Group Movement Observation

Movement serves as a way for people to express themselves nonverbally. Much can be said based on how people move, especially how they move in a group. In this video, we observe student dance/movement therapists, and how they moved with one another in a group setting.
Movement Data/Sequence of Session
At the start of the group session, the students are in a circle and are engaging in a movement that involves reaching and starting to mobilize. There is also movement in the horizontal plane represented. Their movements use a lot of indulging effort qualities. As they reach up with arms, there is Sustainment and Indirectness to their movements; the upper-lower split is seen as they are reaching and stretching with their upper bodies while their

lower body sways, rocks, or moves slightly.

Many of the students are stretching out their arms and exploring their kinesphere around them using arc-like movements. Then, through this process, the group members start to reach out to the center of the circle. Their circle formation starts to become smaller, closer to one another. They continue with the reaching out motion which is seen as reaching out to one another to something that is there in the middle of their circle. This is when their movement switches from being Indirect to Direct. As the reaching out continues, there is a moment of group synchrony as most members of the group reach out into the circle and continue to raise their arms above their heads, which demonstrates movement in the vertical plane. They do this a few times before transitioning to making connections with one another. Now, instead of reaching into the circle and up above their heads, they are reaching across the circle and making connections with the other students on the opposite side. As they continue to reach out to the people across the circle for them, people use these connections to switch their place of where they stand in a circle. A few people transition to a new spot in a circle, and with this new placement the circle opens up and people are not so close to one another anymore. Soon, the

circle loses it shape and two lines are formed. These are parallel lines with group members in their respective line facing the people across from them. As these lines are forming, people travel across the space to the other side with their hands together and their arms moving about in a “fish-like” manner.
There is a brief dyad moment in the line closes to the camera. Two group members at the end share their weight with one another while leaning back and taking turns, however, the group as a whole does not pick up on this as most everyone else is involved engaging in swaying movements in their lines while facing the opposite line. Then, the two lines take hands with the person next to them and they rock forward and back while again facing their opposite line, which shows movement in the sagittal plane. After, time passes a bit, a person breaks off from the hand holding and transitions to the opposite side. As a whole, when people switch to the other side their movement transitions from Sustainment to Quickness, and there is Directness present in this moment as well. They switch to condensing efforts and then back to indulging once they are back in line. There is also a fluctuation between Free and Bound Flow throughout the group. After a time of more swaying and changing of sides, the side closest to the camera huddles in a circle as though they are engaging in an intimate discussion. The other side further away from the camera, continues to remain in their line. This happens again towards the end of the video as well.
Process and Theme
In terms of movement, the group transitions from all three planes: horizontal, vertical, and sagittal. From a developmental perspective, this represents how people form connections with one another. The horizontal plane represents people seeing and trying to form relationships with one another. Verticality translates finding a sense of self, and sagittal is used in terms of decision making. The movements, this group engages in seems to transition through all of these stages throughout their movement experience. There are moments of group synchrony such as when they are all reaching into the circle and then reaching upwards. Another moment is when people transition to another side of the line and use the “fish-like” movement, and when they are all holding hands on their respective line and rocking back and forth. Those are the moments that really highlighted times when the group was in sync with one another. This also serves as a glimpse into a possible theme that is present in this group. I would say that a theme that represents what is happening on a movement level is trying to find a sense of community amongst one another. This is shown through going through the developmental phases in term of how they travel in the plane. Also, for the majority of the group experience, there seem to be two distinct groups, but people seem to be fluid and transition back and forth, as though they are searching for their community where they belong. The moment when the two sides join hands and rock forward and backward, it almost seems to represent them trying to see if this community “feels right” and they are moving in the sagittal plane which relates to decision making. They are trying to decide if they found their community. Then one person leaves their side and goes to the other side, and then the group who lost a member come together in a huddle to discuss. These moments just seem to represent them searching and trying to find relationships and community with one another. A future movement goal I have for this group is to look further at the two groups they form. I am curious if this group as a tendency to split into two groups and how the sub-groups identify themselves. From the video, it seemed that the sub-groups were still trying to establish themselves as there were no clear, distinct movements occurring within the sub-groups. It would be interesting to have the sub-groups dig deeper and try to find a commonality amongst those in the group, to help establish a clear community and relationship to those in that group.