Laban Movement Studies - History, Applications and Frontiers

Karen K. Bradley is the former head of dance and director of graduate studies at the University of Maryland, near Washington, DC.  She is the President of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and the author of Rudolf Laban, a volume in the Routledge series on 20th Century performance practitioners, and a teacher of the Laban and Bartenieff material around the world.  

Karen Studd has a Master’s degree from University of Oregon and certification in movement analysis from the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. Studd is also a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator through ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association). Studd is a LIMS Program Coordinator and has taught in movement analysis training programs in the US, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Israel and in China.  Karen has taught for the Dance Departments of the University of Oregon, the University of Wisconsin, George Washington University and George Mason, where she was a tenured faculty.  As a teacher of Movement Analysis, she is focused on personal and professional development through awareness of movement. Her interest is in the understanding of the importance of human movement across all disciplines. Studd is a co-author of EveryBody is a Body, a text on the phenomenon of human movement. 

Hilary Bryan, CMA, MFA, performer, choreographer, movement analyst and scholar, has taught modern dance, contact improvisation and Laban Movement Studies at universities and dance festivals internationally. She has taught on the faculties of the Moscow Institute of Therapeutic Arts, the Russian Association of Dance Movement Therapy, and the Integrated Movement Studies LMA certification programs. Bryan founded the ergonomics consulting firm The Body at Work in 1999 basing its curriculum on her thesis work on ergonomics at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. Her choreographic work has been presented internationally and she adjudicated the International Competition of Contemporary Choreographers (Kiev, 2007). She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of California Davis in Practice as Research.

Barbara Nordstrom-Loeb is a dance/movement therapist (DMT), licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). She teaches DMT and LMA courses at universities and colleges in the US as well as internationally, including teaching in Estonia on a Fulbright Scholars Grant.  She is the out-going chair of the American Dance/ Movement Therapy Association Alternate Route Educators’ Subcommittee. Her publications include writings on the use of trauma and DMT-based approaches with people diagnosed with Eating Disorders, the development of DMT programming in long term care facilities, and the historic development of DMT in Estonia.

Alexandra Baybutt works in movement education, performing arts and research. She has worked extensively in performing arts as movement coach/director, as well as an artist. Alexandra has worked with actors, dance artists and musicians individually and during production/rehearsal with London-based theatre companies Sharklegs, Barefoot Opera, UNTitled Productions, MolinoGroup, Hobo Theatre, Theatre Delicatessen, Bread and Goose, and Lab Collective. Her experiences in education include teaching and assessing adult learners on LIMS programmes in Scotland and Belgium. She has been facilitating LBMS re-patterning and performance consulting in private practice one-to-one, and in group workshops and public classes since 2011. She has taught for Shapes in Motion Movement Academy, Parkour Generations, and for the Laban Guild, and for professional contemporary dance communities at Independent Dance, and TripSpace, London (UK), and for the MichaelDouglas Kollectiv (Germany). She has led introduction courses in LBMS in the UK, Slovenia and Serbia, and taught movement, dance, devising and physical theatre in Universities in the UK. In 2017, she co-mentored four young choreographers as part of the FIND Festival residency, Italy. 

Jackie Hand is a CMA. She has assisted, taught or guested in LIMS Certificate programs since 1981. She is a contributor to "Rudolf Von Laban’s Movement Theories” in Ciane Fernandes textbook, The Moving Researcher, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis in Performing Arts Education and Creative Arts Therapy. Currently, she is exploring the relationship of the flexibility of the brain’s intracranial membrane system (fascia) to the x-roll. She studied Labanotation as a teenager and taught and assisted Labanotation classes University of Oregon. Her Final Thesis project: a reconstruction from Labanotation of Vera Blaine’s “I-71” for 20 dancers. Her Labanotation training allowed for easy transition to Motif Writing when she studied at LIMS and she has since taught and proclaimed the value of Motif Writing to those training in Laban Movement Studies.

Amy LaViers is an assistant professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and director of the Robotics, Automation, and Dance (RAD) Lab where she develops robotic algorithms inspired by movement and dance theory.  She is the recipient of a 2015 DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA).  She has worked in the areas of advanced manufacturing, through an industry-university consortium, the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), defense, and healthcare, and forged interdisciplinary ties with the UVA and UIUC Dance Programs and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies, where she completed CMA in 2016. She completed her Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech. Her research began at Princeton University where she earned a certificate in dance and a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. 

Marcia Plevin, American, dancer, choreographer and dance teacher is a psychologist and a dance movement therapist (BC- DMT) who has lived and worked in Rome Italy since 1986. She was on the modern dance faculties of the N Carolina School of the Arts and the Academia Nazionale di Danza, Rome.  In 1993 she   co- founded the Association of Creative Movement (CM) - method Garcia- Plevin (CM) in 1993.The book written with her colleagues, Creative Movement and Dance, has been translated into 4 languages. The CM training has been taught in Finland and presently in Italy, Turkey and China.  Dance movement therapy (DMT) clinical experience has been working in groups and individuals in areas of substance abuse recovery, with psychiatric patients and in pediatric oncology.  Her articles have been published in among other journals, Arts and Psychotherapy and the Journal of American Dance Therapy. Actually she is teaching dance movement therapy in Italy, Art Therapy Italiana, Bologna, teaching DMT and CM in Bilgi University, Istanbul and for the Inspirees Institute, China. Her article, "Portals of Transformation: Authentic Movement and Performance”, has recently been published in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, New York (2017). Marcia has studied Laban with Debra McCall and Peggy Hackney.

Frederick Curry is Interim Graduate Director of the Ed.M. Dance Education Program in the Department of Dance, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, where his focus is on dance pedagogy, Laban Movement Analysis and Somatics. He has taught at LIMS, the Dance Education Laboratory at the 92nd Street Y, and New York University’s Steinhardt School in New York City, and served on the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) Board of Directors. Frederick also serves as Assistant Editor for NDEO’s Dance Education in Practice journal.

Penny Chang is the founder of Deep Water Moves, a project exploring the intersection of movement and energy healing through private sessions, classes and dance performances. A graduate of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (2012), the Essential Light Institute (2013), the Barbara Brennan School of Healing (2001) and Bryn Mawr College (1985), Chang is a Certified Brennan Healing Science Practitioner, a Certified Movement Analyst and a Registered Somatic Movement Educator who has presented her work at Sondra Fraleigh’s Eastwest Somatics Winter Conference and Bill Evan’s Somatic Dance Conference. She practices and teaches in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Enrique Pisani is a Certified Practitioner in: Laban Bartenieff Movement Analysis, Body-Mind Centering, IDME (Infant Developmental Movement Education), Feuerstein and Movement Lesson.  Currently he is the Program Director of Kangoeroes Aalst Volleyball Club. In this previous career, he served as the Technical Director of Brussels/Wallonia Volleyball Federation (FVBW), Responsable of the Coaches Course Program of FVBW, Movement Consultant of Carolina Marin (European, World and Olympic Badminton Champion, founder and lecturer of the program Foundations of Human Movement, Movement Consultant of Volleyball Clubs (Chapelle/Belgium, Vlisbiburg/Germany, Bursa/Turkey)

Nayung Kim is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Professional Therapeutic Technology in Seoul Women’s University. She was a first Korean student at LIMS in 1996. She has conducted training and researching in DMT and trauma work with varied populations in Korea as well as supervision. She is a President of Korea Research Society of Trauma Therapies & Education now. Currently, she supports Nepal to lead expressive arts therapy and supervision after 2015 earthquake.

Vincent Yong is Singapore’s first Certified Movement Analyst and Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist. A somatic movement trainer, Vincent combines his international experience in performance, education and personal development and has helped leaders in the entertainment, banking, law, media, education and allied health industries to achieve personal excellence for the past 15 years. He founded Danspire International in 2009 and is the author for Flow-The Art of Creating AbunDance. Vincent supports the community through sponsorship, reform work and social integration in areas of fitness, juvenile care and rehabilitation and parent-child cohesion. Vincent has presented on TEDx, NYLD, IADMS etc.

Dr. Tony Yu Zhou is the founder of Inspirees Institute and is based in China and The Netherlands.  In 2005, he brought international teachers to China to assist develop DMT in the country and have the first DMT training program established in 2010.  He has completed ADTA approved alternate route coursework and is the CMA from LIMS program 2016 in Belgium.  Tony is the founder and executive editor of Creative Arts Therapy and Arts Education – Eastern and Western Perspectives (CAET), an international academic journal, and serves as a peer reviewer and international advisor for the journal Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy. He is the group leader of Chinese Group of Arts Therapy, Chinese Psychological Society. 

Antja Kennedy since 1983 has been a freelance dance teacher, dancer, choreographer and movement analyst. CMA in Seattle, WA (1984). Bachelor Degree in Dance at Empire State College, New York. Certificate as a practitioner in Movement Pattern Analysis by MOTUS Humanus, Denver, USA. Founding member of the Tanzfabrik Berlin and EUROLAB. Since 1990 teaching and since 1995 directing the EUROLAB Certificate Programs in Laban/ Bartenieff Movement Studies. In 2010 she published a book in German about Laban/ Bartenieff Movement Studies: "Bewegtes Wissen" (Eng.: Moving Knowledge).