In this essay I focus on the question of why we are attracted to abstract art (perhaps more accurately, non-representational or object-free art). After elaborating on the processing of visual art in general and abstract art in particular, I discuss recent data from neuroscience and behavioral studies related to abstract art. I conclude with several speculations concerning our apparent appeal to this particular type of art. In particular, I claim that abstract art frees our brain from the dominance of reality, enabling it to flow within its inner states, create new emotional and cognitive associations, and activate brain-states that are otherwise harder to access. This process is apparently rewarding as it enables the exploration of yet undiscovered inner territories of the viewer’s brain.
This work explores to what extent the notion of abstraction in dance is valid and what it entails. Unlike abstraction in the fine arts that aims for a certain independence from representation of the external world through the use of non-figurative elements, dance is realized by a highly familiar object – the human body. In fact, we are all experts in recognizing the human body. For instance, we can mentally reconstruct its motion from minimal information (e.g., via a “dot display”), predict body trajectory during movement and identify emotional expressions of the body. Nonetheless, despite the presence of a human dancer on stage and our extreme familiarity with the human body, the process of abstraction is applicable also to dance. Abstract dance removes itself from familiar daily movements, violates the observer’s predictions about future movements and detaches itself from narratives. In so doing, abstract dance exposes the observer to perceptions of unfamiliar situations, thus paving the way to new interpretations of human motion and hence to perceiving ourselves differently in both the physical and emotional domains.
Dancers often perform while synchronizing their movements to music, as required by the choreographer. In this article, we introduce the concept of categorizing choreography (or segments of it), according to its relationship with either the rhythm or the melody of the accompanied music, or with both. We demonstrate this distinction through several examples for each category. In a pilot study, we composed choreographic sequences that were either melodic-based or rhythmic-based and taught them to professional dancers. The results showed that some dancers tend to synchronize their movements better to rhythm and others, to melody. We refer to this tendency as the “dancers’ somatic of musicality.” The findings highlight important differences in the somatic of musicality among dancers, requiring attention from both choreographs and dancers, since these differences have bearing on the way dancers learn, memorize, and perform.
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