Response to "Question [Axial Movement]"

Response to "Question [Axial Movement]"
Submitted by Charlotte Wile - March 19, 1999

This is in response to Ilene Fox's question posted on March 18.

The term "axial movement" is used by Ann Hutchinson Guest in Your Move: A New Approach to the Study of Movement and Dance. In her glossary of terms she says axial movement is "movement around the body's center (in contrast to locomotor movement" (p. 309).

I believe the term has been used in dance education for a long time. For instance, in Modern Dance: Building and Teaching Lessons by Aileene Lockhart (Iowa: Brown, 1951), p.108, it says axial movements are "non-locomotor movements taken on a stationary base; movement of the body around its own axis."

I suppose one could also refer to the sign I discussed on March 11 as the indication for unspecified "non-locomotor movement" or "non-traveling movement."

However, I don't like those terms because they make a negative statement. i.e., They tell the mover to focus on not traveling. In contrast, when I say "do axial movement," I am making a positive statement.