Expressing joy through hip-hop dance steps: Focus on new jack swing

Abstract

This study aimed to differentiate hip-hop dance steps based on whether joy was expressed and explained their movement features using three-dimensional motion analysis. Ten male and female participants (26.9 ± 12.8 years old) were instructed to perform an 80-second hip-hop dance, and the step performed after 60 s (new jack swing) was analyzed. Discriminant analysis was conducted, and the differences in the motion feature values were calculated by establishing 34 variables related to time and space. Furthermore, correlations between major joint sites that contributed to differentiation and other variables were calculated. The results revealed the following three points: The discriminant analysis, which was used to predict whether there was emotion, correctly classified cases at a rate of 70% or higher in four stages, which were motion phases. When the differences in motion features by intensity were identified in Phase 2—the phase with the highest correct classification rate—significant differences were found in the mean of the height in the shoulders, the speed of the left acromion, the speed of the capitellum of the left elbow joint, the speed of the center of the left wrist joint, the speed of the lateral condyle of the left femur, the speed of the right acromion, the speed of the capitellum of the right elbow joint, and the flexion angle of the upper torso. Under Strong Emotion, the speed of the left elbow joint and the speed of the center of the left wrist joint had the highest correlation (r = 0.92). Based on these results, we can conclude that it is possible to express joy through hip-hop dance, and, in the case of new jack swing, emotional expression is related mainly to the speed of the upper limbs. Key words: Hip-hop dance, dance step, emotional expression.