. (Hackney 14) To become aware of these connections, Bartenieff created an organized basic approach of exploring Shape. This is a means for (re-)training a person’s use of functional and expressive qualities of movement. These are simple movement exercises called Bartenieff Fundamentals, as she worked in physical therapy. Bartenieff based her work on what she perceived as universal truths of the body and its connection to the world, to self, to space, to other bodies. One of the universal truths of the body is that breath is the foundation for any patterns that occur in the body, as it’s one of the first shapes we make as a baby. “The baby radiates out away from its core, its navel

center,and comes in toward it. Internal body connections are being patterned as phrases offreeing and binding its flow, growing and shrinking its shape continues. Relationships arebeing set up relative to its own being and, gradually, in interaction with the outside world.” (Hackney 12)

14 In developing the principles of Fundamentals, Bartenieff was concerned with basic training of the body to facilitate not only expressive experiences, but also functional and efficient

movement. The latter also became to be used in movement therapy, something which was further developed by Hackney herself. The Fundamentals stimulate movement responses in the body via specific sets of exercises. Thus, entering the realm of ‘improvisation’, as

explained by dance scholar L. Douse, by which “tasks can be formed of many varying stimuli, for example, on a task based on the senses an individual may explore the different sensations of touch or use sound to illicit movement.” (Douse 6) Improvisation focuses on task-based activity in order to foster creativity and invent original movement material. In turn, the movement responses can be further explored through the observation of Effort. Fundamentals are a way of altering the behavior of the body, and therefore initiates body awareness. This implies the interaction of body and mind, which Douse illustrates as necessary in a

philosophical perspective on the use of mental imagery in improvisation, since “[a]ll types of improvisation are characterised by a reflexive awareness and instantaneous responsiveness to the moment, and enhance bodily mindfulness.” (Douse 8) Imagery however conceptualizes body movement as states, conditions or positions as opposed to concepts of motion,

ongoingness or flow. Just like the limitations of motion capture seen in the introduction, as if the movements are captured as photographs. While improvisation and movement exercises can discover new movement qualities and choreographic ideas, Effort observation offers a way of interpreting the movement as a ‘process’ behind them.

This chapter highlighted the notion of flowing movement being observable as acting on inner intentions in a continuous change of motion. And that the Fundamentals the internal

connections explore as key for a dynamic rather than static body. This thesis therefore focuses on the concept of Bartenieff’s body patterns, to raise awareness of the role of breath in this distinction between images versus flux. To Bartenieff, “Breath brings life and movement. It is a physiologicalsupport for all life processes and, hence, all movement. Breath enlivens.” (Hackney 43) Meaning that breath is one of the developmental patterns responsible for total body connectivity and organization of both expressive and functional patterns.

This will be further discussed in chapter 3. In order to create an argument in which the reader can interpret the use of body patterns as meaningful through effort observation, this thesis next uses phenomenology theories for additional analysis on the role of habit in these movement processes.

15

CHAPTER

TWO:

HABIT

AND

THE

DANCING

BODY

In order to understand why the concept of flowing movement is shaped through breath, it is needed to explore this understanding of expressive qualities through the inextricable link of the body and habitual movement. To grasp the meaning of body patterns one first has to be able to see what is going on. An existential philosophical approach is used in conceptualizing the dancing body as a site for knowing movement by drawing on the phenomenology of the habit body.

2.1

U

According to Laban, humans master conscious and intentional movement best by means of playing or acting, in which he regards dancing as a stylized form of play. He describes history in terms of humans making themselves aware of effort combinations. He describes the

development of movement-thinking, as a contrast to linguistic thoughts and ideas. “This thinking does not, as thinking in words, serve orientation in the external world, but rather perfects man’s orientation in his inner world in which impulses continually surge and seek an outlet in doing, acting and dancing.” (Laban 15) This shows much resemblance with what (dance) researchers like Andrew Lepecki nowadays like to call ‘embodied knowledge’. This discourse regards the body as the knowledge subject, according to Shogo Tanaka, instead of the mind. (Tanaka 149) “Embodied knowledge is a type of knowledge where the body knows how to act. An example of embodied knowledge is riding a bicycle, which is something we are all able to do without a “need to verbalize or represent in the mind all the procedures required”. (Tanaka 149) She means that any act imprinted in the body happens directly, without the need to think.

According to Karreman, the concept of embodiment received more attention in dance research with interactive media installations being built, capturing and mapping dancing bodies to most accurate possibilities. These techniques developed through projects like the collaboration between MediaLab and choreographer William Forsythe. This was one of the first projects which started to build up a digital video archive. Forsythe had invited MediaLab in 1993 to assist him and his company, Ballett Frankfurt, because they were seeking innovative ways to archive and access their large number of rehearsal and performance videos. There were at least two goals for this project: one was to support new dancers in learning the works of the company before going into rehearsals. The second was to properly document the rehearsals and performances of choreographies that were evolving over time, that resisted being

‘finished’. Acknowledging McCaw’s critique in 1.2, the problem of motion capture lies too in not seeing movement as an experienced phenomenon. Or what in the introduction was

addressed as “reducing the complexity of its phenomenological wholeness”. (Karreman 8) To understand embodied knowledge this thesis uses the philosophical study of existential phenomenology as explained by Maurice Merleau-Ponty for a better understanding of the lived experience. “Existential phenomenology describes subjective human experience as it reflects people’s values, purposes, ideals, intentions, emotions, and relationships.” (Thorpe 93) It relies on a description of phenomena as they are perceived by an embodied

16 consciousness (Douse, 9). Dutch reading of Fenomenologie van de waarneming

(Phenomenology of Perception) with explanations of others are used to create a basic understanding of the philosophical model where the act of perceiving establishes one’s relation to the outside world on a habitual level. This chapter discusses the implications of moving or a flow of movement as an embodied process.

2.2

S

Knowledge and reason in the phenomenological tradition seems to be neither something subjective nor something objective but instead are seen in terms of experience and interaction with the world. Knowing is a human condition that can be characterized by ‘intentionality’, as explained George J. Marshall in ‘A Guide to Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of

Perception’, which “refers to the dual fact that consciousness is opened towards a world that it neither embraces nor possesses but towards which it is perpetually directed, and that the world is the pre-objective individual whose unity decrees what knowledge shall take as its goal.” (Marshall 75)

With consciousness not being something purely intellectual, the world is not a place where meaning can be found, but rather is experienced. “Meaning is a product of the interrelation between consciousness and the world; and it exists within consciousness.” (Marshall 50) According to Husserl, philosophy is not concerned about what exists in this world, as science is better in giving such explanations (Marshall, 50). Phenomenology should be concerned with the understanding of meaning rather than explaining existence. Husserl was one of the early phenomenologists, who devised technical and analytical methods of understanding consciousness and transcendental subjectivity. Marshall states that Husserl finds it

problematic that “we are naturally so taken up with the things of the world that we never look at our relation to things, our experience.” (Marshall 50) The aim with phenomenology is therefore to give an objective description of experiences, as how we relate to the world. Therefore, noted individually by researchers Anna Petronella Foultier and L. Douse, moving away from the Cartesian ‘cognito’ where the body functions as a mechanical puppet on strings, what “father of phenomenology” Edward Husserl called a Körper. (Foultier 54) Instead phenomenology describes intellect manifesting in something called the living body, or what Husserl called Leib. “Whereas a mechanical doll or a Körper can be explained in

mechanical terms, this is not the case with the living body, Leib, it itself is an experience of the world, not merely part of it.” (Foultier 55)

Merleau-Ponty disregards the whole distinction between Körper and Leib. According to researcher L. Douse, Merleau-Ponty sees the contribution of the body rather in terms of practical involvement and mastery as a notion of “being in the world”. (Douse 9) The body does not just travel through space, nor does it follow Husserl’s idea of the intellect making judgements upon clues of the senses. (Foultier 54) The body does both in Merleau-Ponty’s view, “only as bodily beings, moving around in the world, [can we] have experience perception and movement presuppose one another”. (Foultier 55)

17 Merleau-Ponty points out that we cannot move in a disembodied way, because “[h]et is nooit ons objectieve lichaam, maar ons fenomenale lichaam wat wij bewegen, en dat gebeurt zonder mysterie, want het is reeds ons lichaam.” (Merleau-Ponty 123/169) This even stays true when one loses his or her limb. A living body moving on, or even only having that intention, reveals us as being conscious of the world we inhabit.

An observation of the congress of Dance [and] Theory organized by Gabrielle Brandstetter and Gabriele Klein in 2013 on dance and theory was that, compared to other research fields, methodology for dance research is not yet in a very mature stage. Therefore, choreographer and professor Susan Leigh Foster proposes for dance research to borrow theories and methods from other fields of research, and as if these approaches can be applied to dance studies. This opens up the possibility to investigate the field of phenomenology for new lines of inquiry to dance’s own ambiguous terms. As Husserl advocates that philosophy is not to hold back by an epistemology problem, like in science, because “its object is given in experience.” (Marshall 50) In that way this thesis follows the ongoing process of this field of dance (theory) because the “evanesce of dance foregrounds the theoretical dimensions of scholarly research by emphasizing the constructed nature of any object of study” (Foster 31) The experience of interaction with the world can indeed be object for dance study. As with Motion Capture technologies the body is deconstructed into the smallest of parts, only observing the Körper. An understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s writing, which will be further elaborated on in the coming paragraphs, could explain why there is an inextricable link between the mind and body, like the one described in Laban’s ideas on expressive movement.

2.2

M

While Merleau-Ponty did not write on dance in particular, Foultier elaborated on his work and related it to dance. She found that “his [Merleau-Ponty’s] conceptions of the lived body, and his effort to overcome the dualistic metaphysics inherent in our tradition, can be useful for an understanding of dance and choreographic expressions.” (Foultier 52) Although she found that his writings clash with her understanding consciousness. The Phenomenology of Perception first focuses on an individual’s interactions with the world, which “makes it appear that Merleau-Ponty must be some kind of materialist denying the existence of the soul. Then about halfway through the book, he begins to develop the body as something that is conscious and thinks.” (Foultier 60)

Merleau-Ponty presents consciousness as something that is bodily. But even more as a union of body and soul, moving past subject and object of experience. “He maintained that bodily consciousness is manifest in sensory engagement and underpins mental processes.” (Douse 9) Merleau-Ponty’s concept of bodily consciousness explains what Laban earlier developed as movement-thinking. In relation to Laban’s theories, there seems to be resemblance with how expression being dynamically infused with the body itself is being explained by Merleau-Ponty:

18 “Een roman, een gedicht, een schilderij en een muziekstuk zijn individuen, dat wil zeggen wezens waarbinnen de uitdrukking en het uitgedrukte niet van elkaar zijn te onderscheiden, waarvan de zin slechts door een direct contact toegankelijk is en die hun betekenis uitstralen zonder hun plaats in de tijd en de ruimte te verlaten. In deze zin is ons lichaam vergelijkbaar met een kunstwerk. Het is een knooppunt van levende betekenissen en geen wet van een zeker aantal covariante termen.” (Merleau-Ponty 177/218)

Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of meaning in art is said to have a quality of directedness with what is being expressed, thus signification (like expression) and meaning being one and the same. He equates the body with art, implying that the body is inherently meaningful or maintains the context of time and space. Although Merleau-Ponty has been interpreted that way, Foultier contradicts this by denying that the body is “ ‘naturally expressive’ and meaning on the level of the body would be inherent in some biological sense”. (Foultier 53) She argues that meaning as conceptual or notational signification ‘drawn’ from a gestural or emotional signification is still a human construct of the body, for humans are cultural and historical beings. Something which Merleau-Ponty stated as “man is a historical idea and not a natural species”. (Foultier 53). With significations not being inherent, this implies that meaning is inscribed to a conscious body.

The manner of drawing meaning happens though the concept of ‘lived perception’ by which bodily existence is understood in interaction with the world. Necessary are our perspectives, as they open the body upon the world. “[Perspectives] are the very conditions of our

transcending ourselves and grasping reality.” (Marshall 55)

“It is on the basis of this “lived perception” that we abstract, conceptualize, theorize, and develop our sciences and philosophies. Our abstractions, conceptualizations, theories,

sciences and philosophies are the particular ways in which we take hold of the reality as given to us in lived perception.” (Marshall 55) LMA seems to be such an attempt to grasp dance as a response of ‘lived perception’, with significations conceptualized as inner intentions.

2.3

T

C

Merleau-Ponty developed the concept of corporal schema to explain how significations are inscribed to the body. Douse explains body schema as “the very condition for the coming into being of a meaningful word”. (Douse 9). They can therefore conceptualize how meaning is inscribed to the body, and how it is expressed. Douse explains this as the body being present in the world, in that an individual knows where their limbs are without having to look for them: they possess a corporal schema. (Douse 9) Merleau-Ponty sees corporal schema as a way of ‘inhabiting’ the world, instead of ‘passing’ through the world objectively like with a birds-eye view. These corporal schema can be regarded as pre-reflective knowledge which does not require thought to let an individual know the location of their limbs.

Merleau-Ponty explains this by describing the way an individual plays a musical instrument or types on a keyboard and where he does not need to ‘know’ where his fingers are. An artist depends on corporal schema for the signification of gestural meaning or expression. And by

19 taking the example of an artist it also shows that there is a need of mastery to inscribe such gestures as implicit knowledge in the hands. At that stage, an individual does not need to know the beginning or ending of the movement to be able to move:

‘Want als ‘abstracte’ bewegingen mogelijk zijn, waarin er een bewustzijn van het vertrekpunt en van het eindpunt van de beweging is, zouden wij immers op ieder moment van ons leven moeten weten waar ons lichaam zich bevindt zonder het te hoeven zien, zoals wij een object zoeken dat tijdens onze afwezigheid is verplaatst. Zelfs de automatische bewegingen moeten zich aan ons kenbaar maken, dat wil zeggen dat zich in ons lichaam nooit bewegingen ‘op zich’ voordoen. En als alle objectieve ruimte slechts voor het intellectuele bewustzijn bestaat, moet die categoriale instelling zelfs in de grijpbeweging worden teruggevonden. (Merleau-Ponty 143-144/188)

In case of corporal schema, an individual isn’t aware of all its body parts moving all the time. Once a phenomenological body has understood the movement, it can execute with a pre-reflectively knowledge of the location of the limbs within the kinesphere. In relation to movement expression, there is a dependence on the individuals ‘knowledgeable body’ for observable patterns or qualities to occur and observe. Corporal schema are an embodied explanation of signification being inscribed in the body. Merleau-Ponty’s writing thus helps to identify embodiment as a condition of Effort. It is the phenomenological body observed in terms of meaningful or expressive qualities and rhythms in movement.

2.4

E

B

,

In Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of corporal schema he introduces the notion of the habitual body. By using the example of a person with a missing limb, having the experience of a phantom limb, Merleau-Ponty describes phenomena which tends to be hard to explain in classic philosophies, showing the relevance of an embodied approach:

“Het verwerven van een gewoonte als verandering en vernieuwing van het lichaamsschema levert de klassieke filosofieën grote moeilijkheden op, daar deze er altijd toe neigen de synthese als een intellectuele synthese op te vatten” (Merleau-Ponty 166/208)

In order to describe the experience in his example of the phantom limb, he made a distinction between the habitual and the actual body. (Foultier 58) The phantom limb experience

happens on the level of the habitual body, informing the individual’s being in the world and wanting to act in that world. This engagement of the body is not deliberate action-making but a habit. Merleau-Ponty implies that on a phenomenological level, the living body is a habitual body.

Re-calling ‘intentionality’ as a human condition for knowing the world, habit can be characterized as bodily consciousness. There cannot be a one-way classification between consciousness mechanics and physiological mechanics, because “[m]en kan niet bepaalde bewegingen toeschrijven aan het lichamelijke mechanisme en andere aan het bewustzijn; lichaam en bewustzijn kunnen niet door elkaar worden afgebakend en kunnen slechts parallel bestaan. (Merleau-Ponty 144/188)

20 Merleau-Ponty would therefore agree with Bartenieff on interconnecting the physiological qualities of movement via her Shape theory to the more deductive theories of Body, Effort and Space. Merleau-Ponty advocates that movement can get incorporated into the body, as a habit without reflective thought. This is further explained in the example concerning a

musician who is presented with a new musical instrument similar to the instrument it masters. He adapts at once to the new instrument, being familiar with playing although some

movements might have to change. A pianist will be able to play on an organ although the fretboard is different. Intentionality means bodily comprehension of motoric skills which frees an individual in expressing the ‘musical essence’ as it is shown in musical notation. (Merleau-Ponty 144/188)

This draws a parallel to the characteristic of directness in expression through flowing movement in dance. In this sense, habit is not passive and prescriptive but gives way to movement exploration, which is the goal of Bartenieff Fundamentals and her developed exercises. Due to habit dancers can flow, in a free or bound continuum of movement. It means that when a dancer attunes to an inner intention, he uses the directness of corporal schema and his habitual body to release expressive qualities onto the stage.

This notion of the habitual body helps to understand Bartenieff’s corrective or training aspect in her developed principles of efficient movement functioning. In Bartenieff’s view, some patterns are already built into the neuromuscular system like primitive reflexes and balance responses, but others come through habits later in life. (Hackney 15) Interestingly, Hackney adds here that these habits can be chosen but are learned in a developmental progression. “As we become conscious of these stages of bodily development, we recognize that we are in a creative process at all times —creating our own embodied existence. And we can see that these stages and patterns are mirrored in the development of our other creative work as well.” (Hackney 15) She explains this as Fundamental Total Body Connectivity, which is further elaborated on in chapter three.

Douse mentions that in dance practices are often seen as a negative effect, as “something to either avoid or correct”. (Douse 11) This also comes to mind when reading Bartenieff, in regard to her work as a physical therapist focussing on correcting body movement. But

Merleau-Ponty’s reference to habit is “far from being a mechanistic or behaviorist tendency to respond to fixed stimuli in a fixed way, implying passivity, but rather it permits new ways of acting and understanding.” (Douse 10) Again, Merleau-Ponty doesn’t see the body as

something mechanical but sees the habitual body as freeing an individual to express his intentions.

The directive force of regular, static, simplified habits may be explained in their use as “reference points” where irregular or untrained stimuli are not perceived or remembered independently but only “in relation to” regular habits. Here, Merleau-Ponty regards the inscribing of a habit to the body as the birth of a new meaning:

“Is bijvoorbeeld de gewoonte om een dans aan te leren niet het langs analytische weg vinden van de bewegingsformule en hem vervolgens, aan de hand van dit ideale ontwerp, met behulp

21 van reeds verworven bewegingen – die van lopen en rennen – opnieuw samen te stellen? Maar als de formule van de nieuwe dans zekere elementen van de algemene motoriek moet kunnen integreren, moet zij eerst zelf als het ware een motorische inwijding hebben. Het is, zoals al vaker is opgemerkt, het lichaam dat de beweging ‘snapt’ (kapiert) en ‘begrijpt’. Het verwerven van een gewoonte is weliswaar het vatten van een betekenis, maar het is het motorisch vatten van een betekenis.” (Merleau-Ponty 167/208)

So, in order to learn a dance, there must already be a starting point like general motor patterns before the body can understand new movements. Foultier sees the body’s grasping in corporal schema as a ‘system of transposition’, as “it explains how movements can be learned

systematically and not as circumscribed units”. (Foultier 61) Through means of imitating for example, Foultier explains that people are able to transfer the perception of other people's bodies to their own corporal schema. (Foultier 62) Since dancers are often seen repeating a movement to master it, this process can be seen as transposing the desired perception of movement into the corporal schema.

A person’s movement style, like described by Laban as a person’s unique observable habits, ‘disappears’ according to Foultier from our experiential field when it is incorporated as a habit. (Foultier 64) It disappears as static body positions of the mechanical corps but appears in the living body as “an implicit procedural knowledge encoded in the body”. (Douse 10) Therefore it is hidden in plain sight from our intellect. But can come back, to some extent to our awareness when shifting for example between different dance techniques, like in the example of Foultier where a ballet dancer takes the upright position of a flamenco dancer. “In contrast between the two techniques, the body schema appears.” (64) This provides a starting point of transposition of their perceptions upon their bodies. Foultier concludes that in

contrast to a non-dancer, “a dancer is constantly working on the development of her habitual body, integrating new significations and therewith new possibilities of expression”. (Foultier 65)

The role of habit in the dancing body, is therefore not disabling but enabling. Existential phenomenology as a methodology investigates the lived experience, relying on a description of phenomena as they are perceived by an embodied consciousness. In particular by

addressing Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the body as a site for knowing the world in his Phenomenology of Perception, and expanding LMA on his theory of the habit body. What remains is to identify if breath as corporal scheme can enhance the understanding of the universally experienced truth in a flowing movement – referring back to Wigmans’s quote in the introduction of this thesis.

22

CHAPTER

THREE:

DIALOGUE

OF

FLOW

AND

HABIT

IN

BREATH

By drawing a relation between Laban’s observable qualities and Bartenieff’s whole-body perspective, this chapter will further investigate how breath is used in dance methods to reach the desired movement. By addressing breath as a two-way linked corporal schema

responsible for the growing and shrinking of movement, it can serve as a reflective tool for bodily consciousness. This thesis aims to answer the question why breath is experienced by dancers and choreographers like Mary Wigman to be the driving force in flowing movement. In her book, New Dance: Writing on Modern Dance, American choreographer of modern dance, Doris Humphrey writes: “Breath rhythm is the one principle of all movement, whether actuated by emotional ritual or physical or intellectual impetus. Breath rhythm in the time sense is a two-part phrase, the first longer than the second; in the space sense, a filling and expanding followed by a contraction; in a dynamic sense, a continuous movement growing tension, followed by a letting go of tension which finishes with an accent.” (Humphrey 13) By viewing the time, space, and dynamic aspects of breathing, dancers can understand more about how breathing can contribute to dancers movements. In addition, by understanding these breathing patterns, dancers can choose to make new patterns that expand the possibilities of choreography or alter the experience of a particular movement.

There are many different dance styles in the world; however, no matter how the dance is shaped, dance can be universally identified as an art that expresses people’s mental activities through bodies. The basic physiological structure of human bodies is the same across the world; therefore, the natural breathing pattern is also the same. There might be some adaptations within each dance style, but the breathing pattern is still similar.

3.1

U

Amongst the many dancing methods there are contradicting views in what way the flow of breath should be used. M. Buytenhuijs researched the role of breath in their dance

performances by analyzing the dance method of Italian/Dutch contemporary choreographers Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, called Double Skin/Double Mind. This method for example is based on the principles breathing, jumping, expanding and reducing. She understood from interviewing Greco’s and Scholten’s dancers that they found it not always evident to stick to one method when it comes to breathing. “The method of Greco, in which expanding is related to inhaling and reducing to exhaling, is contrary to for example the Graham technique” (Buytenhuis 27). By referring to an interview by Dee Reynods with Graham dancer Judy Dudley in A Technique for Power: Reconfiguring Economies of Energy in Martha Graham’s Early Work (2002), Buytenhuis highlights that breath is forced outward when a contraction pressures the dancers in the abdominals to round the back, pushing the

23 spine outwards, and that air is inhaled when the back releases by which the spine stretches upwards again.

Similar to Laban stating that “the effort quality of free flow should not be confused with merely going on”, nor should the use of breath be confused as only consisting of free flow (Laban, 76). In terms of flow’s polarity of the body either going on or completely stopping, the same could be said for breathing; you either continue inhaling and exhaling or completely stop in between. In his attempt to define the motion factor of flow with its effort elements ‘free’ and ‘bound’, Laban relates free flow to the movement sensation of Fluency: “‘Fluency’ is concerned with the ease of change as may be observed in the movement of a fluid

substance. When the sensation of flowing on is reduced one could eventually speak of ‘pausing’ in which, although still, we have the feel of a continuation but of a withheld one’’ (Laban 75- 76).

In LMA, bound flow is defined as a quality of restraint, as having an inner attitude of being capable to stop action at any given moment. It can be observed as seeming “to stream

backward towards the central area of the body and in contrary direction to that of the action.” (Laban, 76) While free flow is activated when ‘flux’, or in light of the habitual body, the ‘normal’ response to body patterns is released or surrendered to. According to Laban, free flow “helps the progression of movement through the body from the central area towards the extremities thus producing a feeling of onward streaming”. (Laban 76)

The use of breath in Graham’s technique can therefore be regarded as an example of free flow, where the control of the body is let go after each active exhale or contraction into a released flux. This is opposite of the method used by Greco and Scholten, “who use

inspiration to expand (active) and expiration to release (passive).” (Buytenhuis 28). During the expansion of the body into space, the dancer expands with a readiness to stop at full expansion, therefore focusing on active inhalation with a sensation of pausing. This means that the dancer attuned to the Effort element of bound or hampered Flow. What helps to understand this discourse, phrased by Ullman, “if we realise that the sensation of fluency, the feel of being carried on, does not cease when pausing, but is controlled to the utmost'' (Laban 76). It indicates that dancers using the method of Greco and Scholten can also have fluency in their movement, but with a sensation of pausing as their function is to keep control and brace their body with their breath, instead of letting go.

According to Buytenhuis, the division of breath into ‘inhaling’ and ‘exhaling’ in relation to movements, is a recurring notion in the methods of the American and European

choreographers, with examples of Doris Humprey (1895-1958) linking her concepts ‘fall’ and ‘recovery’ to the pattern of breath, and the method of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (1960) connecting the division of breath to the movement qualities of ‘attacked’ and ‘suspended’. (Buytenhuis, 29).

This shows that dancing techniques have their own type of movement qualities, which results in different movement sequences while all working with the same division of breath in two stages. But according to Laban, in reference to the main forms of ‘scattering’ and ‘gathering’,

24 the expression for any movement being identified either as a quality of ‘possession’ (grip) and repulsion (punch) (Laban 85). This correlates with the notion of habit not being something mechanical and fixed, but a starting point for dancers to express new movement. In an

interview with Buytenhuis, dancer Alejandro Longines stated that it can be difficult to hold on to a specific dance method. “Sometimes we have the tendency to breath out while doing a movement that was originally meant to lengthen the body, and this changes the intention of the movement. Instead of extending and controlling a movement you let go.” (Buytenhuis, 27) Meaning that the corporal schema of Longines incorporated the habit of breath in a different manner than the actual body was supposed to execute. The habitual body thus took over and changed the movement quality in the process. The notion of habit in breath helps to identify the corporal schema of a dancer knowing to scatter or to gather in accordance with the dance method.

3.2

T

B

Hackney explains that any of the Fundamental Patterns of Total Body Connectivity form the basis for our patterns of relationship and connection as we live our embodied lives. They provide models for our “connectedness.” (Hackney 14) This connectedness mirrors the notion of bodily consciousness as described earlier. Meaning that the patterns of total body

connectivity are indeed a form of corporal schema, as they are inseparable from the world of one’s interaction.

Interestingly, Peggy Hackney’s Making Connections (1998) states that Bartenieff suggests that the first area to focus on when approaching the Fundamentals methodology is breath (Hackney 41). Breathing is regarded by Bartenieff as the underlying structure for all aspects of life, it influences everything we do, which makes it important to connect to our breath and improve and master it. “Everyone could benefit from spending time each day tuning in to his/her own breath”. (Hackney 52). In the Fundamentals breathing is classed as both a

physical lung respiration as well as being cellular; sensational and experienced in every cell of the body. It is a whole-body experience. The functional quality of breath is a mere biological one, but breath also contributes to creating an ease in movement.

Certain breath exercises can be used as a form of warm up, a way to mentally connect to the body using the flow of breath, initiating movement and heightening awareness of the center of the body. It is an embodied function, which activates the whole-body system as a way to ‘ground’ the body and mind preparing it for movement. Grounding can therefore be

understood as bodily consciousness, as in phenomenological terms, it makes the individual attentive to move upon implicit knowledge. Bartenieff stated “movement rides on the flow of the breath” (Bartenieff 232). Hence, she introduced the notion of ‘Breath Support’; using breathing exercises and consciously manipulating the breath to support movements while dancing. The body shrinks and grows with each breath. Posture is not built by muscles but by the whole way an individual breathes. Drawing a relation to flowing movement, Bartenieff regards breath as feeding the growing and shrinking movements of the torso.

25 The developmental pattern of breath is not only expressive, Bartenieff also thinks of

movement in a physiological way. She claims correct breathing, being diaphragmatic ‘belly’ breathing, is mostly engaged by babies and young children as adult people tend to become upper chest breathers resulting in poor breathing habits and an insufficient oxygen uptake for bodily functions. (Bartenieff 232) Using the developmental pattern, it is possible to get back in touch with infancy breathing and beneficially use it in adult life. It basically demonstrates that a person can consciously alter their breathing to affect the body, feelings, thoughts, and patterns of moving.

Bartenieff’s additions to Laban’s already comprehensive movement analysis system meant recognizing breath as a tool for movement exploration that connects our bodies to the physiological and expressive movement qualities. Movement exploration on the Breath Pattern is elaborated by Hackey as a list of verbal instructions to a dancer with imagery (Hackney 59-63). Problematic is that such mental concepts are more action-making decisions, that don’t make a dancer transpose the dynamic qualities upon his habitual body.

Relating body schema of growing and shrinking to effort qualities gives a background for body movement following the change, motion and continuous flux of breath. Then the

sensations and stimulations of breath in the actual body can correspond to continuous change of intentions of the habitual body.

3.3

R

F

Breathing is important for dancers’ movements, because they need it to achieve efficiency and accuracy of the movement, as conceptualized by Bartennieff’s notion of Breath Support. But by looking at the use of breath in dance methods, it was concluded that breath can also generate rhythm and dynamics of movement. In terms of Effort these qualities can observed as meaningful, or expressive.

As was discussed in paragraph 1.1 on Laban’s theory on the art of movement and the dynamic of theatre, flow directly relates to the inner pulse or mood that originates movement. This means that in expressive actions, flow is always present and responsible for setting the body in motion. Laban adds: “The flow of movement is strongly influenced by the order in which the parts of the body are set in motion” (Laban 18). He states that flow is an attitude to the whole movement, not solely a part of it. This initiation of movement in the body can start centrally in the torso or peripheral in the limbs, as either an action of gathering or scattering. Remembering that relationship of bodily carriage and the gathering/scattering of the limbs has the following characteristics:

“Gathering can be seen in bringing something toward the centre of the body, while scattering can be observed in pushing something away from the centre of the body. Gathering is a more flexible movement than scattering, the latter being more direct. The curve of the movement in a gathering action is preceded by an outward movement resembling that of scattering away