Dancing Body Research Articles

UX DESIGN EVALUATION OF AN AUGMENTED REALITY SYSTEM FOR HUMAN PHYSICAL TRAINING

Technology advancements has enabled dance to be learnt without mirrors or real dance trainer. Distinctive benefits has been contributed by Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Dance trainers are focusing upon implementing dance analysis systems to enhance dance trainee’s artistic skills. AR technology presents new user experience (UX) for learning, instructing, developing and accessing physical dance movements as well as provides scope to expand dance resources and rediscover the learning process. In this research work, we present a novel human physical training system i.e. dance training and analysis that could help individuals in learning selected dance styles which ignites motivation, matches dance steps/body postures and analyzes the performance. This study explored quantitative data by means of statistical tests validation with participants in using the phyisical training system that has facilitated in testing the dance body postures and steps. The work also adopted the user experience (UEQ) questionnaire to perform the UX evaluation. The outcome revealed favaroble results indicating the measurement score of the UEQ six scales to be in the positive range.

Dancing to Transgress: Palestinian Dancer Sahar Damoni's Politics of Pleasure

AbstractAs a woman Palestinian dancer and choreographer in Israel, Sahar Damoni performs within multiple contexts of cultural, gendered, and political oppression, employing her bodily art to challenge these structures, most poignantly through dances that express and evoke pleasure and sensual joy. Offering a detailed ethnography of three of Damoni's performances within one year in Israel/Palestine, I argue that an examination of her artistry provides unique insight into the intricate workings—and transgressions—of gender, ethnic, and national boundaries through the movement of the body in dance.

BTS other-worlds: Music video and the intermediality of the self-reflexive musical

This close reading of Heartbeat, a 2019 music video by South Korean pop group, BTS, shows how intermedial musical performance generates narrative and meaning through depictions of bodies and movement. The article begins by highlighting the delivery of Heartbeat’s audiovisual narrative through a hybrid set of formal devices linking the music video with cinematic language. The article makes specific intercultural and intermedial links between Heartbeat and self-reflexive classical Hollywood musicals that highlight spontaneity, integration and the audience. Further discussion of Heartbeat focuses on the music video’s intimate address to viewers through song and writing, highlighting a key moment where on-screen text is made to move in a manner resembling dancing bodies – while English-language lyrics are sung in ways that permit multiple meanings. Elements within this music video – such as the use of bodies to bear musical meaning – ultimately connect with larger intermedial contexts and spin-off products, demonstrating that intermediality plays across several levels from the aesthetic to the commercial.

Magic on Wheels: A Study of Re-engagement, Re-enactment and Re-staging the Stereotypes of Performativity and Performance of Persons with Disabilities in the Choreography of Syed Sallauddin Pasha

Amidst society’s segregation of the people among minorities on the basis of gender, race, caste and creed, it is difficult to locate the position of another extreme social minority, i.e. persons with disabilities. But the turn of the century has validated some art and activism performed by persons with disabilities due to which the disabled have marked their position in literature, film and media to some extent, yet they have not secured a position of dignity in the mainstream. To make disabled people visible, Syed Sallauddin Pasha (the father of Indian dance therapy for persons with disabilities) initiates his own Natya Shastra i.e. Classical Wheelchair Dances for differently-abled artists. Drawing upon Syed Sallauddin Pasha’s therapeutic dance choreography, the present paper studies performance arts in the context of differently-abled people, and for this, the paper explores the intersection of Performance Studies and Disability Studies. In performing arts (or dance in particular), the body is the medium of representation, likewise, the body defines the identity in the context of disabled people. Therefore, the paper by studying the intersection of Disability Studies and Performance Studies, explores the stereotypes related to the body by scrutinising the disabled dance bodies on the stage. The paper further attempts to explore the idea of accessibility for persons with disabilities by taking into account the assistive devices and accessible architecture. The study then goes into an analysis of spectators’ response, stare and gaze towards disability dance performances. In a broader context, the paper offers to scrutinise the negative stereotypes attached to disability and disabled dancing bodies on stage by exploring the nuances in Syed Sallauddin Pasha’s choreography.

Dancing Toward Freedom

Dancing Toward Freedom

Female Surrogate Labor and White Corporeal Debt in Singin’ in the Rain

Abstract This essay revisits the question of credit and debt in the celebrated 1952 film musical Singin’ in the Rain (dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, US) to show how white women's dancing bodies participate in the “talent relocations” that the movie both thematizes and suppresses. Specifically, it focuses on the relationship between Debbie Reynolds, who was a novice dancer when she was cast in the film, and the two other white women dancers who helped shape Reynolds's filmic body: assistant choreographer Carol Haney and dance-in Jeanne Coyne. Combining feminist and critical race perspectives with production studies, film studies, and dance and performance studies, the essay unites often disconnected gendered and racial analyses of the film by emphasizing the gendered forms of labor and the multiracial genealogies through which dance is reproduced. It also shows how the guise of white credibility enabled Reynolds to conceal her intercorporeal and multiracial debts. Finally, the essay argues that the presence of dancers of color in the film, most notably Rita Moreno, haunts the chains of white corporeal debt that bind Reynolds to Haney and Coyne.

Is Dance Closer to Physical Activity or Spirituality? A Philosophical Exploration

Dancing is inevitably associated with kinesthetics of the body, including movements, gestures, poses, jumps, turnings, transferring body weight, etcetera. Thus, dance is a manifestation of an amateur or the skilled behavior of a fully trained athletic performance. At the same time, dance is accompanied by emotions as an effect of expression, narration of choreography. Dance is also pre-planned and designed to produce numerous styles and techniques. It is a unique type of improvisation. However, in certain situations, styles and techniques that will be discussed below, the dancing body can bring the dancer closer to his/her emotionality and even spirituality. Thus, the aim of this philosophical exploration is to analyze the impact of spirituality on dance performance.

Creating Thinking: Immersive Dance Theater as 4E Cognition in the Wild

ABSTRACT The creative dancing body is an ideal exemplar of the embodied mind. However, creativity research has ceased to develop due to a lack of study of the embodied mind in cognitive science. Thus, much can be gained through exploring ways in which we maximize students’ creative potential by engaging 4E cognition through rich dance experiences. In my secondary dance classroom, 4E cognition is most evident in our annual immersive dance theater project. The project presses creators to make an art event that encourages cognition “in the wild,” or in real-world problem-solving situations. This article briefly explores cognition through a 4E lens, and discusses ways immersive dance theater projects catalyze and capitalize on each E. It then draws connections between 4E cognition, radical embodied cognitive science, and immersive dance theater to suggest future creativity research may benefit from extensive study of the genre in K-12 education.

The Effect of Phosphorus Metabolism on the Motion of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Volutin Granules

It is known that moving volutin granules (“dancing bodies”), mechanism of which occurrence remains poorly understood, can be observed in yeast vacuoles. This study was performed to reveal the presence of a connection between moving volutin granules of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and polyphosphate metabolism in conditions of phosphoric starvation and hypercompensation. Methods. Cytological, biochemical, statistical methods were used in the study. Results. It was observed that the inactivation of the PPN1 gene, which encodes exopolyphosphatase Ppn1, resulted in a change in the number of cells with moving volutin granules (“dancing bodies” index) in the studied conditions. The index of “dancing bodies” was almost always lower in mutant CRN strain than in parent CRY strain. Using linear correlation analysis and factor analysis with the method of principal component, it was established that the “dancing bodies” index in both strains had significant correlation coefficients with exopolyphosphatase activity (EPPA) and the content of polyphosphate fractions (polyP). The difference was that this index in parent strain correlated better with the first three fractions of inorganic polyphosphates, while in mutant strain – with polyP4 and EPPA. Conclusions. Obtained data indicated the direct connection of motion of volutin granules with phosphoric metabolism in the studied conditions. It is assumed that the phenomenon of “dancing bodies” may be a consequence of the activity of vacuolar polyphosphatases.

Mapping a City’s Energy: using digital storytelling to facilitate embodied experiences of urban

This essay looks at how embodied knowledge of the city can be shaped by the intentional movement of dance and sensory mapping experiments, through a close examination of two different movement practices undertaken as part of the Dancing Bodies in Coventry(DBiC) project. The essay also explores the different ways in which embodied experiences of urban space and place are documented, as well as what the hybridisation of the digital and the bodily might mean for how we understand and navigate our urban environments.

The circuits-of-power framework and dance institutionalisation in Cameroon

Dance in Cameroon is witnessing a fast-moving mutation entrenched in power relationships. Based on qualitative data analysis, we conceptualise Clegg’s circuits-of-power framework to show how dance institutionalisation is a source and result of power. Hypothesising that power is central in dance practice, we argue that disciplinary machineries inherent in the power-circuit were practised during and after colonisation to institutionalise dance. Findings reveal that, during colonisation, dance institutionalisation was based on the annihilation and alteration of native dances through the development of Eurocentric cultural hegemonic traits. Nonetheless, dance played an important role in the cultural decolonizing process. Still, unfortunately, the dancing body remained subordinate to the (ex)-colonisers domination as professional dancers seek recognition from the West. After independence, the Cameroonian State used institutionalisation to control dance by creating the national ballet to meet national embodiment and unity needs. However, by introducing Western innovative body techniques amidst traditional dance practices, dance became a way to answer the demands of cultural globalization.

From historical materiality to performance: Choreographic functions of the costumes in The Rite of Spring (1913)

Examining the surviving costumes of the 1913 production of The Rite of Spring, this article explores how costumes functioned in the Russian ‘new ballet’ choreography, of which the Ballets Russes Company is the most internationally famous example. The materiality of costumes – the fabric, cut and dye – organized the dancing bodies onstage in a manner that, in part, relied on Russian contexts invisible to the predominantly foreign audiences of the performances in Paris and London. Subsequently, these Russian reactions where The Rite of Spring was part of a continuum of representations of Russia’s past have been largely ignored in favour of the opinions of French and British critics, for whom the work appeared extraordinary and alien. The so-called reconstruction (1987), where the surviving costumes were used to compensate for the absence of choreographic understanding, has further obscured what the choreography was and what costumes actually did (and do) in performance. Although decisions made in recreating performance differ from historiographical research, exploring the practical making of costumes also draws attention to perspectives often forgotten in discussions of past performance more generally – such as changes in how costumes are experienced, or what that experience explains of later reminiscences.

Performing Illness: A Dialogue About an Invisibly Disabled Dancing Body.

Disability is defined by the World Health Organization as resulting “from the interaction between individuals with a health condition such as cerebral palsy, down syndrome and depression as well as personal and environmental factors including negative attitudes, inaccessible transportation and public buildings, and limited social support” (WHO, 2021). Yet disability scholar Simi Linton notes: The liberal arts, particularly the humanities, have barely noticed disability beyond the models they accept uncritically, handed down from the sciences and medicine. The tools for inquiry in the humanities have, until recently, rarely been applied to understanding disability as a phenomenon (Linton, 1998, pp. 147–148). Global disability communities have famously located disability in the environment. This is recognised as the social model of disability. Social modelling of disability rooted in British activism (Oliver, 1990) diverges from medical modeling—wherein “disability” originates from the individual—by resituating “disability” in the environment. This opinion paper builds from recent efforts in disability studies to define disability experience as intersubjective (Donaldson and Prendergast, 2011; Titchkosky, 2011; Kafer, 2013; Price, 2015) to suggest a move toward an interpretation of disability as an intersubjective ecological phenomenon. To invite this reflection, we discuss the case of Pini's experience of illness and hidden disability related to her oncological treatments for Hodgkin Lymphoma, and the development of her artistic project INFINITO, a longitudinal short dance film series that explores the relationship to cancer and its transformational aspects from a phenomenological and auto-ethnographic perspective (Pini and Pini, 2019) (Figure 1). Open in a separate window Figure 1 Snapshot from Pini and Pini video article “Resisting the ‘Patient' Body: A Phenomenological Account” (Pini and Pini, 2019).

Academic Bodies in Quarantine: Dance Writers as Dancing Bodies

Academic Bodies in Quarantine: Dance Writers as Dancing Bodies

Virtual relationships: the dancer and the avatar

ABSTRACT People might assume that dancing with a digital avatar would be a relatively distant, dehumanizing or disembodied process. However, in this article we propose that effective and creative choreographic practice can be achieved by working with a virtual representation of a dancer, and we offer two case studies to evidence the practical application of motion capture technology within this context. We observed that the virtual model quickly and naturally becomes an extension of the dancer's interiority and that a dynamic affective attunement between dancer and avatar spontaneously develops. We describe how the relationship between the physical and the virtual dancing body raises several practical, theoretical and even philosophical questions for choreographic approach, style and process. Building from Susanne Langer's (1953) germinal conception of the ‘virtual powers’ of dance, we articulate a practice-led research opportunity to critically reflect on conventional choreographic practices through the affordances of a specifically digital virtuality, in ways that can open out the kinds of affective, emotional and phenomenological frameworks within which creation occurs. The unique affordances of recent motion capture systems, offer naturalistic three-dimensional environments with an increased improvisational interactivity that simply cannot be achieved with video-based media.

CORPOS QUE DANÇAM

O dançar a dois proporciona uma comunicação mais íntima e direta entre os pares, estimulando as relações corporais e consequentemente, a corporeidade daqueles que a praticam. Instigados a compreender como se processa a articulação entre corpo e corporeidade na dança, bem como sua influência nas relações corporais no dançar a dois, realizou-se uma revisão narrativa da literatura, de caráter descritivo, com uma síntese qualitativa dos trabalhos analisados. Os dados evidenciados permitem a reflexão acerca de um corpo que, influenciado e moldado pelo tempo, pela cultura e pela sociedade, possui uma íntima relação com a dança, construindo sua corporeidade por meio das partidas e oportunidades no dançar a dois.

‘Westoxication’ and resistance: the politics of dance in Iran #dancingisnotacrime

This study proposes an alternative analytical framework for the interpretation of the arrest of an Iranian teenage female social media star by regime authorities in May 2018. I argue that the regime’s reaction to the youngster’s dancing was a product of a complicated historical dialectic with the West, rather than an objection to dance as a performative category. While the Iranian regime may have inherited the predominantly negative perceptions of the solo female dancing body from the Pahlavi era, dancing is not a crime in post-revolutionary Iran. However, dance is ‘meaning in motion’, and it can be inscribed and re-inscribed with political, cultural and social markers – depending on the motives of the spectator. This paper argues that it was the meaning ascribed to the teen’s dancing by hardline authorities that led to her arrest, and not the act of dancing itself. By historicising and framing the arrest within the discourse of ‘Westoxication’, this study interprets the arrest as a form of state-centric cultural resistance. The site of cultural contestation, the youngster’s dancing body, became the discursive and ideological terrain on which the regime repudiated Western cultural norms in defence of its own post-revolutionary standards of decency and cultural authenticity.

Dancing Body as a Social Replica

The dance as well as the art is a part of the life of each individual, but they are also a part of the general processes in society. Dance very frequently absorbs, and nevertheless at the same time reflects the conditions that are distinctive of a specific time and space. The dance body is a medium through which the reactions and responses to a specific problem or condition are articulated. In some examples, the body is used as an instrument to promote values often dictated by the centers of power and authority. However, the dancing body is also a channel through which one can follow reactions and answers to a real problems and hardship. This characteristic will be the subject of this analysis. The Middle Ages was chosen to show the manner and forms of reaction created in crisis situations. Although we have very few authentic sources for this period, it was an additional challenge to go deeper, to explore and to emphasize another function of the dance that is not aesthetic, yet socially engaged. The body is a strong articulator and although it is rarely included in general social research, it provides very interesting material and opportunities to decoded states, attitudes and positions on a collective level. The analysis deals with presenting events that feature the medieval period that have been followed and resulted in specific reactions shaped through several dance forms.

La expresividad del cuerpo y la comunicación gestual en el baile flamenco

El arte flamenco se escribe con mayúscula. De una tradición anclada al pasado podríamos encontrar su explicación actual a través de pasajes de la mitología antigua, al igual que de la herencia de árabes y sefardíes. El presente artículo pretende poner en valor el potencial expresivo del cuerpo y la comunicación gestual en el baile flamenco. Con ello, pies y manos, cara y cabello dibujan el compás en el escenario y permiten diseñar siluetas con el cuerpo como si de un pincel se tratase. Mientras que la expresividad eclosiona con tonos cromáticos que facilita el deleite y la belleza. Un baile que se nutre de objetos para significarlo y el bailaor o bailaora se vale del zapateo para hacerse, también, en músico que lleva el compás, comunicando según su intensidad o velocidad de ejecución. El cuerpo en el baile flamenco y la comunicación gestual es un pretexto para iniciar un debate que no concluye sino que se nutre de la herencia y camina, evolucionando, hacia un presente con futuro. Flamenco art is written with a capital letter. From a tradition anchored in the past we could find its current explanation through passages from ancient mythology, as well as from the heritage of Arabs and Sephardim. Everything gives us to understand the expressive value of the body and the gestual communication in the flamenco dance. Body and face, hair and hands draw the compass on stage. They allow to draw silhouettes that take the compass taking as a brush the body and its expressiveness hatches with chromatic tones that facilitate the delight and the beauty. A dance that is nourished by objects to signify it and the dancer uses the zapateo to become, also, a musician who carries the compás and communicates according to its intensity or speed of execution. The body in flamenco dance and gestural communication is a pretext to start a debate that does not end, but is nourished by heritage and walks, evolving, towards a present with a future.

Véu, nudez e o feminino na dança iraniana

O presente artigo apresenta uma síntese histórica sobre a exposição do corpo feminino na dança persa e suas consequências para o desenvolvimento das artes do palco no Irã no século XX. Destaca-se o papel central do cinema e da literatura para o desenvolvimento da dança nacional iraniana, especialmente no que diz respeito à inspiração em obras clássicas, cujo princípio zoroastriano da equidade de gênero estabelece um contraponto à condição da mulher no direito familiar xiita. A importância desse estudo se deve ao fato de que a protagonização da mulher nas artes performáticas e dramatúrgicas iranianas, incluindo o cinema, se inicia pela dança e é em torno desta linguagem artística que se concentra a discussão moral sobre a exposição do corpo e a obrigatoriedade do véu.