We utilise qualitative audience research and functional brain imaging (fMRI) to examine the aesthetic experience of watching dance both with and without music. This transdisciplinary approach was motivated by the recognition that the aesthetic experience of dance revealed through conscious interpretation could have neural correlates in brain activity. When audiences were engaged in watching dance accompanied by music, the fMRI data revealed evidence of greater intersubject correlation in a left anterior region of the superior temporal gyrus known to be involved in complex audio processing. Moreover, the qualitative data revealed how spectators derived pleasure from finding convergences between two complex stimuli (dance and music). Without music, greater intersubject correlation was found bilaterally in a posterior region of the superior temporal gyrus, showing that bodily sounds such as breath provide a more salient auditory signal than music in primary auditory regions.Watching dance without music also resulted in increased intersubject correlation amongst spectators in the parietal and occipitotemporal cortices, suggesting a greater influence of the body than when interpreting the dance stimuli with music. Similarly, the audience research found evidence of corporeally focused experience, but suggests that while embodied responses were common across spectators, they were accompanied by different evaluative judgements. In this paper we discuss a study that was carried out as part of the Watching Dance: KeywordsKinesthetic Empathy project (www.watchingdance.org). The Watching Dance project. This was a transdisciplinary exploration of the extent to which spectators' experiences of dance were based upon kinesthetic empathy. The present paper focuses on spectators' aesthetic experience of sound and movement, investigated through a combination of qualitative audience research and functional brain imaging (fMRI).As a multi-modal form, dance invites research into how different sensory modalities interact with each other. Although the relationship between dance and music is central to Western theatre dance practice (see for example Jordan, 2000;2008), and has begun to be addressed by neurocognitive approaches , it has not hitherto been studied in combination with qualitative research on dance audiences in theatre settings. Our approach parallels the recent proposals of how aesthetic aspects of dance can (Christensen & CalvoMerino, 2013) and should (Jola & Christensen, 2015) be a subject for empirical research into the audience experience. Further, our research emphasis aligns with the current surge of interest in multisensory aspects of performance (Banes & Lepecki, 2007;Bläsing, 2015; Chapple & Kattenbelt, 2006;Di Benedetto, 2010;McKinney, 2012;Vass-Rhee 2010;Viaud-Delmon et al. 2012). Within this context of developing research into the multi-modal aspects of dance, our aim was to research audiences' responses to dance movement when accompanied by different combinations of movement and sound.The specific que...
Although narrative-based research has been central to studies of illness experience, the inarticulate, sensory experiences of illness often remain obscured by exclusively verbal or textual inquiry. To foreground the body in our investigation of subjective and intersubjective aspects of eating disorders, we—a medical anthropologist and a contemporary dance choreographer—designed a collaborative project, in which we studied the experiences of women who had eating disorders, through eight weeks of integrating dance practice-based, discussion-based and interview-based research. Grounded in the participants’ own reflections on choreographing, dancing and watching others perform solos about their eating disordered experiences, our analysis examines the types of knowledge the participants used in choreographing their dance works, and the knowledge that they felt the dance enabled them to convey. We find that the participants consistently spoke of feeling as guiding their choreographic processes; they also said the experiences they conveyed through their dance works were centred in feelings, rather than in practices or events. Through dance, the participants said they could communicate experiences that would have remained unspoken otherwise. Yet, notably, dance practice also enabled participants to begin defining and describing their experiences verbally. We suggest, therefore, that through engaging participants in contemporary dance practice, we can begin to identify and address embodied experiences of illness and recovery that may be silenced in speech or writing alone.
Emotional engagement and aesthetic appreciation can be prime motivations for engaging with dance. Dance can therefore offer a valuable tool for the neuroscientific study of emotion processing. This idea underpinned the project Watching Dance, which investigated the neural correlates of subjective emotional response. Participants watched a four-minute video of contemporary dance involving two dancers and three music segments. Subjective emotional response was measured by continuous rating with a slider on an analogue scale, and structured interviews prompted participants to reflect on their ratings. The neural correlates were measured using functional brain imaging complemented by a brain interference study to investigate a causal link between regional brain activity and the subjective emotional response. A pattern of emotional rating emerged that was strongly influenced by both music and movement, as confirmed by the qualitative investigation. A direct link was established between posterior parietal cortex activity and emotional reaction to dance.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.