scholarly journals Coordinated Collaboration and Nonverbal Social Interactions: A Formal and Functional Analysis of Gaze, Gestures, and Other Body Movements in a Contemporary Dance Improvisation Performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-479
Author(s):  
Vito Evola ◽  
Joanna Skubisz
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Dance Improvisation

Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Deep Understanding ◽  
The Body ◽  
Artistic Expression ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Improve Technique ◽  
Dance Class ◽  
Dance Improvisation ◽  
Dance Imagery ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Dance Educators

Renowned master teacher Eric Franklin has thoroughly updated his classic text, Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance, providing dancers and dance educators with a deep understanding of how they can use imagery to improve their dancing and artistic expression in class and in performance. These features are new to this edition: • Two chapters include background, history, theory, and uses of imagery. • 294 exercises offer dancers and dance educators greater opportunities to experience how imagery can enhance technique and performance. • 133 illustrations facilitate the use of imagery to improve technique, artistic expression, and performance. Franklin provides hundreds of imagery exercises to refine improvisation, technique, and choreography. The 295 illustrations cover the major topics in the book, showing exercises to use in technique, artistic expression, and performance. In addition, Franklin supplies imagery exercises that can restore and regenerate the body through massage, touch, and stretching. And he offers guidance in using imagery to convey information about a dancer’s steps and to clarify the intent and content of movement. This new edition of Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance can be used with Franklin’s Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery, Second Edition, or on its own. Either way, readers will learn how to combine technical expertise with imagery skills to enrich their performance, and they will discover methods they can use to explore how imagery connects with dance improvisation and technique. Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance uses improvisation exercises to help readers investigate new inner landscapes to create and communicate various movement qualities, provides guidelines for applying imagery in the dance class, and helps dancers expand their repertoire of expressiveness in technique and performance across ballet, modern, and contemporary dance. This expanded edition of Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance supplies imagery tools for enhancing or preparing for performance, and it introduces the importance of imagery in dancing and teaching dance. Franklin’s method of using imagery in dance is displayed throughout this lavishly illustrated book, and the research from scientific and dance literature that supports Franklin’s method is detailed. The text, exercises, and illustrations make this book a practical resource for dancers and dance educators alike.

In Leotards Under Her Sari: An Indian Contemporary Dancer in America

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Aishika Chakraborty
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Body Politics ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
The World ◽  
Dynamic Landscape ◽  
The Face ◽  
A Site

Traversing through disparate cultural and geographic frontiers, my paper maps the journey of a Bengali dancer, Manjusri Chaki-Sircar, who travels from India to America via Africa before putting her “roots” finally down in India, exploring the migration of body movements across the world. Spelling a new body politics, her dance inscribes the signature of her-self in moving space(s); weaving varied patterns of life experiences; telling tales of displacements, exodus, and resettlements; and fashioning a glocal perspective of movement in a “global political moment.”Situating Manjusri within a counter-centric discourse, my paper underscores the counter-hegemonic agency of her feminist choreographies that opened up “an other” genre of bodily idiom, turning the flattering feminine performance into a site for cultural politics. From the dynamic landscape of post-partitioned Bengal, I will trace how the idiom evolved, migrated, and altered, changing, by the end of the century, the face of Indian contemporary dance.

(Re-)engaging touch as a tango dancer: An experimental framework for kinaesthetic listening1

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-228
Author(s):  
Raffaele Rufo
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Separate Entity ◽  
Argentine Tango ◽  
Felt Sense ◽  
Dance Improvisation ◽  
Sense Of Touch ◽  
Somatic Experiences

This article explores how the felt sense of touch, as engaged through the enabling constraints of the Argentine tango duet, can facilitate an experience of kinaesthetic listening in the spaces emerging between the dancer’s inside and outside worlds. The author’s habitual perception of giving and receiving touch as a tango dancer is destabilized by framing a series of somatic experiences in settings where customary tango conditions and assumptions do not apply. This involves experimenting with methods and tools of inquiry borrowed from contact and contemporary dance improvisation. The article argues that when practiced as a form of kinaesthetic listening, tango is conducive to a process of sensing and feeling together. In this process, it becomes possible to be touched both physically and affectively by the movement impulses negotiated between the partners. This possibility unsettles the reductive idea of one’s body as a separate entity preceding the encounter.

scholarly journals Engaging With Contemporary Dance: What Can Body Movements Tell us About Audience Responses?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lida Theodorou ◽  
Patrick G. T. Healey ◽  
Fabrizio Smeraldi
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Audience Responses

Teaching Dance Spaciously

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Tone Pernille Østern
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Assistant Professor ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Dance Class ◽  
Dance Pedagogy ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Dance Improvisation ◽  
Inclusive Dance

Abstract This article focuses on and discusses the concept of space as a theoretical tool in connection with dance pedagogy. The author suggests that to look at the dance class as spacious contributes to the dance teacher’s awareness of the fact that she operates in, and also creates, many different spaces as she teaches. This awareness might support the teacher in broadening the dance space in order to embrace differences among dancers, thereby providing the word spacious with a second meaning: generous. The author’s interest in the concept of space as a theoretical device to help understand what goes on in a dance class was born during the analysis of the video material collected for her PhD in dance (Østern, 2009). The practical investigation of the study dealt with formulating an approach to dance pedagogy with a group of mixed-ability dancers based on an understanding of the meaning-making processes among the different dancers in the project. Dialoguing with scholars like Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962/2002), Valerie Briginshaw (2001), Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi (2008) and Leena Rouhiainen (2007), the author distinguished different spaces in the dance improvisation classes she was teaching, video recording and analysing. Through this process, she developed a theory on the fact that in a dance improvisation class with differently bodied dancers meaning was made in different ways, touching on and producing different spaces. The author concludes that one main advantage of regarding a dance class as spacious is that it allows for an understanding that in class meaning-making can happen in different ways, within different spaces. Together with the dancers, the dance teacher moves in and out of these spaces as she teaches. Tone Pernille Østern (Doctor of Arts in dance) is a dance artist, teacher and researcher based in Trondheim, Norway. She is the artistic leader of the Inclusive Dance Company (www.dance-company.no) which is a small independent contemporary dance company. She has developed the Dance Laboratory (www.danselaboratoriet.no) which is a performing group with differently bodied dancers. The Dance Laboratory also formed the basis of her field work in relation to her PhD in Dance at the Theatre Academy in Helsinki (Østern, 2009). Østern is also the leader of the MultiPlié Dance and Diversity Festival, a biennial in Trondheim since 2004. The festival tries to stretch and discuss ideas about what dancing is and who can be a dancer. From 2009 she also takes up the position as assistant professor at the Program for Teacher Education at the NTNU University where she teaches and carries out research. E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]

scholarly journals Search in Dynamic Scenes: Cueing by Body Parts Leads to Transient Covet Attention and Microsaccade Bias while Whole Silhouettes to Sustained

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole X Han ◽  
Miguel P. Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Target Person ◽  
Cognitive State ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Gaze Behavior ◽  
Dynamic Scenes ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Static Head

Gaze direction is an evolutionarily important mechanism in daily social interactions. It reflects a person’s internal cognitive state, spatial locus of interest, and predicts future actions. Studies have used static head images presented foveally and simple synthetic tasks to find that gaze orients attention facilitates target detection at the cued location in a sustained manner. Little is known about how people’s natural gaze behavior, including eyes, head, and body movements, jointly orient covert attention, microsaccades, and facilitate performance in more ecological dynamic scenes. Participants completed a target person detection task with videos of real scenes. The videos showed people looking toward (valid cue) or away from a target (invalid cue) location. We digitally manipulated the individuals in the videos directing gaze to create three conditions: intact (head+body movements), floating heads (only head movements), and headless bodies (only body movements). We assessed their impact on participants’ behavioral performance and microsaccades during the task. We show that, in isolation, an individual’s head or body orienting toward the target-person direction led to facilitation in detection that is transient in time (200 ms). In contrast, only whole silhouettes led to sustained facilitation (500 ms). Furthermore, observers executed microsaccades more frequently towards the cued direction for valid trials, but this bias was sustained in time only when full silhouettes were present. Together, the results differ from previous findings with foveally presented static heads. In more real-world scenarios and tasks, sustained attention requires the presence of the whole silhouettes of the individuals dynamically directing their gaze.

scholarly journals Search in Dynamic Scenes: Cueing by Body Parts Leads to Transient Covert Attention and Microsaccade Bias while Whole Silhouettes to Sustained

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole X Han ◽  
Miguel P. Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Target Person ◽  
Cognitive State ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Gaze Behavior ◽  
Dynamic Scenes ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Static Head

Gaze direction is an evolutionarily important mechanism in daily social interactions. It reflects a person’s internal cognitive state, spatial locus of interest, and predicts future actions. Studies have used static head images presented foveally and simple synthetic tasks to find that gaze orients attention facilitates target detection at the cued location in a sustained manner. Little is known about how people’s natural gaze behavior, including eyes, head, and body movements, jointly orient covert attention, microsaccades, and facilitate performance in more ecological dynamic scenes. Participants completed a target person detection task with videos of real scenes. The videos showed people looking toward (valid cue) or away from a target (invalid cue) location. We digitally manipulated the individuals in the videos directing gaze to create three conditions: intact (head+body movements), floating heads (only head movements), and headless bodies (only body movements). We assessed their impact on participants’ behavioral performance and microsaccades during the task. We show that, in isolation, an individual’s head or body orienting toward the target-person direction led to facilitation in detection that is transient in time (200 ms). In contrast, only whole silhouettes led to sustained facilitation (500 ms). Furthermore, observers executed microsaccades more frequently towards the cued direction for valid trials, but this bias was sustained in time only when full silhouettes were present. Together, the results differ from previous findings with foveally presented static heads. In more real-world scenarios and tasks, sustained attention requires the presence of the whole silhouettes of the individuals dynamically directing their gaze.

scholarly journals Children with autism observe social interactions in an idiosyncratic manner

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inbar Avni ◽  
Gal Meiri ◽  
Asif Bar-Sinai ◽  
Doron Reboh ◽  
Liora Manelis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Clinical Sensitivity ◽  
Children With Asd ◽  
Gaze Patterns ◽  
The Mean

AbstractPrevious eye tracking studies have reported that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) fixate less on faces in comparison to controls. To properly understand social interactions, however, children must gaze not only at faces, but also at actions, gestures, body movements, contextual details, and objects, thereby creating specific gaze patterns when observing specific interactions. We presented three different movies of social interactions to 111 children (71 with ASD) who watched each of the movies twice. Typically developing children viewed the movies in a remarkably predictable and reproducible manner, exhibiting gaze patterns that were similar to the mean gaze pattern of other controls, with strong correlations across individuals (inter-subject correlations) and across movie presentations (intra-subject correlations). In contrast, children with ASD exhibited significantly more variable/idiosyncratic gaze patterns that differed from the mean gaze pattern of controls and were weakly correlated across individuals and presentations. Most importantly, quantification of gaze idiosyncrasy in individual children, enabled separation of ASD and control children with higher sensitivity and specificity than traditional measures such as time gazing at faces. Individual magnitudes of gaze idiosyncrasy were also significantly correlated with ASD severity and significantly correlated across movies and movie presentations, demonstrating their clinical sensitivity and reliability. These results suggest that gaze idiosyncrasy is a potent behavioral abnormality that characterizes many children with ASD and may contribute to their impaired social development. Quantification of gaze idiosyncrasy in individual children may aid in assessing their ASD severity over time and in response to treatments.Lay SummaryTypically developing children watch movies of social interactions in a reliable and predictable manner, attending faces, gestures, body movements, and objects that are relevant to the social interaction and its narrative. Here, we demonstrate that children with ASD watch such movies with significantly more variable/idiosyncratic gaze patterns that differ across individuals and across movie presentations. We demonstrate that quantifying this variability is a very potent way of identifying children with ASD and determining the severity of their social ASD symptoms.

Perceived Voice Disorders in Older Adults and Impact on Social Interactions

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Connie K. Porcaro ◽  
Clare Singer ◽  
Boris Djokic ◽  
Ali A. Danesh ◽  
Ruth Tappen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Treatment Strategies ◽  
Voice Disorders ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Vocal Performance ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Cross Sectional

Purpose Many aging individuals, even those who are healthy, report voice changes that can impact their ability to communicate as they once did. While this is commonly reported, most do not seek evaluation or management for this issue. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence and differences in voice disorders in older adults, along with the effect of fatigue on their social interactions. Method This is a cross-sectional investigation of a community-dwelling sample of individuals aged 60 years or older. Participants completed the Questionnaire on Vocal Performance, the Social Engagement Index subset “Engagement in Social or Leisure Activities,” and the Fatigue Severity Scale. Results Results indicated 32.5% of the 332 participants reported symptoms of voice problems with no difference found between male and female respondents. A slight increase in report of voice problems was noted with each year of age. Participants who self-reported voice problems indicated less interaction in social activities involving communication than those who did not. Finally, as severity of self-reported voice problems increased, an increase was reported by the same individuals for signs of fatigue. Conclusions Voice problems and resulting decreased social interaction are commonly experienced by older individuals. Voice symptoms in older adults have been found to benefit from evidence-based treatment strategies. It is critical to provide education to encourage older individuals to seek appropriate evaluation and management for voice issues through a speech-language pathologist or medical professional.

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