Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network—Peoples & Things
Host: Lee Vinsel
Guest: Whitney Laemmli, Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute
Episode Title: Whitney Laemmli on Making Movement Modern
Date: October 13, 2025

This episode dives into Whitney Laemmli’s new book, Making Movement Modern: Science, Politics, and the Body in Motion. The discussion unpacks how systems for recording bodily movement—originating in the expressive world of dance—transformed modern understandings of the body, technology, culture, and politics. Leammli and Vinsel explore the surprising journey of Labanotation, from avant-garde dance to industry, corporate management, copyright law, anthropology, and even animation and AI.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing Whitney Leammli & Her Book (06:32–08:22)

• Background: Whitney Leammli discusses her interdisciplinary role at Pratt Institute, blending liberal arts and history of science, technology, and medicine for students from artistic and design backgrounds.
  • “So the Pratt Institute is actually a very old institute focused now on art and design... teaching the history of science, technology and medicine to these future artists and designers.” (06:42–07:31)
• Book Summary: The book centers on how 20th-century scientists, politicians, and ordinary people began to see bodily movement as a subject of study and experimentation, and the consequences of that cultural turn.
  • “It's about human movement... how in the 20th century a bunch of different groups of people...became interested in movement as an object of study, why they did so and what the results of that renewed interest were.” (07:49)

2. Dancing, Technology, and Personal Trajectory (08:35–12:14)

• Origin of Research: Leammli’s journey from a ballet background to academic explorations of dance technology, beginning with her recognition of the pointe shoe as a tool of both artistry and bodily discipline.
  • “I thought it would be interesting to apply the lens of the history of technology to something... rarely thought of within that frame... But as I was doing the research for the pointe shoe paper, I came across references to this system of notation...” (08:35–10:17)
• Epiphany: Realizing these dance-originated notational systems had ripple effects across anthropology, psychiatry, corporate management, and more.

3. Labanotation: Recording and Creating Movement (12:23–13:55)

• Labanotation Defined: Detailed overview of Rudolf Laban’s drive to develop a system to record ephemeral dance using written symbols—akin to musical notation.
  • “He wants to create a system for recording it in the same way that you would record music, to make it permanent and preservable... it’s complicated, it’s a little bit unwieldy, but people are really excited about it as a tool for preservation.” (12:32–13:55)
• Beyond Preservation: The system’s adoption beyond dance, facilitating the creation of new communities and future imaginaries.

4. Movement as Social and Scientific Object (14:29–17:28)

• Historical Blind Spots: Despite its centrality, everyday movement was often relegated to the background in historical studies, referenced more in manuals or etiquette than scholarly inquiry.
  • “I think any period in history you look at movement has been used as a tool of self-fashioning, of social differentiation, but it really hasn't been studied by historians very much at all...” (14:29)
• Marcel Mauss and Beyond: Mauss’s “Techniques of the Body” as a foundational, if underutilized, touchstone, with movement often dismissed as “miscellaneous facts.” (14:29–15:30)

5. Expanding Beyond the Factory—Movement, Control, and Expression (17:28–21:36)

• Challenging Taylorism: The book resists reducing bodily movement to industrial, “factory-floor” control (Taylorism); instead, movement notation appears in many non-industrial, expressive, or mystical contexts.
  • “I wanted to write a book that was broader than the factory... There’s always control, but it’s not necessarily top down control by a factory manager... There is probably more movement outside of the factory than within it.” (17:28–19:35)
• Movement and Modernity: The emergence of a new “kinesthetic” in the early 20th century, marked by fluidity, self-expression, and a direct link between inner states and outward gesture.
  • Quote from Vinsel citing Schwartz: “An entirely new kinesthetic centered around rhythm, wholeness, fluidity, and the belief in a direct connection between the inner self and the outward expression, emerged in decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century.” (19:35)

6. Rudolf Laban: Visionary, Bureaucrat, Exile (21:51–27:12)

• Biography & Motivation: Laban’s background as a European aristocrat turned artistic rebel, his rejection of militarism, commitment to expressive (anti-ballet) modern dance, and belief that bodily movement shapes psyche and society.
  • “He believes that by carefully controlling the movements of the body, you can control how the person feels, how they relate to others... very political project... interested in movements performed in groups.” (22:19–23:09)
• Nazi Era & Political Turn: Laban’s shift from left-wing communal ideals to a role as a Nazi official interested in racially defined community—a cautionary narrative about the political malleability of movement science.

7. From Fascism to Factories—Laban in Britain (28:03–31:45)

• Exile and Reinvention: Pushed out of the Nazi party, Laban relocates to Britain, joins Dartington Hall (“progressive institution”), applies movement studies to school/farm labor.
• Industrial Consulting: Collaborates with F.C. Lawrence, proposing a blend of efficient and “spiritually fulfilling” labor—a utopian vision where industrial work becomes dance-like, enhancing both productivity and worker happiness.
  • “We’re going to come up with movements for workers that are both maximally efficient and spiritually fulfilling... process of working... will become ritualized, it will kind of elevate the soul.” (28:29–31:45)

8. The Dance Notation Bureau: Codifying Art & Ownership (32:49–37:48)

• Formation and Influence: Founded in 1940 by four women, including Ann Hutchinson Guest, the Bureau became the epicenter for Laban-based notation in the U.S.
  • “They decide they are going to... they're really interested in the system for what they call its objectivity... They call it a new Esperanto, an objective language that can be used across the world that is scientific.” (33:28–35:59)
• Dance and Intellectual Property: Their notational work enabled dance to be copyrighted for the first time, fundamentally reshaping artistic rights.
  • “One of the impulses for having it notated is that notation is also central to making dance, something that's copyrightable in the United States... eventually succeed.” (36:05–37:48)

9. Consulting, “Body Language,” and White-Collar Work (39:04–42:11)

• Warren Lamb & Personality Analysis: Lamb, a disciple of Laban, pioneers “Movement Pattern Analysis” for corporate personnel selection—movement as a diagnostic, not just directive, tool.
  • “You interview a potential candidate... their verbal answers don't matter at all... create a profile and that's the only thing that counts.” (40:58)
• Resurgence & Critique: These methods echo into today’s AI-based hiring, despite ongoing skepticism about validity.
  • “...they were evaluating things like body language, facial movement, particularly this company Hirevue. They actually were sued to stop using it in 2021. But it's still very tempting...” (41:39–42:11)

10. Global Ambition: Choreometrics and Folklore (42:53–45:56)

• Alan Lomax and Choreometrics: Lomax, renowned for folk music collection, applies Laban-derived notation to dance, seeking to taxonomize every cultural dance form on earth, link movement to environment, and promote cultural diversity.
  • “He became incredibly ambitious... at least one sample of dance from literally every cultural group on the planet... to analyze all of them using techniques derived from Laban’s notation systems.” (43:32)
• Limits of Standardization: While projects foundered under their scale, the effort shaped fields like anthropology, ethnography, and public engagement with dance.

11. Laban in Digital Animation & Robotics (46:27–50:11)

• Computerization: Labanotation’s reduced, component-based data structure proved ideal for digital environments—early collaborations with IBM, use in animation, and programmability for emotional expressiveness in non-human agents like drones.
  • “[Labanotation] is an immutable mobile... always basically digital. It's easily adapted to the computer... So animators say, here's a system that already exists that tells us that these movements are what excited looks like, these movements are what fearful looks like. They program it in.” (46:27–50:11)

12. Politics of Bodily Control and Freedom (51:02–54:13)

• Ambiguous Politics: Notation’s politics shift by context (Nazi Germany vs. mid-century U.S.), but always participate in boundary-making—defining which bodies matter, who belongs, and what norms are “standard.”
  • “They find it also appealing [because] it actually seems to provide a really useful fusion of control and release... We can have self expression and control. And I think that's where the politics of it really emerge.” (52:39–54:13)
• Double-Edged Tool: The allure: offering both individual expression and organizational discipline—a “delicious tension.”

13. Next Projects: The Body, Trauma, and Memory (55:11–58:38)

• Future Research: Leammli discusses her current work on “body memory”—how Western cultures conceptualize the storage of emotion, trauma, and experience in the body (not just the brain), reaching back to early relaxation techniques and worm biologists, and leading up to modern trauma studies.
  • “The broadest gloss is... ideas in the Western tradition about feelings, memories being embedded in the body or accessible through the body in places other than the brain... a longer, more serious history of [Bessel] van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score...” (55:19–57:56)

Notable Quotes

“What happens if we look at [the pointe shoe] as a tool that shapes people’s bodies? That's a workplace technology.”
— Whitney Leammli (08:35)

“Once you start looking, movement is everywhere. We're constantly moving... but it really hasn’t been studied by historians very much at all.”
— Whitney Leammli (14:29)

“There's probably more movement outside of the factory than within it...if we just confine our setting [to industry], we miss the story.”
— Whitney Leammli (19:35)

“By carefully controlling the movements of the body, you can control how the person feels, how they relate to others... For him this is a very political project.”
— Whitney Leammli on Rudolf Laban (23:09)

“We're going to come up with movements for workers that are maximally efficient and spiritually fulfilling... working on an assembly line ... will become ritualized, it will kind of elevate the soul, and thereby we will have solved all the contradictions ... of modern capitalism.”
— Whitney Leammli (28:29–31:45)

“If you find the thing that is right for your body, you will love your boring office job. If you find the thing that is right for you. Working in a factory, the factory will become a dance.”
— Whitney Leammli (52:27)

“The notation itself makes sure that that expression is still controlled and channeled and used for something... Without it, movement is too powerful. But with it we can have our cake and eat it too: self-expression and control.”
— Whitney Leammli (54:13)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 06:32 — Pratt Institute, Leammli’s teaching and background
• 07:49 — Making Movement Modern: the book’s overview
• 08:35 — Pointe shoes as technological objects, turning personal experience into scholarship
• 12:32 — Labanotation: history, aims, and functions
• 14:29 — Movement in historical perspective; Marcel Mauss
• 17:28 — The limits of Taylorism and industrial-focused movement histories
• 22:19 — Rudolf Laban: biography and motivations
• 28:29 — Laban’s British period: factories and spiritualized work
• 32:49 — Dance Notation Bureau: creation, influence, and connection to copyright law
• 39:04 — “Body language” in corporate consulting, personality testing, and AI parallels
• 42:53 — Alan Lomax’s “choreometrics” and anthropological ambitions
• 46:27 — Labanotation in computing, animation, and robotics
• 51:02 — Politics of notation: expression, control, and belonging
• 55:11 — Leammli’s next research: body, trauma, and memory

Memorable Moments

• Leammli’s discovery of “file cabinets and your walls” of archival treasures at the Dance Notation Bureau (33:24)
• The failed but grand ambition of Alan Lomax to publish a global movement “atlas”—that reached 1200+ pages but never found a publisher (45:49–46:00)
• Discussion of contemporary “AI body language” in hiring, echoing Laban’s methods from decades before (41:39–42:11)

Tone and Language

The conversation is warm, intellectually curious, and nuanced, with both Leammli and Vinsel blending personal reflection, scholarly rigor, and occasional humor. The tone maintains a balance between critical distance and appreciative exploration, especially regarding the dualities—freedom and control, art and bureaucracy, politics and mysticism—embedded in movement science.

This summary covers the main intellectual arcs, critical analyses, and historical anecdotes from the episode, bringing forward the interplay of movement, technology, politics, and culture as chronicled in Leammli’s work and discussed with Vinsel.