We are running on the assumption that despite calls by the McCain campaign to suspend and postpone them, the presidential and vice-presidential debates will continue as scheduled. We offer you this article as a tool to use as you observe the candidates in debate — whenever that will take place. FB
Dear Friend and Reader:
MY FRIEND, KAREN BRADLEY, has a job and life I totally envy. She is the head professor of the graduate program in dance at the University of Maryland,В and a movement specialist licensed in Laban Movement Analysis or LMA.
Devised by Rudolph Laban, LMAВ is a system and language for understanding, observing, describing and notating all forms of movement. LMA draws on his theories of effort and shape to describe, interpret and document human movement.
Used as a tool by dancers, athletes, physical and occupational therapists, it is one of the most widely used systems of human movement analysis.
LMA movement analysts map human movement to help people from all stripes to move in healthier and more expressive ways. LMA’s connection to dance is immediate. But its principles of movement analysis are also applied to actors, industrial workers and, yes, politicians.
Karen is often called upon by the mainstream media to help analyze the body movements of certain leaders while in crucial interviews, speeches or more commonly, during debates.
Applying the principles of LMA, she observes how candidates change and adapt from one situation to the next from interview, to speeches, to hostile or appreciative crowds. She sees how the candidates tend to operate and where and HOW they adjust as they approach each situational stress, or in some cases, how theyВ don’t adjust.
What does she mean by adjust? Karen observes the body–howВ is itВ holding tension, where does it tend to operate from,В how does the person’s attitude changeВ with other people in their space. Do they hold and retain ownership of the space? Do they relinquish space to others? After months of observing the candidates, she has provided some clues as to what we’re looking at when we’re watching them:
PALIN: Whenever she says “I am ready,” she’s really not answering the question. This means she isn’t adaptable to questions, nor is she listening. She’s all about persistence and no content. She’s really not saying anything, but she does it with great conviction.
McCAIN: Completely non-adaptable as well. Whatever is going on, he is not going to move. As maverick and leader of the “Straight Talk Express,” his stance didn’t shift or waffle. He owned the space he was in.
If he changes the message he believes in, he loses his grounding (meaning he verbally spurts, and his body lists like a ship). He wants you to believe he is holding down the fort, but it looks as though he doesn’t believe it himself. No moral center here.
BIDEN: Very consistent. What McCain should have been. He’s pointed, not broad. He’s got depth. He’s like grandpa: sometimes wise, sometimes goofy, but the goofiness is forgivable because he’s got depth.
OBAMA: He’s got challenges. Sometimes he wanders around the stage, but that’s when he is listening and thinkingВ about how to respond. You don’t see this trait in any of the other candidates. He’s aВ very considerate and a good listener. He doesn’t appear to be impulsive. He decides deliberately. He has a center but also has tremendous range. Kids understand: This man is a grown up.
Karen had another note of interest about the candidates:В With all campaigns, Americans get to see and appreciate how they interact with their spouses. However, it seems as though there’s a sharp difference between the McCain and Obama marriages.
She says, “McCain is never seen with his wife. There’s no sense of partnership there, or a display of a relationship. You don’t see a marriage or a relational interactionВ there. With the Obamas, there’s anВ obvious relationship. The marriage is apparent, with agreements, disagreements and passion.”
These are good things to know.
I asked Karen if she was going to watch the debates on Friday and give us some follow up. “Nope,” she said.В “I’m going out to meet (family friend)В Al Giordano (of The Field) at a bar in DC toВ eat some red meat and throw down some hard liquor.”
See what I mean about her life?
Hey Karen, can I join you?В
Yours and truly,
Fe Bongolan in San Francisco
KAREN BRADLEY ON THE DEBATES
Reading the motions of politics
Allison Stice
Issue date: 9/29/08 Section: News
For Karen Bradley, the director of graduate studies in dance, it doesn’t matter what the candidates said in Friday night’s debate so much as how they said it.
As a certified movement analyst, Bradley has been watching the race for the White House intently, focusing on gestures, pacing, expressions and shifts in weight, to determine whether the candidates’ movements support or contradict what they are saying. Bradley has been featured in a variety of media, from Hardball with Chris Matthews to The Washington Post to a book by Malcolm Gladwell.
Speeches are written by a team of experts and even motions like the hand chop or the fist pump are carefully rehearsed, she said, but body language never lies. For politicians, who are seen in a variety of contexts over time, relating to the public and communicating effectively can make the difference between victory and defeat.
“We all read body language and in that sense, we’re all movement analysts,” Bradley said. “It’s important in determining if someone is telling the truth, if we’re getting accurate information, if we should seek more. It’s useful daily in getting to know each other. You don’t just hear the words.”
Bradley became a CMA in 1984 at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and traveled the country teaching and choreographing performers before coming to the university in 1999. For dancers, actors and musicians, movement analysis is useful for developing a character in a play or relating with the audience, she said, and movement analysis is a required class for dance undergraduates here. Bradley is also the founder of a consulting firm, Move to Win, where she coaches communication in corporate and political settings.
Leading up to the first debate, both Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz)., and Sen. Barack Obama, (D-Ill.), have recently amended their styles, which could point to coaching, she said. She noted how Obama used to wander around the stage, pause and stare into the distance, often equivocating on the issues.
“I think for a long time, he was trying to not be the scary man, you know, the scary black man,” she said. Of late, he has become more resolute, in an attempt to prove that he can take a stance, she said.
McCain, on the other hand, persisted through the primaries by being the tough guy who wouldn’t budge his views, she said. He would stand still, grip the podium and stare straight at the audience. When support for Obama began to increase, he adopted messages of reform and change, although there was nothing in his style up until that point suggestive that he was capable of moving in any direction, she said.
“I don’t see a real commitment,” she said. “When he does these shifts, like moving around the stage during a speech, he looks uneasy, and I don’t think that’s good.”
In Friday night’s debate, Obama continued to develop by taking strong positions while McCain shifted back to his former, dogged method, she said. At the beginning, it was a draw, as both came into the debate with their facts and statistics at the ready.
McCain frequently brought his hands together in the same way, she said, as he focuses on the same points and the same message; this reflects his natural tendency toward determination, and also points to the fact that he is less mobile, due to injuries suffered in the Vietnam War. In contrast, Obama tends to stretch his arms and open up, expounding on his points generously, which makes it harder for him to stick to them, she said.
McCain refused to look at Obama or the audience, while Obama had no qualms with turning directly to McCain, she noted. But after the subject turned to the war in Iraq, it was downhill for McCain, Bradley said.
“He had a moment of extreme discomfort, looking like he was coming off his heels almost, like his knees buckled,” she said. “When Obama turned to him and said, ‘You were wrong on this, you were wrong on this,’ you could see McCain shrink, he looked small, old and angry. I feel that will be a resonant image.”
Afterward, McCain kept repeating the same points, while Obama gave a more balanced performance.
“Just the fact that he did hit back a little bit, told McCain he was wrong, enumerated a number of very specific number of things he would do, people were waiting to hear that, and he did it with a lot of conviction,” Bradley said.
In Bradley’s opinion, the most important thing to take away from the debate is how each candidate makes decisions.
“In terms of the candidates, the style of leadership, especially in these difficult and challenging times, matters particularly when we’re dealing with the world, with the planet – who is listening, who is willing to pay attention, who will respond with strength,” she said. “These things really matter. I’m not saying to vote with one candidate or another. Do you want somebody who is reactive or responsive? Someone who is thoughtful or quick at making decisions? What matters to you as a voter? What do you want in a leader?”
gaelfire:
I wonder if its a case of people who are ready dragging the people who aren’t, kicking and screaming into the next phase of our evolution as a country and a species.
We’re going to need all the energy we can get to lurch forward. It seems like there is no other choice.
I can only speak for myself (a 45-year old white woman)–but I am MORE than ready for Michelle Obama. She’s an all-around awesome woman and an incredible role model for young women everywhere. I’m so very proud of her being exactly who and what she is.
An interesting read:
Why white America perhaps fears Michelle more than Barack. Excerpts from a ‘Jack & Jill politics’ newsletter:
…as hard as it is to accept a black president, it’s even harder to accept a black first lady. First Lady has always held a beloved sentimental mother/wife of the nation symbolism. Conservatives are not ready to have to look at this very BLACK woman with her degrees and her fierceness and see her as the epitome of the American mother/wife.
This will be a first for white people. They do not want this black woman in the Whitehouse as their first lady. That New Yorker cartoon was [actually] about Michelle – she was its focal point…..look closely… she is the leader, the one starting the “revolution” they want you to imagine…………
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said, in the course of covering the Obama candidacy, ‘He (Barack Obama) brings none of the вЂ? bad stuff, you know?” By вЂ?Bad Stuff’, he meant the legacy of [whites] enslaving Africans in this country, keeping them as second-class citizens until 1965, a mere 11 years before this country celebrated its 200th anniversary. You know, вЂ?the original sin’, or вЂ? the birth d efect’, as Condi Rice called it. Barack escapes this ‘bad stuff’ only because his mother was white and may have had ancestors involved in the slave trade; and also because Barack’s father was not African American. He was full blooded African and therefore Barack had no ancestors enslaved by America – and so the white guilt factor is missing when they think of
him. HOWEVER, NO SUCH LUCK WITH MICHELLE!
Michelle Obama is a direct threat and lightening bolt against White Superiority. Because, she’s Black… VISIBLY BLACK… But it’s important to note, she does not, in any way, shape, or form, contour to the acceptable Black Pathologies that enable White Supremacy to sigh with relief. [welfare mother, fatherless child, druggie, etc.] Michelle was raised in a neighborhood. In a home. With TWO parents. No child revolving in and out of jail. Raised by a Black man who not only provided for his family, but did so, WITH A DISABILITY. Her mother had a working class job – secretary- but it was taken ONLY
after she had seen her youngest child settle into HIGH SCHOOL.
Michelle Obama’s poise, her confidence, her aura – that was created by that humble Black man, who by all accounts, adored her. He told her that she is worthy, and so, when you have that told to you by the first man who loves and protects you, you seek that validation of that in your choice of mate, you’ll settle for nothing less, and Michelle hasn’t.
Michelle Obama, doesn’t fit any of the acceptable Black pathologies. And when you don’t fit the acceptable Black pathologies, then you must be destroyed. Michelle Obama has become the face of the Black America whose existence is routinely denied by this country. Think about it.
In ONE generation, the face of this ‘Invisible America’ has gone from living on the top floor of a bungalow, to the possibility of living in The White House. And yet, Michelle Obama, refuses to say ” I’ m special”, in order to give white America its usual security blanket [that she is one of the exceptions rather than the rule], So what should be done?
Beat her down into submission.
Michelle Obama represents everything we black women want our daughters to be. When we stand up for her we stand up for ourselves. No other women in the world are more neglected and abused as African women period. Michelle looks like [our] daughters, her daughters look like us. We love the way Barack looks at her we adore the way he looks at his daughters. The Obamas represent the hope that we can be loved by our men and they will support us in whatever we do. Little African American girls need a vision and dream of what it is like to be loved by a man who looks just like them.
Is America ready for a First Lady who looks like her? A regular black woman? Not a passable biracial curly haired girl that they call black, but a regular black woman from the south side of Chicago ? With dark skin?
Is she going to be the face of The Woman on the largest pedestal in the country? A self-confessed “loud-mouth” black woman? If the Obamas succeed, it turns white supremacy upside down. And not because a black man is in the White House; but, because a black woman will be there who didn’t have to come in the back door to lie in bed with the president.
Smilema:
I don’t deny any of my preferences. I happen to support Obama. I haven’t hidden that, nor do I want to or need to.
I was reacting to your comment about Obama using his family as a political tool. Do I detect a note of bias? I will have my opinions of your comments as you will of mine.
Have a good evening.
??Its interesting how fast you were to report McCain’s verbal abuse of his wife. Was that what we were discussing? We should have mentioned how some reporters are anxious to distort the conversation to make a point and repeat gossip. Will you find something to report anything about the Obamas? Somehow I don’t believe you want too and that says something about your interactions. Your comment does not confirm Karen’s observations unless one accepts your connection. Fe for shame.
As an actor and a director of theater in San Francisco, I also get it. I’ve also observed candidates in person with their wives, and their physical relationship carries from campaign to real life.
Now in terms of actual verbal exchange between Senator McCain and his wife, he’s been known to demean her and call her a trollop, the c-word, and other insulting language in public settings before large audiences.
Remember when he said she would qualify for a hooters-type bar beauty contest earlier this year?
What I think Karen pointed out from her observation of physical public display of the candidates with their wives just amplifies what’s been observed on the campaign trail. Given that and what I’ve read as noted above, by both words and actions, there is some tension there with the McCains.
What Karen has not discussed is the differences in both the ages and culural background of the candidates she has observed. What she sees as contained and constrained between spouses is not only cultural but also generational. I have observed Obama and his wife not touching at all and sometimes Micele will upstage him, and have seen Joe with his wife holding hands as she attends quietly. John is a older male quite used to working alone on stage -he runs the show not his wife. She remains one step back to show support thats all. To assume a relationship based on stage performance and movement smacks of a bias. Obama has always used his young family as a political tool. The family relationship he shows publicly can be said to be staged as professional politicians do. Its effective. Karen has just made that very clear. What about the movements attached to the verbal comments made by John or Barack. Body language tells us a great deal but how verbal language is presentd when there is no movement should be observed also. This is my opinion after many years of studying my fellow human actors as we play on our stage. I think we need to pay attention to the message each candidate brings to the debate and trust our instinct as to the truth of the message. After all most of us have had practice interacting with each other. At some level we get it.