Irmgard Bartenieff (1890-1981) was a physiotherapist and protégé of Rudolf Laban.

Irmgard is responsible for bringing Laban's work to America. Bartenieff’s own work, known as The Bartenieff Fundamentals, form a series of exercises and movement principles that she developed during her medical work with polio patients in the 1950s and thereafter with cross-cultural analysis. Her approach to rehabilitation and neuromuscular re-patterning enhances movement capacity, movement choice and full-body organization. It is designed to improve posture, mobility and function, experienced as dynamic self-expression through connected movement. 

Bartenieff established the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS) in New York in 1978, as an educational institution for the study of her work together with that of Rudolf Laban. 

More on Irmgard Bartenieff       https://labaninstitute.org