American Journal of Dance Therapy 1981, VoJ. 4, NO. 1, 5-24

An Interview with Irmgard Bartenieff lrmgard Bartenieff Founder and President Laban Institute of Movement Studies

Claire Schmais, Ph.D., DTR Coordinator Dance Therapy Master's Program Hunter Coltege

Elissa Q. White, DTR Coordinator Dance Therapy Department Sound Shore Community Mental Health Services Harlam Valley Psychiatric Center Adjunct Faculty Dance Therapy Master's Program Hunter College

Irmgard Bartenieff is truly a Renaissance woman. Steeped in the arts, the sciences, and the humanities, she is able to synthesize different points of view. The thread woven through all her endeavors is a strong dedication to the humanizing aspects of dance. Through her writings and her teachings, people from diverse disciplines have experienced the dynamic and vitalizing aspects of dance and movement. Irmgard Bartenieff has special meaning for those of us in dance therapy. Her inputs from anthropology, physical therapy, Labanotation, and dance enrich our knowledge of dance therapy and broaden our understanding of patients, families, and cultures. Her commitment to the value of movement led her to pioneer in many areas, lrmgard introduced Effort, a method for observing and analyzing movement dynamics, to this country. She developed Fundamentals, a course combining effort and space concepts with basic principles of physical therapy. Irmgard also helped develop Choreometrics, a system for analyzing movement patterns across cultures. lrmgard remains perpetually young because new ideas continue to stimulate and excite her. Viewing phenomena in light of her vast experience and her breadth of knowledge, she finds new meanings and insights into old ideas. No interview can possibly cover all the aspects of lrmgard's life or assess the impact she has had on people. We have tried to cull out those experiences which make Irmgard an influential and inspirational figure in dance therapy. Requestsfor reprints should be sent to Dr. Claire Schmais, Dance Therapy Master's Program, Hunter College, 440 E. 26 Street, New York, New York 10010.

I. BARTINIEFF, C. SCHMAIS, AND E. WHITE

Claire:

The first thing we'd like to know is a little bit about your background, your parents, where you were born, and your childhood.

Irmgard: 1 came from a German family, and both my father and mother came from the Rhineland. My father worked for the government so I spent a great deal of time in Berlin, but I had wonderful maternal grandparents who always had all the grandchildren out to the country in the summer. How many children were in your family?

C~

Irmgard: There were three children, but my youngest brother died very early, at the age of three. So there were only two sisters and we were just a year and one-half apart. Were you the oldest?

C~

Irmgard: Yes. Irmgard, what was your family's attitude toward education, toward the arts?

C:

Irmgard: My father played a very minor role. He was a busy German official, so we hardly saw him. My mother and my grandmother wanted us to study. My younger sister was very interested in social work. She always took care of the babies in the family. I was always in a book! My mother was very much for all the modern things. For example, there was a Mensendieck 1 teacher, and at the age of 12, my mother sent us there. Before that, we studied with an elderly Russian lady who taught dancing for children. It was really very simple. The idea was to move prettily. I later met several people from that group who went on to study ballet or modern dance. Elissa:

How old were you when you studied with this woman?

Irmgard: Oh, about 8 to 10. E:

So you started dancing early?

lrmgard: Yes, yes. But then, of course, 1went to the German gymnasium 2 because my mother wanted me to be able to study ~Mensendieck, B. M. Look Better, Feel Better. New York: Harper & Row, 1954. ZThe German Secondary School designed to prepare students for the university.

INTERVIEW

academics. My mother had a vision, and I think she was not wrong; she thought I would study medicine. E&C:

Well!

lrmgard: I was also influenced by an aunt, a wonderful aunt, who took singing lessons. Her husband was sort of a gentleman farmer and they had a beautiful house in the country. It was the time of art nouveau with spindly furniture and all of that. And she, in 1912, had already completely decorated her house in the colors white, black, yellow, and cobalt blue. E&C:

Oh, my goodness.

Irmgard: When I came to this country and saw the Knoll furniture, I said: "1 know this color scheme from childhood!" C:

Irmgard, let's go back to when you say you were a bookworm and you read a lot. Can you remember any books that were particularly important?

Irmgard: I read fairy tales and German, English, and Greek mythology. When I graduated from the gymnasium, I didn't quite know where I should start. So I began with biology and botany. But I always took lectures in art history. Then I married a very young professor of Greek history. I was married to him for about 6 years. I dissolved that marriage because I couldn't stand the cold academic atmosphere. E:

Irmgard, to backtrack a bit, at what age did you complete your studies at the gymnasium?

Irmgard: I graduated from the gymnasium at the age of 19. We take what you call in German, "Die Abitur," a final exam. C~

So, it's like the first two years of college?

lrmgard: Yes, it is. While in Munich, I also attended a lot of lectures and seminars in archeology and art history. I became quite good at determining art periods, particularly from archeological findings. I think this was when I recognized my ability to observe because I could distinguish from which centuries these Greek statues came. My first husband and 1 traveled quite a lot. We spent two summers in Rome where we didn't want to look at any Christian art. For two summers we stayed away from all the Renaissance art Rome had to offer, it was

I. BARTINIEFF,C. SCHMAIS,AND E. WHITE

only Greek! We traveled to Sicily and saw all the Greek temples. That was also a very great influence. The art history made me really see style differences and I feel surer than ever that it was really an important learning experience. E:

Did you dance at all during this time?

Irmgard: Yes, I actually started at about 22. In Munich I found a Laban 3 teacher, one of the women from the group who had studied with Laban very early in the twenties. She said to me, "If you really want to study you should study with Laban himself." But it wasn't until 1925 that I did that. E:

Did you seek out a Laban teacher in Munich?

Irmgard: No, it was accidental, completely accidental. In Munich we lived in the quarter where the artists and the students lived and where you ran into a[I kinds of people. I had also taken singing lessons when I was still in the gymnasium, which proved useful at this time. C:

So you had singing, dancing, and art.

lrmgard: Yes. And the art influence was quite strong and constantly renewed by my relationship to my aunt. My aunt took me to all the modern exhibitions. E:

What was her name?

Irmgard: Irma Hasenclever. I was named after her. She was lovely. She had no children of her own, so all of her nieces were her children. C:

It sounds like she was an important model for you?

Irmgard: Oh yes, yes, yes. C:

Can you think of any other people who were important to you?

Irmgard: Yes, my grandmother. She wrote to all her four daughters. She wrote a letter every week. They were in different cities. She also wrote to the grandchildren on any and all occasions. At the age of 12, when I had a slight heart condition, 3Rudolf Laban was a dancer and choreographer whose published works include Effort, 1947; Mastery of Movement, .1950; Principles of Dance and Movement Notation, 1956; (London: McDonald and Evans).

INTERVIEW

my grandmother asked me what did I want to do. Having to rest so much, she suggested making pin lace. So, I made laces, the laces you make on a cushion with tiny rollers of yarn and pins: Pin laces - 1 loved doing that. I think that connects to my interest in geometrical design. You know, I like cross stitching and all of those things. E;

Shape, plus form.

Irmgard: Yes, yes. E:

You had very strong women models.

lrmgard: Yes. C:

Are there other significant situations that you remember?

Irmgard: Yes. When I was 15 both my sister and 1 got sick with rheumatic fever. 1 stayed in bed for 8 months and my sister for a full year. When I started to dance again, I was achy, but it completely disappeared. It was wonderful to dance again. C:

There is a strong need to move after being so immobile.

Irmgard: After we emerged from our rheumatic fever, I went to school in the Rhineland. There I had a wonderful teacher of literature. I learned old German, medieval German, and 1 read the old epic of the Nibelungen in the original form. It was something I loved to do. I was not very good in mathematics. It was really literature, art, and language that 1 loved. E:

What did you do after you dissolved your first marriage?

Irmgard: I lived in Munich and I got into dance circles. I took part in a little dance group and then I went to study with Laban. C:

How did you support yourself?

Irmgard: Well, my parents supported me. C:

You went to study with Laban in Germany?

Irmgard: Yes, in 1925. Before that, my first Laban teacher was very neurotic, but a very interesting person. She came from a painter's family and she sparked my interest in space harmony. I improvised a great deal without music. When I met Laban, I said to him, "1 do not want to dance with music." I wanted to dance without music because musicless

I. BARTINIEFF,C. SCHMAIS,AND E. WHITE

dance was at its height at that time. I saw Wigman 4 and 1was very impressed with her, but I knew I would never go to this powerful woman. You had to be very strong not to fall under that spell. Besides, what my music teacher told me about Laban's ideas attracted me. I went to Wuerzburg. Laban was interviewing students for the following year and he said, " N o w I want to see you move." I did a short improvisation and I turned to him and said; "You know, I'm not having a front!" [stage front] He said, 'Tm glad." I already or naturally, had the sense of the area around the whole body, the kinesphere. So then, I stayed 2 years with Laban. The first year was all in Wuerzburg and then Laban moved to Berlin where he founded the Choreographic Institute. At the time he did not teach very much but he would sit and look at people. He could say marvelous things, sometimes very shattering or very encouraging, because he saw so much. C~

He had a bi-polar system.

Irmgard: Yes, indeed, very much. At the end of this year there was the first dance congress in Magdeburg in which the Bauhaus people were also involved. Laban did three danceworks. He was very clear that certain people were individual artists and that other people were leaders of youth who developed dances that everybody could dance [later named lay dance or movement choir]. I was not yet decided between either thing, but... E"

You were not decided, or he...?

Irmgard: I was not. Laban himself was very clear between professional stage dance before an audience and the lay dance where people joined in the experience of moving together. I was still trying to find myself. In one movement choir I was in at the Magdeburg Dance Congress, Laban used about 50 people and we all wore shorts, a kind of anonymous costume. Our faces were hidden in sort of stocking masks. He wanted to show the power of groups moving against each other with changes of sweeping energies and parallel or contrasting levels. For the performance, as background accompaniment, he used Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. 4Mary Wigman was a famous modern dancer in Germany. See Language of the Dance, Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1963.

10

INTERVIEW

He also did a romantic interpretation. He choreographed The Ritter Ballet by Beethoven. We were all in black and white costumes of knights - very medieval. He also did an ultra modern st-age work with music composed for him by a Hungarian. It was almost on the idea of Jooss's "Night. Visitors." It was about the corruption of the big city, depicting extreme individualistic types. He wanted to prove or to demonstrate that there are various ways of using the stage in choreography. C:

Did you finally make a decision which way you were going to go: dancer or youth leader [choreographer]?

Irmgard: No, I got enmeshed in other things. While I was with him, Laban was very involved in developing Labanotation 6 and he used us all as subjects for his experiments. He would come with something written on a piece of paper and say, "Now read this for me and develop it." It was very exciting. At this time Laban was influenced by two women: a Russian woman, Dussia Bereska, whom he had discovered in a small cabaret in Paris; and her rival, a woman from the Rhineland called Ruth Loeser. She was marvelous technically. She was also very clear and helped Laban develop the concepts which were later called space harmony. 7 To him, this was pure dance like pure music. There was no story, no kind of expression of feelings, but really pure movement. Bereska was more into what we then called eukinetics which became the basis of effort. In the school, our schedule was divided between space harmony with Loeser and eukinetics with Bereska. C:

[ see.

Irmgard: It was a very important time. E:

I want to ask you a question about what you said about pure movement and pure music. You said something about the omission of expression.

Irmgard: Well, eukinetics was the expressive side, while space SKurt Jooss, German dancer and choreographer, was a student of Laban's and a performer with Mary Wigman. His best known choreographic work is The Green Table. 6Originally Dance Script, later called Kinetographie Laban. 7SeeChoreutics. London: McDonald & Evans, 1966.

11

I. BARTINIEFF,C. SCHMAIS, AND E. WHITE

harmony he felt, could be considered like a piece of music by Bach -- maybe one could say "abstract." Of course eukinetics and space harmony are interlinked. E~

I understand.

Irmgard: He also did things with mime. Very fittingly he did Don Juan [laughter]. He also did other theatrical dance. E"

That he would call expressive?

Irmgard: Yes. E:

I'm trying to figure out the distinction because I know that when I do veloutes and steeples there is always a lot of expressiveness.

Irmgard: Actually, like in music some pieces are for expression of feelings, some emphasize form. Of course, it is still dance. What did you do after these 21/2 years with Laban? Irmgard: 1 had met my Russian husband, a Russian character dancer, in 1928, in Munich. E:

You met your husband through Laban?

Irmgard: No, no. Michail or Misha was sort of suspicious of the whole Laban thing. My husband introduced me to something very emotional. I was very impressionable anyway. We were exactly the same age but he had had a very difficult time growing up. When he was 6 years old, his mother fled the pogroms in Russia. His mother had two Russian sisters in Germany who married Germans and they helped take care of my husband. He had a very hard youth. C~

Was he Jewish?

Irmgard: Yes, Jewish, and we all think from his looks that he must have also had Tartar blood. There were Mongolian-Jewish sects (Chazars) in Russia. My mother was very fond of my husband which was very nice. E"

You got married in Germany?

Irmgard: Yes, we got married in Munich in 1929. My friends made a lovely wedding which was most unlike my first, not very conventional. 12

INTERVIEW

You emigrated because of the Nazis. H o w soon after you married did you leave?

E:

Irmgard: You see once we got married, we went to Stuttgart and we built a small sc'hool there and began to build a dance group. My oldest son was born in Stuttgart, but then we decided it was not stimulating enough, so we went to Berlin. In Berlin I took for the first time Russian ballet lessons together with Mi'sha and we also studied Spanish dancing which we both loved very much. It was very difficult for my husband to start something new. We would register for a class and I did not know till 5 minutes before we had to leave the house whether he really was going to take the class. And so it went. In 1933, Hitler rose to power. In that year my second child was born. At that time we were forming a dance group with about five or six dancers. We were able to finance these dancers by having them live with us. I cooked for them for several months. Sounds like a commune.

C~

Irmgard: We began to tour for about ayear or so and then we were no longer allowed to tour. C:

Now was that because of the role of the arts or because of Misha being Jewish?

I rmgard: It was because of my Jewish husband. The Aryan dancers were not allowed to mix. So that is the story. H o w was Laban considered? Was he Aryan?

E~

Irmgard: Yes, he was very Aryan. He came from an old Hungarian family. H o w long did you live in Berlin?

E"

Irmgard: Till 1936. During those 3 years I did mainly theoretical work. I went to the libraries and in fact I translated all of Feuillet 8 from the French notation into Labanotation. E~

You left Germany in ...?

I rmgard: ...1936. This was our first summer in New York. We came as eRaoul Auger Feuillet (born circa 1660, died 1710) devised a notation system and wrote

Choregraphie.

13

I. BARTINIEFF,C. SCHMAIS, AND E. WHITE

visitors and I gave my first introductory lectures on Labanotation. 1got into German refugee circles. You know we helped each other. There I met Irma Otto-Betz who was already very interested.in notation and was a student of Laban's. She said we must do something together2 In August we returned to Germany and we came back three months later on a visiting visa. Since we were not regular immigrants, Immigration kept us for 2 days on Ellis Island. Luckily, I had two German cousins who helped get us out of there. C:

How come you were able to go back to Germany?

Irmgard: My husband was a stateless Russian, a refugee child of the Russian pogroms in 1907 and he was not noticed. For sometime we didn't even think it necessary to register as Jewish. Being a stateless Russian saved us in so many ways. It certainly saved his life. E:

And what about your children?

lrmgard: When we left Germany the second time, it was again without the children. They stayed with my sister and they went to an Anthroposophica[ Private School in Bavaria. Two years later in November, 1938 1went back to fetch them but their papers were not ready. I brought my two sons here to America on the last ship from Germany [August, t939] before the war started. We were sponsored by a committee of Christian and Jewish ladies who did marvelous work in getting refugees started. They gave us the money, because at that time all European money was frozen, and 1couldn't get anything from Germany. They sent us to Cuba and we stayed 2 weeks in Cuba. Then we went through the regular immigration procedures. Some people at that time entered by Canada but Cuba was another possibility. C:

What kind of work did you both do in America?

Irmgard: I started to teach notation with Irma Otto-Betz at the Hanya Holm studio. And we wrote the first book in studies in Labanotation.l° C:

Where is that book?

9They gave lectures and demonstrations at the New School, Bennington Summer School and Columbia University. ~OElementaryStudies in Laban's Dance Script. Publisher unknown, 1937.

14

INTERVIEW

lrmgard: That is a very sad story. We had printed 250 copies at that time. In 1938 when I went to Germany to bring back the children, my husband stayed in a rented room. When he moved, he did not take the box with the books, which affected my relationship with Irma Otto-Betz. It was very sad. It also spoiled my relationship with John Martin [dance critic], you know, so I had no chance. E:

What do you mean "no chance?"

Irmgard: As long as I was with Irma Otto-Betz he was very interested in notation. When Irma Otto-Betz started teaching alone, he would no longer support me in any way in dance or dance related activities. My husband and I decided to take a course in massage and the two doctors who were our teachers found us a little place in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and we lived there for 4 years. C:

What kind of massage was that?

Irmgard: It was ordinary Swedish massage. But there was an old German doctor; he was wonderful. C~

So you did massage work in Pittsfield?

Irmgard: Yes. They also had a course, Physical Therapy, which didn't amount to much, only to a massage license. And then after that, when the children came, I didn't want to keep them in that little town. My husband, for whom the whole immigration experience was a terrible shock, didn't want to move into New York; so he stayed. While in Pittsfield, I gave dancemovement classes for ladies and children. I had these sort of week-end dances for children that were held in gardens of various people of the community. Then friends of mine founded a camp near Great Barrington Monterey, Massachusetts. I helped out and she took our children into the camp. Considering everything, 1 decided 1 had to go back to New York and I made the decision to seriously study physical therapy. E"

What year was this?

Irmgard: I went back to New York in 1943 and registered for the first course in Physical Therapy and Physical Rehabilitation at 15

i. BARTINIEFF,C. SCHMAIS, AND E. WHITE

New York University. I worked for Dr. George Deaver at Bellevue Hospital and that was very lucky because it was when this whole rehabilitation concept of treating the patient as a whole person, was just started. I was sent to Willard Parker, an old New York City hospital, which was for infectious diseases and that's when I started working with polio victims, combining Laban's spacial concepts with physical therapy. 1 was there 7 years and then the hospital closed. There I had great freedom, complete freedom, though officially I was an emergency therapist for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. That was such a fantastic experience because I worked with all age groups~ Of course, I looked at mobilization from the Laban point of view. The doctor appeared only every week or two. I could actually do whatever I wanted to do. That was a blessing for me. C~

It allowed you to use what you knew. What did you do next?

Irmgard: Yes. Dr. Gurewitsch, who was professor at the Neurological Institute on 168th street singled me out. He said, "I want to bring you to Children's hospital in Valhalla, New York, Blythedale." In Blythedale, they had children from ages 3 to 15. Mainly younger children, and he said to me, "Develop a program for these children so they won't regress." E;

You were there for 4 years?

Irmgard: Yes, from 1951 to 1955. E:

And there you worked as a physical therapist?

lrmgard: Yes, but I was actually the coordinator of the program. A week or so after I was there I talked to Dr. Gurewitch about the terrible effects of prolonged hospitalization, so devastating for children, particularly young children. It was a small hospital, they didn't take more than 50 patients. They have now greatly enlarged it. He felt I should coordinate the whole program for these hospitalized children, that meant their recreation. He also engaged an art therapist. In the second year, a psychiatrist joined the staff. We then worked closely with him and with social service. The hospital had a policy that before they admitted a child one of the social workers would go to the hospital where the child was hospitalized. This was one of the more humanizing policies. 16

INTERVIEW

I worked very closely with the social workers. They often came along when the child was transferred from the hospital. It was not that the child was just put into an ambulance and brought to Blythedale alone. E~

What were the children like?

Irmgard: Some were very regressed. We had some small children, age 4 to 6, who had become completely listless. They couldn't even play with any of the toys donated by the board. Blythedale had a wonderful board predominantly of women who were very anxious to understand what was going on in the hospital. Every employee knew at least two or three board members with whom'they could discuss ideas and special complaints. There was also quite a good school there from the public school system. All the children were transported in beds to the school. Twice a day there was this big move to and from the school. C~

What kinds of illnesses did the children have?

lrmgard: We had children in body casts who had had polio or other spinal diseases and we had cerebral palsy victims. Some were boys between the ages of 7 and 10, with Percy's Hip Disease, which is a rather painless, but deteriorating disease of the hip bones. Children have to be offtheir feet 17 months to 2 years. Since they could not be taken care of at home, they had to be put into such an institution where they were kept off their feet, which was, of course, very hard for them to understand. They were completely frustrated. The staff had constant trouble with these boys. 1 felt they needed an active movement program in bed - vigorous exercises. In the afternoon the beds were put out on the terrace where they could play ball and use bats. So at least they got some sort of workout. Also, we did very vigorous exercises in bed, whole movement sequences. E~

Were they the standard physical therapy exercises?

Irmgard: No, they were really more like gymnastics, free exercises and whatever they could do. This was in addition to the physical therapy program. C:

In other words, to meet their emotional needs as well as their physical needs. 17

I. BARTINIEFF,C. SCHMAIS, AND E. WHITE

lrmgard: Yes, for that reason we did all kinds of ball games. Tossing light balls and really thrusting heavy balls, and all of that. At least in this way they could also form a group. E:

In some ways it was probably more like dance therapy.

Irmgard: Yes, but we didn't call it that then. E:

Yes, but it was probably rhythmic and suited to their needs then.

Irmgard: Oh, yes, yes. Then there was a small group of spastic children and they had a special therapist who I knew from the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled. I only worked with these children when their therapist was on vacation. There 1 also discovered that it is not always just a matter of teaching them body mechanics. There is a definite need for rhythmic and expressive movements. For example, there was this little boy. He was almost ready to walk on crutches. He was spastic and he was very emotionally attached to the staff. He used to fall all the time. I surmised it was because he wanted to be picked up. E~

You mean so he could be touched?

Irmgard: Yes, so he could be held. So I did all kinds of things to engage him on his own. I pretended to be a bear, a clown, and did other kinds of role playing to help him feel secure on his feet. Within 3 weeks he began to use the crutches and got around. Then we had another little boy from a large family who got polio when he was very young. He was about 8 years old. He was not left with very severe weakness. But since he was one of the youngest of a family of eight or nine children, he had been carried around, so he never bothered to learn upright walking. To get around, he propelled himself on his seat with incredible speed. Then he discovered that we had some carts which he loved to use, so we had to prevent this. C~

He found an alternate means of locomotion.

Irmgard: We had to get him to stay upright. To motivate him I put him into a group with other crutch-walking children. Because he was fantastically fast when he was on his behind, we had a constant struggle. So next I insisted that he learn to swim in the small swimming tank. ! made him stand up in the water

18

INTERVIEW

and proved to him that he actually could stand up. We got him almost to the point where he would use his crutches when his parents took him out of the hospital. C&E:

That's a familia[r situation.

Irmgard: There were many challenges. I remember a 4 year old little boy who had congenital hemip[egia, paralysis of one lateral half of the body. I first watched how he played. He would sit and amass all kinds of toys around him: the dolls, the furniture, and all the smaller things. He would just play with a toy, handle it, look at it, and then drop it in a seemingly senseless way. I thought from the way he walked and got around that he had a mild case, so I let him play in the physical therapy room. We had one of those pulley contraptions attached to interchangeable weights. It had two handles. I would first bandage his weak hand to it so he could use both hands for pulling and also regulate how much weight he was putting on the pulley. He found out quickly how to change the weights. Now, when he began to change the weights he had to employ a great deal of resistance using both arms and legs to pull it out. When the weights pu[ted him he had to ground himself by walking backwards. He played around a lot this way and his gait improved within 3 to 4 weeks. Meanwhile, I worked with his arms and hands using the figure eight. I did all kinds of figure eight~ in space, mostly curved movements in order to get him to [earn to turn by using rotation. In 4 to 5 weeks he could turn the doorknob and things like that. And he was very happy. The most interesting thing to me was when I went back to the day room after 6 weeks. He was playing differently with the toys. He put the table in the middle, the figures around, and he built a real living room. C~

He became organized.

lrmgard: Yes, it was really as if through feeling the two body halves his relationships to objects was changed. C:

It seems to me, Irmgard, that you had to be exceedingly adaptive to each new situation. It really challenged your creativity.

Irmgard: I did many unconventional things. We had a little polio patient who had severely paralyzed legs. He was 4 or 5 years 19

I, BARTINIEFF,C. SCHMAIS, AND E. WHITE

old and came from a very complicated artist's marriage where both parents had never really taken much care of him. He was a very intelligent boy. He also had a hearing problem and he could hardly speak, but he was a wonderful and lovely child. I brought him to the treatment room, took off his braces, and said, "N o w try to move around." We had one of those Swedish ladders on one of the walls and he began to climb. He had some traces of muscle. How he used them was fantastic. Then we put the braces back on him and I opened up the kneelocks and let him play in the sand so he could climb around and over things. One of the recreation workers would help him when he wanted to walk. He walked the inclines, up and down. He began to talk, and he began to paint. E:

It seems as if you had a lot of freedom to be innovative.

Irmgard: Yes, this was also my original attraction for Blythedale. Dr. Gurewitsch said, "You will be able to do something with these children." When I left after 4 years my recommendations changed the whole policy at Blythedale. They built a swimming pool and made other changes so children could have a more normal life during their hospitalization. C:

But your focus was not just on the pathology, the sickness.

Irmgard: Yes, and 1 always wanted to see patients out of the physical therapy treatment room. C:

Why did you leave Blythedale? What was the motivation?

Irmgard: There were other things I wanted to do. I wanted to go back to the city, to do more research. I also wanted to do more work with actors and other groups. I felt I had finished my job and Dr. Gurewitsch wanted me to work with adults. E:

So, that's when you began to work privately?

lrmgard: I worked in his office. We had a lot of lower back problems. E:

Did you do connective tissue massage?

Irmgard: Yes, he wanted me to do that. E:

When did you learn how?

uSee Maria Ebner. Connective Tissue Massage: Theory--Therapeutic Application. Edinburgh and London: E+S Livingston Ltd., 1962.

20

INTERVIEW

lrmgard: I learned the technique in the fifties because one of the codirectors of the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled had gotten this treatment in Switzerland and he invited one of the therapists to come here and give a course. The following summer I went to Germany for a 3 week course. You always have to take two courses to study that. After the first course you begin to use it and then you have to take a follow-up course to perfect it. I treated a lot of back cases. I found that some of these people could only be treated with connective tissue massage. They were the irritable type, not terribly rational. These patients were particularly hypersensitive to the side effects of connective tissue massage. Connective tissue massage affects the autonomic nervous system, the regulatory system for all the body functions, heartbeat, bloodflow, and so forth. It also affects emotional responses like blushing, headaches, and nausea. It was a very interesting time. All of this really prepared me for dance therapy. C:

Absolutely! So, did you start seeing that certain personality types would have certain disorders which would reflect itself in the tonus and the movement patterns?

Irmgard: Yes, and Dr. Gurewitsch encouraged me not to give just routine treatments. He had quite an understanding of the complexity of people. E~

Where do you see connective tissue massage today?

Irmgard: For me it is often the core, the method for getting people to themselves, for centering people. It supports psychological change. I tried to teach it to a few people but the law governing massages has narrowed to such a ridiculous point that you are not supposed to touch human bodies unless you are a licensed masseuse or a regular physical therapist. In the first group I had two physical therapists, but the people who had had effort/shape training learned much faster, and much more sensitively. E:

When did you do this Irmgard?

lrmgard: In the sixties. I also had some private patients, and I began to 21

1. BARTIN1EFF,C. SCHMAtS,AND E. WHITE

give courses in effort at Turtle Bay Music School. C:

So you gave courses at Turtle Bay about the same time that Marian 12 used to give courses?

Irmgard: Yes, and I sometimes took part in Marian's course as a student. C~

So effort was being taught at the same time as dance therapy.

lrmgard: Yes, I am always sitting in between two chairs. When Turtle Bay started to have the therapy department, with music therapy and art therapy, Effort/Shape was not strictly dance therapy so I was not in the catalogue. It was always an extra course, but not in the dance therapy department. Then, Esther Robbins, a psychiatric resident, appeared in my course. And she came with a practical nurse from the Day Hospital. E:

Was this the Soundview Throggs Neck Day Hospital on Glebe Ave.?

lrmgard: Yes, it was just the beginning of the Day Hospital. Esther introduced me to Dr. Zwerling. 13 C:

Irmgard, at this time you were also involved with the Dance Notation Bureau.

Irmgard: Yes. C:

When did that start?

Irmgard: In the fifties. I started teaching introductory courses in effort. C:

Irmgard, what are the criteria for somebody coming into the effort program today?

Irmgard: They have to write an essay when they come to us and we have an interview with them. We are getting fewer young people, and more people around the age of thirty and above. We expect a certain kind of maturity. C:

Do you expect any kind of dance training? Is that a criteria?

~2Marian Chace gave introductory dance therapy courses at Turtle Bay Music School, NYC, from 1957 to 1969. ~31sraelZwerling, Ph.D., M.D., was director of Soundview Throggs Neck Day Hospital and became Director of Bronx Psychiatric Center. He was an innovator in the field of Community Psychiatry and supported movement analysis of family systems, and later, dance therapy.

22

I N T ERVI EW

Irmgard: I am not sure how to systematically handle that. Some make amazing progress if their whole body attitude and actual skills are receptive and open to the work, but we cannot always forsee that as you well know. We have made several mistakes. For example, by taking people who are too intellectual, who cannot really relate and deal with us. The motivation to move, to really flow, and use effort is the final criteria. C:

What are your other concerns about the training program?

lrmgard: Our whole dance training needs to be changed. People have to be exposed to more sensible dance training much earlier stressing not only mechanical use of the body but also expression. The training of dance from school age on should be different, then it may have an influence before they reach adolescence. C:

In other words, students need broad dance training. When they start planning dance therapy careers in high school it's a mistake.

Irmgard: Yes, I am very much against the undergraduate programs too. E:

We are caught up in an educational system that stresses specialization at a ,zery early age and I think that's one of the problems the field faces.

Irmgard: Experience can't be replaced by a college book. C:

What do you think about the way effort is used in dance therapy training now, Irmgard?

Irmgard: It's very difficult. Too few effort lessons leads to a superficial understanding, but you cannot overcrowd your training since you're training dance therapists. I see the problem very clearly. It's very difficult to establish the appropriate level and amount. Effort is very complex. It has become increasingly clear to me that in all usages, Lomax, .4 Kestenberg, ~s and dance therapy, Laban's theories opened all of us to the ~Alan Lomax together with Irmgard Bartenieff and Forrestine Paulay developed The Choreometric Coding Book. See A. Lomax, Folk Song Style and Culture, Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Publication No. 88, 1968, pp. 262-273. ~SJudith Kestenberg is a psychiatrist and director of Child Development Research Center, Sands Point, N.Y.

23

I. BARTINIEFF, C. SCHMAIS, AND E. WHITE

real complexities and meaning of movement. C:

So it can be used both by a psychoanalyst and by somebody studying a culture. If we can mesh those two perspectives we won't have such a reductionist view of things.

E:

This reminds me of a patient who was diagnosed as mentally retarded. Seeing him move in my session there was no way that I would ever believe that. He had no education, just arrived from the south, and came from a poor family. He was literally deprived in every possible way. The healthiest part of him was his movement. I feel this is the most important thing to understand, the deprivation our society causes. If that is not understood, we make mistakes.

C:

Irmgard, is it possible to duplicate some of the diversity, some of the multiplicity of experience that you've had in your own life into effort training and into the education of dance therapists? How do we translate your life experience into an educational program?

I rmgard: I think the universities are still very resistant to innovation. When I spoke to Margaret Mead three years ago, [four years before her death] I said, "Am I crazy that I want to start a private institute without an academic affiliation?" She said "No. You must stay private. You have no freedom of decision or action unless you are private." E:

What do you see as most important about effort?

Irmgard: I want people to understand that effort is the vital motivation to action.

24