Resonance in dance: The art of blending bodies

Abstract

In dance, “resonance” describes a shared sense of energy, rhythm, flow, and coherence. Choreographers and dancers seek resonance for the purposes of creating and performing dance. I theorize that resonance is a kind of human social cognition in the context of self-other matching, which is defined as any phenomenon in which the observation of another’s behavior or state causes the observer’s behavior or state to become congruent with it. I review findings from cognitive and neuroscience to show that “resonance in dance” is a blend of feeling and knowing arising from somatomotor “reflexive” systems that prime more reflective processes like learning by imitation, perspective-taking, and empathy. I introduce the “embodied conceptual blending” hypothesis as a mechanism for dance resonating. I explore questions that arise about the role and function of resonance in dance and speculate on gender differences. Implications are discussed.