Introducing the Bartenieff Fundamentals
You know I'm into it. Another one from the archives.
The Bartenieff Fundamentals (or BFs for short) are a set of movement patterns and principles created by Irmgard Bartenieff (1900–1981).
Peggy Hackney, a student of Bartenieff, described the goal of the Fundamentals to be:
A lively interplay between inner connectivity and outer expressivity.
Bartenieff was a modern dancer who was a student of Rudolf von Laban, known as one of the founders of Modern Dance and the field of Movement Analysis. Bartenieff, having emigrated from Germany to the USA, later studied physiotherapy, so the BFs synthesise elements from both Laban and Physiotherapy.
In contemporary Laban Movement Analysis, we talk about four categories of movement experience and observation.
The Categories
Body - the action the body is performing and how the body executes this
Effort - the qualities of movement created by the movement - analysed in terms of Time, Space, Weight and Flow
Space - the spatial forms created by the movement
Shape - the relationships created or changed by the movement
Laban did not name these categories, but this was a later development.
Regarding the body category, however, Laban was interested in studying movement independently from the existing studies of anatomy, physiology and kinesiology, sports, dance, etc. To this end, he focussed primarily on bodily actions - transferring weight, locomotion, turning, changing levels, balancing and going off balance, jumping, holding still, etc.
However, in my opinion, which is echoed by some of my colleagues, whilst his insights on the body are precious, there can be a lack of a certain sense of… well… bodyliness about it all. Even amongst professional Laban Movement Analysts, it is widely commented that the Body category was the least developed of all four categories.
Irmgard Bartenieff changed all that - she brought the body back into the picture in a comprehensive and grounded way.
As Bartenieff began the phase in her career when she transitioned from a predominantly clinical phase into more teaching, she began to teach some of the movement patterns she was using with her Polio patients to restore mobility. These she called initially “Correctives”, and this name later shifted to the “Fundamentals”.
She was reluctant to codify these patterns as they were continually evolving, but she was persuaded to write Body Movement, which was published a year before her death. Later, a student, Peggy Hackney, wrote the most extensive treatment on the Fundamentals, which posthumously became known as the “Bartenieff Fundamental” in her book Making Connections. Hackney also brought aspects of Body-Mind Centering, another Somatic discipline developed by another student of Bartenieff, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen - particularly Bonnie’s description of infant movement.
The Basic Six
However, despite this - six movement patterns, known as the “Basic Six”, were used and taught consistently. These she usually taught in a very open-ended way - take an aspect of one of the patterns and then explore its many variations, but they can also be performed as a set of exercises - usually done in a supine position on the floor. In sequence, they are (highly simplified and summarised):
Thigh lift - (aka femoral flexion) - from semi-supine, lifting one leg whilst maintaining the angle at the knee.
Saggital Pelvic Shift - From semi-supine, lifting the pelvis up and forwards (towards the feet) and returning it to the floor.
Lateral Pelvic Shift - one of the most difficult to do. Having lifted the pelvis off the floor, shifting the pelvis minimally to one side without flexion, extension, lateral flexion or rotation of the pelvis. You move on one dimension, and the hips must rotate inwards as the pelvis moves outward.
Body-Halves - a homolateral pattern where you lie in an X position and then bring your elbow and knee on one side together, allowing the spine to enter into a side bend; reverse the pattern initiating from the fingers and toes.
Knee Drop (or Diagonal Knee Reach) - from semi-supine, allowing a knee to drop/reach to the outside and following with the other knee. This is followed automatically with a spiralling of the spine in the other direction.
Arm Circles - from the position you finish in from the knee drop (which is similar to what in Yoga is called a Supine Twist but has a very different initiation to how I usually see it done in Yoga); take the hand which your eyes are looking at and take it in a circle over the top of the head, to the other side of the body and back to its starting position. For the left hand, this is clockwise. Reverse the movement.
Various preparatory exercises, variations and developments also belong with the Basic 6, making it into the “Basic 10/14/16”, depending on how you slice the pie.
Without going into detail, these include (non-exhaustively):
The Heel-Rock, the Pre-Thigh Lift, X-Rolls (sequential diagonal rolls), Xs and Os, the Breath Flow Support Sequence, Arm Circles to Sit Up, the Lower Unit Sequence, the Propulsion Sequence, etc.
In addition to the movement patterns themselves, Bartenieff extensively taught principles which accompany them, such as using the support of the breath in movement, sensing weight, and grounding (stabilising before mobilising).
One of these was her observations of “kinetic chains”, sequences of muscles that work together in functional units - something which later influenced Thomas Myers to develop his seminal work Anatomy Trains, which has significantly influenced the fitness industry. I have noticed personal trainers casually dropping Bartenieff’s names for the kinetic chains, though I am pretty sure they have no idea where the word comes from.
Influence of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
Aspects which Hackney “imported” into the Fundamentals - which, by the way, she is very explicit about doing, but the world seems to have been forgotten - are specifically related to the developmental movement sequence as identified by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in her work on the Basic Neurocellular Pattern (BNPs) - the BNPs are as follows:
Cellular Respiration
Sponging
Pulsation
Navel Radiation
Mouthing
Soft-Spinal Movement
Spinal Yield and Push from the Head
Spinal Yield and Push from the Tail
Homologous Yield and Push from the Hands
Homologous Yield and Push from the Feet
Homolateral Yield and Push from one Hand
Homolateral Yield and Push from one Foot
Spinal Reach and Pull from the Head
Spinal Reach and Pull from the Tail
Homologous Reach and Pull from the Hands
Homologous Reach and Pull from the Feet
Contralateral Reach and Pull from one Hand
Contralateral Reach and Pull from one Foot
Hackney simplified this to a more elegant but less nuanced version:
Breathing (based on all the patterns preceding Navel Radiation)
Core-Distal Connectivity (based on Navel Radiation)
Head-Tail Connectivity (based on mouthing, pre-spinal and the four other spinal patterns)
Upper-Lower Body Connectivity (based on the Homologous patterns)
Body-Halves Connectivity (based on the Homolateral patterns)
Cross-Lateral Connectivity (based on the Contralateral patterns)
She also imported the distinction between yield and push vs. reach and pull patterning, an essential part of the BNPs.
Applications
The Bartenieff Fundamentals were developed in clinical practice with Polio patients. After this, she found herself using them in mental health clinics. Later, she was teaching them to dancers. Today, Bartenieff's work is being applied in diverse therapeutic, educational and artistic settings, reflecting their development and early application.
Most essentially, however, the Fundamentals are based on movement, an automatic part of everyday functioning. They can be applied anywhere where someone needs to be more efficient in their movement functioning.
Bibliography:
Body Movement: Coping with the Environment by Irmgard Bartenieff
Sensing, Feeling and Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering® by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
The Ongoing Development of “Past Beginnings”: A Further Discussion of Neuromotor Development & the Somatic Links Between Bartenieff Fundamental, Body-Mind Centering® and Dynamic Embodiment© by Martha Eddy
Making Connections: Whole-Body Connectivity through Bartenieff Fundamentals by Peggy Hackney
Interview with Irmgard Bartenieff with Ilana Rubenfeld, pages 221–237 in Bone, Breath and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment by ed. Don Hanlon Johnson