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Research in Dance Education
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The empathy and the structuring
sharing modes of movement sequences
in the improvisation of contemporary
dance
Môônica m. Ribeiro a & Agar Fonseca b
a Department of Photography, Theatre and Cinema, Federal
University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
b Instituto Cultural Newton Paiva, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Available online: 27 Jul 2011
To cite this article: Môônica m. Ribeiro & Agar Fonseca (2011): The empathy and the structuring
sharing modes of movement sequences in the improvisation of contemporary dance, Research in
Dance Education, 12:2, 71-85
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2011.575220
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The empathy and the structuring sharing modes of movement
sequences in the improvisation of contemporary dance
Mônica M. Ribeiro
a
* and AGAR Fonseca
b
a
Department of Photography, Theatre and Cinema, Federal University of Minas Gerais,
Belo Horizonte, Brazil;
b
Instituto Cultural Newton Paiva, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Dance, an activity endowed with intentional expressivity and intrinsic affectivity,
has been the target of neuroscientific research since the last decade of the 20th
century. We can make several inferences about the cognitive and motor aspects
in dance based on this research. The main goal of the present study is to raise
questions about how communication takes place among dancers during dance
improvisation. This work is based on a systematic review of the literature. In
this paper we approach the cognition and motivity in dance improvisation from
the embodied cognition theory. This theory involves several concepts, including
motor cognition, situated cognition and social cognition. It can also be inferred
that mirror neurons constitute the neurobiological basis of perception and action
processes present in these cognitive modes. It is suggested that this type of neu-
ral mechanism is also related to empathy, a procedure which enables a person to
understand the intentions and emotions of another person without verbal lan-
guage. We suggest the idea of empathic choreography for temporary structuring
of movements which take place in contemporary dance improvisation. When
dancers improvise, they understand each other’s motor intentions and emotions.
Thus, the dancers share decision making and build an ephemeral movement
structure that characterises dance improvisation.
Keywords: dance; empathy; improvisation; mirror neuron; embodied cognition
Introduction
Art and neuroscience: a short review
Dance is a cultural phenomenon present in several cultures in ceremonies, celebra-
tions, rituals and entertainment as well as an art form. We can understand dance as
a confluence between body and space revealed in a flow of expressive and inten-
tional movements. Dance has always been connected to historical periods cultural
in a continuous relation of codependency between body and environment.
From the 1950’s the contemporary dance improvisation emerges. In the last dec-
ade of the 20th century, dance attracted neuroscientists’attention worldwide and
they began to consider it as a new source of studies about human movement, as
will be presented further on. Studies of the neurobiological bases of artistic behav-
iour were intensified with the coming of new technologies of brain imaging such as
the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission
tomography (PET).
*Corresponding author. Email: monicaribeiro@yahoo.com
Research in Dance EducationAquatic Insects
Vol. 12, No. 2, July 2011, 71–85
ISSN 1464-7893 print/ISSN 1470-1111 online
Ó2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14647893.2011.575220
http://www.informaworld.com
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Seeking a neural correlation for beauty, Zeki and Lamb (1994) proposes the
corollary that every visual art must obey the laws of the visual system and studies
the relations between visual areas of the brain and aesthetic appreciation by
means of different categories of paintings. Ramachandra and Hirstein (1999) pro-
pose a neurologic theory of the aesthetic experience. Cela-Conde et al. (2004)
suggest that the perception of beauty could be regarded as the last evolutionary
step of human cognitive capacity and that the prefrontal cortex appears to have a
key role in the aesthetic perception system. Hagendoorn (2002; 2003; 2004) spec-
ulates on the nature of dance and choreography perception. Calvo Merino et al.
(2008) produced the first neural mapping of aesthetic perception in performing
arts. Motor training and its relation with attention during the performance of tango
steps have been studied (Sacco et al. 2006), as well as the neural basis of the
complex sensor motor process underlying dance (Brown, Martinez and Parson
2006). In the field of education Michel Gazzaniga (2008) organised the results of
the research that involved neuroscientists from seven North American universities
who investigated the association between artistic practice and academic perfor-
mance in other cognitive domains.
The inferences resulting from this and other neuroscientific research, as well as
the hypotheses of cognition sciences and neuropsychology have been contributing
to the study on cognitive processes anchored in body experience in dance, which
can enhance artistic practices and theories.
Dance improvisation and cognition
In contemporary dance improvisation there is a continuous linkage between bodies
and the environment as a temporary result of unstoppable transformations and
changes. This paper deals with dance improvisation performed by more than one
dancer in relation to the following questions:
How is it possible to make a shared choice of movements during improvisation
between two or more dancers, without previous agreement and without commu-
nication through words?
What generates the sense nexus that is perceived when we watch a dance
improvisation?
Can we call choreography what we see when we watch a dance improvisation?
Dance promotes a type of knowledge with and from the body, which builds
itself in the relation between the bodies and the space. There is a constant adjust-
ment between the dancing bodies and the space during the dance. Improvisation in
dance requires a type of cognition anchored in the body and situated in the relation
with the partners and the space. Both the movements of the dancers and the space
are re-built and acquire new meanings as from this relation. This relational meeting
is affected by the emotions which arise from it. The emotions modulate the percep-
tion, the intentions and consequently the actions, affecting the movements in their
sensory perceptive essence. The affective aspects consciously expressed in the crea-
tion and execution of movements in dance improvisation are what possibly distin-
guish it from the expressive movements involved in other complex activities such
as athletics, rhythmic gymnastics or floor exercise gymnastics (Stevens and
McKechnie 2005). An ephemeral organisation of movements performed in the
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present moment of the action arises from dance improvisation. We can say that this
organisation is based on the choreographic nexus which ‘implies an underlying con-
tinuity of energy circulation’(Gil 2004: 71). Gil calls this underlying continuity the
resonance effect, resulting from the negotiation between relational elements. In
dance improvisation, these elements are the movements and the movement inten-
tions of each dancer. In group improvisation, the motor action is necessarily rela-
tional and therefore it results from observation and perception of the partner. Here
perception and action form a continuum that operates a movement system here and
now. It is an inventive process that creates several and original functioning regimes
(Kastrup 2007).
According to Kastrup (2007), cognition possesses a recursivity, characterised by
its own invocation, when solving problems and inventing new problems, assuring a
continuous functioning. This recursivity generates an inventiveness that is very wel-
come for improvisation in contemporary dance. In improvisation, what matters is
not solving a certain problem but keeping oneself in an invention process of new
problems which generate new actions seeking its resolution successively. Improvisa-
tion presented as a dance artistic work values this cognitive invention process.
Cognition has within its essence the propensity to adapt itself creatively. It is
understood as a highly organised complex system, consisting of interactive com-
ponents and resulting both from biological integrity and socio-cultural interactions.
These components are perception, planning, problems solving, symbolisation,
imagination, and emotion among others (Fonseca 2007). As from the last decade
of the last century, cognition and affectivity are no longer separated (Damásio
2000).
The affective aspects that come with cognition, such as emotions and empathy,
find themselves in the essence of the aesthetic experience of dance improvisation.
In the context of dance improvisation, the cognition model proposed by embodied
cognition theory will be taken into consideration. This model bases itself on body
sensations linking the perception to the body situated in space and time; that is, a
body context which organises dancer, improvisation and environment.
In the present paper, it is suggested that cognition is mediated by empathy in
dance improvisation. Empathy, a process that enables the understanding of emotions
and intentions among people, qualifies this type of organisation and proposition of
the movements during dance improvisation. Based on this inference, it seems that
what we call empathic choreography, the type of dance that emerges from improvi-
sation, depends on the sharing of affective motor decisions for its ephemeral
structuring.
Aim
The aim here is to discuss the issue of how the sharing of movement propositions
occurs during dance improvisation, drawing on improvisational practice, cognitive
sciences and neurosciences.
Methodology
In order to support the hypothesis that empathy qualifies the propositions and
organisations of movements in dance improvisation, a systematic review of the liter-
ature was performed based on the interlacing of the following: embodied cognition,
Research in Dance Education 73
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mirror neurons, empathy, dance, neuroscience and improvisation. The research used
the database from CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Edu-
cation) website, which provides access to several Brazilian and international jour-
nals. The topics will be displayed so as to reflect on dance improvisation, the
experience of dancing, the types of cognition required for this activity, the function
of mirror neurons and their relation with social cognition and empathy. Finally, we
propose the idea of empathic choreography as the type of movement sequencing
that occurs in the improvisation of contemporary dance.
Data and discussion
Dance improvisation
There are at least two ways to refer to improvisation in contemporary dance. One
of them is improvisation as a procedure used for the creation of choreographies.
Another one is improvisation as a performance where dancers dance improvising;
that is, proposing and organising movements in front of an audience. In improvisa-
tion as a show, dancers must keep in mind what will be the motive of their dance.
The improvisational motive will operationalise the dance improvisation show. The
motive is the idea that allows the action to arise and re-arise and the presentation to
move ahead within the logic initially proposed and its development (Gravel and
Lavergne 1987). The motive may be triggered by a figure, a picture, an idea, a
poem or a memory, among others. The recursivity of the inventive cognition may
occur as from this motive; that is, the dancers approach the motive in several ways,
proposing possible adaptations and negotiations between the movements, the body
and the space. Besides the motive, from this initial spark, it is suggested that one or
more rules be constructed –rules which the improvisers should follow. Rule is
understood here in the sense of a cognitive challenge (Hagendoorn 2002) relative to
body movement in relation to space and time. Through the rule artists can free
themselves from the motor habits and start a recursive process of scenic problem
solving based on a specific behaviour with the fluency and elements of time (sud-
den and sustain), space (direct and flexible), weight (strong and light) relative to
motor activity (Newlove and Dalby 2007). This specific behaviour, characterised by
recursivity, is based on continuous discussion that characterises improvisation as a
procedural state.
The combination of the elements of time, space and weight will occur in the
improvisation context which is originated by the motive but it is also and mainly
maintained by the relation established with rule/rules, space, scene partners, audi-
ence, music, lighting, costumes, etc. Contemporary dance improvisation is the result
of this arrangement between body and context so that they mix and interact affect-
ing each other, at times becoming stable at other times unstable. This first level of
arrangement of body-context in improvisation takes place by means of composi-
tional procedures of repetition, contrast, symmetry, balance, synchronisation
(Hagendoorn 2002), asymmetry, alternating, simultaneity, disruptions, tension, relax-
ing, rhythmic patterns, surprise, linkages, question/answer, among others.
In contemporary dance improvisation, dancers are simultaneously their own cho-
reographers and their partners’spectators. The dancers have to be aware of them-
selves and of their partners. One dancer is affected by another dancer. This
Bergsonian affection is what the body receives from external causes, but which is
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not returned in the form of external actions. The possibility of being affected makes
the affective condition of those involved in the process of improvised dance crea-
tion. The affection will modulate the motor response. This response also depends
on a conscious experience of the body in space and time and on the relational inter-
face between dancers and sound, visual and tactile environments.
Experience of the dancing body
The experience of the dancing body takes place by means of sensorial dimensions:
visual, proprioception and interoception, which interact in a multimodal integration
(Legrand and Ravn 2009). Vision enables people to recognise individual differ-
ences, as well as to verify their own and others’movement. This checking occurs
through the feedback from the improvisation partner as well as from the audience’s
reaction. With proprioception, dancers can know where each part of their body is in
space and receive information on the level of their muscle contraction and the force
on their body of gravity and velocity. Conscious proprioception, an ability that
dancers learn to develop, provides a perspicacious simulation of body form, vol-
ume, density and alignment without the use of external senses. Additional to these
sensorial dimensions is the vestibular system, which confers balance perception of
the body in space, postural stabilisation, stabilisation of the look, perception of
speed and acceleration (Berthoz 2000).
The perceptive experiences of the body conform to the consciousness of these
sensations. Besides vision, proprioception, interoception and the vestibular system,
feelings, observations and mental images also constitute the bodily experience in
dance. These sensations enable the dancer to know about their body conditions.
The feelings, images and observations interfere in how the movement will be per-
formed. In other words, they modulate the movement. With a knowledge provided
by the perceptive experience of the body, the dancers perform more sensitively
(Shusterman 2008).
1
It is interesting to observe that proprioception offers affective
information to the body (Cole and Montero 2007). The conscious exercise of this
perceptive information enables a more sensitive performance in the relational game
of dance improvisation.
However, this sensorial division occurs merely for didactic reasons, because
what happens is that all the sensorial perceptive modalities interact in the configura-
tion of the movement in space and time. We agree with Berthoz (2000) when he
suggests that we should think in senses that correspond to perceptive functions such
as the senses of taste, smell, tact, vision, hearing, movement, space, balance, effort,
your own self, decision, responsibility, initiative and so on. The body context of
dance improvisation is one whose internal states are externalised by means of
movements and which incorporates the stimuli of the environment, which in their
turn also become movement experiences. That is to say, the artistically interesting
information for the dancer improviser, both internal and external, is embodied in
the movement. The affective information, which highlights the pleasure of seeing
the other person moving himself/herself, and the pleasure of moving oneself, which
brings about memories and emotions, will imbue the movements affecting the part-
ner and the space. It is suggested here that in the improvisational game the dancer
does not only worry about which movements to make, but also about how to make
them, where to highlight them, when to pause, where to accelerate, to slow-down,
when to make the movements together with the partner, and whether in alternate or
Research in Dance Education 75
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canon movements. The dancer is involved with the doing and with the sensorimotor
consequences of this doing. The way dancers feel the movement will necessarily be
associated with how the movement will seem to them and to the others, which
implies a more than cognitive pleasure, an aesthetic pleasure (Cole and Montero
2007) or even perhaps an aesthetic cognition.
The consciousness of one’s own experience and its subjectivity are expressed by
the body of a person who improvises dancing with another person. For this other
person, the body that dances is a body with which you establish an alignment –a
second level of arrangement. Two people who improvise a dance are two individu-
als who perceive, observe each other and who perform together, aligned or
unaligned, but in a certain way intentionally synchronised in space and time. This
is the requirement for improvising in dance. It is a subjective involvement that does
not scrutinise the other dancer, but in fact perceives this other in their motor poten-
tial, perceiving and foreseeing the movement that will next be executed. Thus the
kinaesthetic perception makes a type of collective body intelligence resulting from a
cognitive confluence possible. The collective body intelligence can be understood
as an ability to plan and to solve collective body ‘problems’and to make decisions
collectively during dance improvisation. In an analytical view, it could be said that
this confluence is the result of the integration of social cognition, motor cognition
and choreographic cognition; that is, cognition anchored in the body and situated in
the context. Thus, the collective intelligence resulting from this cognitive confluence
arranges the expressive movements which are deliberate in the relation of an artistic
construction that occurs between time, space and the individual who dances. The
thought and the affection in this case are not movement’s partners but in fact part
of the movement constitution.
Cognitive modes in dance
Improvisation in the form of games was, according to the illuminist philosopher
Baumgarten, favourable to the exercise and development of a cognitive aesthetic.
This is because in improvisation, the dancer seeks harmonic arrangements in the
movements’context. Aesthetic, for Baumgarten, is the sensorial cognition science
whose senses belong to the body and are deeply influenced by its condition. The
sensorial perception thus depends on how the body feels and works, what it desires,
does and suffers (Schusterman 1999). The sensorial perception practised in dance
improvisation underlies the cognition modes that we propose in the discussion
which follows.
Cognition leaves its indelible mark in the expressive movement, allowing it to
be called dance and to be part of mankind’s cultural heritage (Ribeiro and Teixeira
2009). The dancers experiment with their subjectivity in a direct manner during the
perceptive experience of the body that dances (Legrand and Ravn 2009). It is sug-
gested in this paper that dance improvisation is an affective cognitive experience
that takes place in and through the body. The relation between dancing and cogni-
tion is more clearly explicit in the concept of choreographic cognition which is an
intricate artistic domain in which peculiar interfaces emerging from dancers’intelli-
gent actions are studied and these actions extend through space and time (Sutton
2005).
The idea of cognition as an understanding that takes place in the body is called
embodied cognition. This body is not separated from the world in which it is
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situated. It is a body context which generates knowledge through experience (Ribe-
iro and Teixeira 2009). The embodied cognition in this case is understood as
embodied action by means of body and social history of individuals who behave in
the world as from various experiences. It can also be considered that the sensorimo-
tor capacities are ingrained in a biological, psychological and cultural context
(Varela, Thompson and Rosch 1993). In this cognitive model, the body is valued as
an individual of the experience and as context of various cognitive mechanisms.
The understanding of the other people and of the world is based on the capacities
that are deeply rooted in structures of our biological body, but which are lived and
experienced in the consensual action and cultural background domain (Varela,
Thompson and Rosch 1993). The concept of embodied cognition approaches action
and perception and has a number of unfoldings.
Motor cognition is one of them and is part of the notion of motor resonance.
Resonance is an internal simulation of movement that promotes perception of the
objectives of observed movement and strengthens the idea that the body mecha-
nisms can mediate the understanding of the external, physical or social world
(Jeannerod 2008). Mental action simulates the action that occurs in the external
world. This simulation may occur without external stimuli –in other words, when
someone imagines movements. It is important to emphasise that simulation is not a
representation but the neuronal activation whose physical properties of oscillatory
forms, of resistance and of expansion are tuned with the external world (Berthoz
2000). This simulation occurs before the consciousness of the movement. The brain
simulates in order to generate suitable answers, yet these answers are generated at a
pre-reflexive level. The consciousness of the action will take place when the action
cycle has been completed. The consciousness will come a posteriori. Thus the prep-
aration of the motor reply to external or internal stimuli begins even before the dan-
cer realises –in other words, at a pre-reflexive level. Thus the declarative
consciousness of the movement of the dancer improviser when he/she is proposing
new body movements does not correspond to the beginning of motor preparation,
because this preparation begins much earlier than the gaining of consciousness
(Jeannerod 2008).
Motor cognition informs individuals more about the action than about the action
agents themselves. It allows us to know the action context: how it can be executed,
but not why. The role of motor cognition and motor resonance seems to be that of
making the motor system act in a perceptive manner. The movement has, in conso-
nance with this idea, its own adaptive intelligence. And in order for the actions to
be understood by the executor, they must be internally experienced.
Another unfolding of embodied cognition is the extended or situated cognition.
Since perception is linked to the body, which is physically located in space and
time and imbued with socio-cultural background, it is said that cognition extends
itself in a continuous process in the environment. The theory of situated cognition
recognises that both the agent and the context are continuously co-built. In the con-
text of contemporary dance improvisation, the situated cognition reinforces the idea
that the dancers’movements and their space are continuously re-built and acquire
new meanings from their relationship.
With neurophysiological bases similar to the ones mentioned above, the so-
called social cognition is presented as relevant in this cognitive confluence proposed
for dance improvisation. Social cognition refers to several psychological processes
that enable individuals to obtain advantages in being part of a group (Frith 2008).
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Necessarily present in the practice of dance improvisation performed by more than
one dancer, it relates itself to the understanding of the other dancers’actions and
emotions. The psychological processes are the ones that allow us to make infer-
ences about the others’intentions, feelings and thoughts (Adolphs 2009). For this
reason, it is necessary to adopt the viewpoint of the other person: to put oneself in
the other’s position and be able to make predictions about their future actions in the
dancers’interaction, which is especially important in the contemporary dance
improvisation sphere.
Mirroring in dance
The neurobiological basis of embodied cognition and its unfoldings are the so-
called mirror neurons.
2
After the discovery of mirror neurons a little less than a
decade ago, several researchers have dedicated themselves to this subject with the
intention of corroborating their existence in humans. Although there is still no pre-
cise evidence of a human mirror system, researchers have been associating it with
the understanding functions of others’actions, action formation, the understanding
of the others’intention, language, theory of the mind, learning and intentionality by
means of research using electroencephalography, magneto-encephalography, trans-
cranial stimulation, positron emission tomography and functional magnetic reso-
nance (Rizzolatti and Craighero 2004; Oberman, Pineda and Ramachandra 2007;
Iacoboni 2008; Agnew, Bhakoo, and Puri 2007, among others).
3
It can mainly be
suggested that mirror neurons in humans are activated during the performance and
observation of the same action in the interaction with biological agents. It was
shown that motor, somatosensory and nociceptive areas –areas related to emotions
and facial expressions –are activated when the others’actions, emotions and pains
are witnessed (Pineda 2008). Through the automatic activation of mirror neurons
when others are observed, one tends to align oneself with the others in terms of
objectives and actions (Frith and Singer 2008).
Mirror neurons enable us to establish a direct connection between the one who
sends the message and the receptor, which makes possible the understanding and
generation of coherent actions without a cognitive mediation (Gallese, Keysers, and
Rizzolatti 2004). All these simulations occur in the absence of consciousness; that
is, at a pre-reflexive level. Thus, it is necessary the interaction of other semantic
and cognitive circuits so that the understanding of the action can take place in a
conscious manner. The mirror system is anatomically connected to other regions
that contribute to the preparation of information, in spite of not containing the so-
called mirror neurons
4
in these regions. Thus, the motor response begins in visual-
motor areas that possess the so called mirror neurons at a pre-reflexive level.
In dance improvisation, dancers need to identify the stimuli and signs of the
context, to use kinaesthetic memory in the integration of new motor plans in reac-
tion to stimuli, to anticipate movements during the shared structuring and to assess
their own response and that of the others in order to maintain the improvisational
game in progress. Often they make decisions based on what they simulate from the
others; that is, they make motor decisions taken in an unconscious manner. We sug-
gest that they are empathic decisions.
Mirror neurons allow this connection between the self and the other. In fact,
they have been called ‘Dalai Lama neurons’for breaking the barrier which sepa-
rates the self from the other –for not knowing the difference between the ‘I’and
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the ‘others’(Ramanchandra 2007). It appears that this system has an important role
in empathy. Empathy involves the understanding not only of the intentions of the
others’actions but also of their motivational and emotional states. It is a kind of
sharing of emotions, desires and beliefs; it is not necessarily a conscious process
but it may be conscious. Empathic responses of the brain may be modulated by fac-
tors such as affective relation, perception of beauty and state of spirit (Frith and
Singer 2008). This mechanism, because it favours cooperation, acknowledgement of
the others’actions and the appropriate reaction, fosters life in-group, in society. It
means that it is possible to describe the others’actions in terms of content and to
foresee their consequences. Understanding other people involves an understanding
of the intentions of their actions, their motivational and emotional states (Frith and
Singer 2008). This understanding is based on the relational nature of the action.
Mirror neurons mediate internal simulation of the observed action with the activa-
tion of the motor system, which resounds with movements and body states per-
formed by other individuals and witnessed by the observer. It can also be proposed
that action simulation is used for foreseeing consequences of what was observed
and that this implicit, automatic and unconscious process of motor simulation quali-
fies the ones who observe to use their own resources to penetrate in the other’s
world without the necessity to theorise about it establishing a direct bond between
the observer and observed one (Gallese 2001). This acknowledgement of the other’s
action, makes us feel as if ‘we were the other’when seeing them in a certain situa-
tion or executing a certain movement. Empathy is deeply rooted in the body experi-
ence –in the live body –and this experience is what enables us to recognise the
others as people like us (Gallese 2001).
Empathic choreography
Dancers necessarily share experiences and skills during the improvisation practice.
This sharing is what gives sense to the dance both for those who dance and for
those who observe it and it requires observation, cooperation, acceptance and adap-
tation. As we have seen, the sharing of experiences among people starts with a sim-
ulation activity that takes place at a pre-reflexive level. We suggest that this
simulation activity of movements, emotions and intentions occurs due to the activa-
tion of the mirror neurons. Thus dancers share desires, movement intentions and
emotions during dance improvisation. It seems that it is from this simulation that a
body comprehension among dancers and the collective motor decisions are made
possible. As we have previously said, it is from this empathic capacity that what
we have previously called collective motor intelligence emerges. In dance improvi-
sation, this empathic capacity is called kinaesthetic empathy, which may engender
the consciousness of the movement intentions of the partners and generate joint
decision-making (Godard 1995). When the neural connections that enable awareness
take place, the dancer may interact in a more complex manner in relation to the
movement, space and time of dance improvisation. In improvisation, the affective
motor decision-making is pre-reflexive and reflexive.
Initially, we thought that improvisation was not choreography. In fact, if we
think of choreography as a set of previously prepared instructions that specify
dancers’actions (Hagendoorn 2010), then improvisation cannot be seen as choreog-
raphy. However, a person who watches a contemporary dance improvisation perfo-
mance perceives a sequence of interlinked movements that has its own logic –an
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ephemeral logic which belongs to the present moment. But how can a logic without
thinking about it previously take place? What assures this logic or this nexus of
meaning as Gil (2004) suggests, is the effect of the arrangement of the silent agree-
ment between improvisation partners. We suggest that this arrangement is only pos-
sible due to empathy. So, empathy provides dancers with the sequencing of the
movements in a way that a person watching the performance perceives it as chore-
ography, in the sense of ‘a conceived and imagined set of certain deliberate move-
ments which possess its own nexus, a logic of movement, a particular structure’
(Gil 2004: 67). The dancers share the movement structuring modes in space and
time in this kind of dance that improvisation engenders.
Thus, we may say that improvisation implies the construction of choreography in
a collective manner. Choreography is considered here in the sense of movement
sequence structuring. However, in improvisation, this structuring is temporary. Tem-
porary refers to the fact that these structures do not get to be established as a stan-
dard to be taken up again later. Thus, it is a temporary choreographic structuring: an
ephemeral organisation not tending toward stabilisation. On the contrary, at all
moments the dancer must be attentive to the disturbing elements of the order that is
momentarily established. The elements that disturb the order appear as noises, amaz-
ing motor proposals, audience’s reaction, images and feelings that may emerge
together with the movement. The attention to the emergence of these elements is
what Johnstone calls ‘necessary listening for improvising’. As we suppose that danc-
ers have an experience in the practice of dance improvisation, this listening enables
the disruption of motor habits, the maintenance of the relational game and the accep-
tance of the movement proposals between the dance improvisation partners (John-
stone 2003). It is the so-called ‘intentionalised listening’, tuned with a common
objective based on the improvisation motive and managed by proposed rules, which
will provide collective decision making in the ephemeral construction of improvisa-
tional ‘choreography’. This hearing requires availability, flexibility and affectivity.
It can be thought that in contemporary dance improvisation, the members of the
group who improvise have a shared collective objective. For this reason, it may be
interesting to have a set of motor elements known to everyone: a common motor
repertoire, a set of rules to be followed and structuring procedures of movements
sequences. Therefore, when improvising, one dancer learns to foresee the other dan-
cer’s movement in order to structure movements sequences in partnership integrat-
ing the other dancer’s action to the action planning itself (Frith 2008). This
prediction occurs when the dancer simulates the other dancer’s movement. Via mir-
ror neurons, the dancer adopts the other dancer’s view point having simulated the
preceding movement, which will serve as stimuli for improvisation to them. After
this simulation, as we have mentioned above, the dancer can be conscious about
the movement and understand it. If the other dancer’s actions were not simulated
and then understood, no accurate prediction of the motor behaviour could be made
(Adolphs 2009).
In contemporary dance improvisation, dancers construct knowledge through
deliberately intentional movements. Deliberate intention will give continuity to the
game by means of continuous questioning of the proposed motives at the beginning
of the dance improvisation. Movements are observed and performed in a continuous
process of action and reaction based on the sharing of intentions and motor
decisions. This deliberate sharing seems to be a characteristic only of the human
being (Gallese 2001). It is a kind of alignment of common knowledge and of
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synchronisation which, although not always resulting in an imitated movement,
needs a good dose of empathy in dance improvisation.
Empathy is the link between dancers in contemporary dance improvisation, and
it occurs not only by means of actions but also by means of emotions, sufferings,
etc. With the hypothesis of the shared manifold,
5
it was inferred that sensations,
emotions and pain are also shared by the mirror system. An empathic ‘choreogra-
phy’is a metaphor of cooperative and co-built relational activity that emerges from
dance improvisation. In dance improvisation, an empathic ‘choreography’occurs
based on collective intelligence that generates a temporary structuring of movements
sequences built at the present moment, without the mediation of words. It is a type
of choreography built in the relation, in the here and now, in the recognition of
actions and emotions. The other dancer can be recognised by means of the sharing
of common strategies of creative structuring which are internally simulated.
It is suggested here that in dance improvisation dancers can choose one among
many ways of generating a questioning which promotes invention, giving continuity
to the dance. Even this choice, conscious or unconscious, is coloured by internally
shared emotions and actions. Often, the decisions are made in a fast manner, intui-
tively and practically unconsciously by the dancer. But conscious choices also occur
strongly influenced by education and culture (Frith and Singer 2008). Thus, in the
decision making, emotion and intuition are not contrary to reason, but in fact are co-
authors of affective-cognitive choices. It can be inferred that emotions are the prepa-
ration rather than the reaction to the action. It is the hypothesis that emotions are the
representation and the anticipation of the future (Berthoz 2006). Thus, emotions,
affectivity and empathy are preponderant in the movements’modulation in dance
improvisation. A dance emerges that shares ways of structuring of a temporary cho-
reography –an improvised dance from which an empathic ‘choreography’arises.
Considerations
This paper cannot end without presenting some data that could contradict all of the
above. Firstly, although the discovery of mirror neurons and the possibility that they
exist in human beings and that such important functions such as imitation, empathy
and understanding of the actions depend on them is very exciting, there are authors
who point out limitations to the inferences made about this theme. (Grafton and
Hamilton 2007; Pineda 2008). These authors raise doubts in relation to the state-
ment that a mirror system really exists in human beings. This doubt is based on the
lack of consensus in the operational criteria for the observation and execution of
tasks that should be used in experiments with human beings. They also question if
there is only one type of neuron capable of supra-ordinary operations or if there are
many types of neurons which vary according to the level of complexity, and above
all, about the type of result that brain imaging technologies may provide and the
inferences resulting from them. Severe criticisms in relation to the use of the situ-
ated cognition theory in the study of creative processes in art and art appreciation
were also found. These restrictions are based on the impossibility of approaching
cognition, called high level, necessary to art creation and appreciation by means of
embodied cognition theory, named low level (Brinck 2007).
It also seems that associating the study of cognition sciences and neurosciences to
the theoretical-practical study of the arts would lead to the obscuration of what is
particular to art. However, what is particular to art is provided by its constituents
Research in Dance Education 81
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and by particular proprieties of its context that will provide artistic characteristics to
the cognitive processing. The work with art, typically human, takes place with, in
and for man and makes use of similar forms of cognitive processing in other human
activities. Artistic creativity is a specific mode of aesthetic cognition of a symbolic
practice that articulates the world as affectively experienced (Dengerink Chaplin
2005). This creates the necessity of information from other areas such as psychol-
ogy, neurosciences, anthropology and philosophy, among others, to compose suffi-
cient theoretical structure to account for one of its objects of study: man in artistic
behaviour. Most importantly is the fact that studying art in correlation with psychol-
ogy, cognition sciences and neurosciences is not in any manner trying to reduce art
and its phenomena to biological phenomena, but in fact to reiterate that biology is
not the destination and to demonstrate the preponderant role of experience in mind,
brain and body configuration (Diamond and Amso 2008). More than offering
insights, these areas promote explanations for observations based on empirical prac-
tices and thus enabling not only the increase in the credibility of the inferences
resulting from the participant observation but also the possibility of rethinking artis-
tic behaviour from both biological and cultural perspectives.
Conclusion
When dancing, dancers share subjective experiences that are permeated by their
senses, memories, expectations, states, body condition, personal history, space and
time. It is suggested here that dance improvisation is characterised by the interaction
of body with the environment and the affective and cognitive systems, by means of
perception-action, and also that empathy allows a sharing of modes of thinking-feel-
ing the dance so that a group of dancers can decide together when, where, how and
which movement to do. Therefore, we suggest that the temporary structuring which
emerges in the performance of a contemporary dance improvisation due to the col-
lective way of doing-perceiving-feeling –of jointly making decisions –can be called
empathic ‘choreography’.
These inferences result from a systematic review that draws on art, science and
personal experience. There are still many gaps in what concerns the study of emo-
tions, pleasure and choreographic cognition in neuroscientific researches. This paper
intends to contribute to this transdisciplinary dialogue as it approaches in a cogni-
tive and affective way the scientific and philosophical sphere in order to expand the
understanding of how human beings make art.
Notes
1. Richard Shusterman proposes somaesthetics as a critical study field of the experience
and of the use of one’s own body as a place of aisthesis and creative self-fashioning
(Shusterman 1999).
2. Mirror neurons are a specific class of visual-motor neurons that fire both when a monkey
executes a certain action and when it observes someone executing a similar action with-
out any apparent motor action taking place. They were originally discovered in the F5
area of monkeys by a group of neurophysiologists from Parma University guided by Gia-
como Rizzolatti, revealing that action and perception are not separate in the brain (Riz-
zolatti and Craighero 2004)
3. Neurophysiological experiments showed that when individuals observe an action, transi-
tive or intransitive, being executed by another individual, its motor cortex becomes active
in the absence of any exterior movement. If the observed action belongs to the motor
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repertoire of the one who observes, the activation is even more evident. It is implied that
this is due to the existence, in the spinal cord, of an inhibiting mechanism that prevents
the execution of the observed action, enabling the cortical motor system to be free to
react to that action without the risk of generating any apparent movement (Rizzolatti and
Craighero 2004).
4. However, they work as an extension of this system due to its essentiality in the com-
pleteness of the mirroring process as the insular cortex, STS, primary motor cortex and
somatosensory areas (Pineda 2008).
5. A shared manifold (Gallese 2001: 45) is operated at the phenomenological level respon-
sible for the similarity sense from which the others’emotions, actions and sensations
become significant to us because we share them with them; at the functional level which
is characterised in terms of simulation routines and at the sub-personal level which is the
result of the activity of several mirror matching neural circuits. This mirroring takes
place by the expressive and receptive way.
Notes on contributors
Mônica M. Ribeiro is an actress, contemporary dancer and professor of the undergraduate
course in theatre and dance at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Ms Ribeiro
holds a masters degree in literature and other semiotic systems/letters and has specialisations
in neuroscience and behaviour and in neuropsychology. She also has a doctorate in arts from
UFMG, based on research into cognitive and affective aspects in the practice of rhythmic
bodily movement from the interface between the teaching of art and neuroscience. Ribeiro
also works preparing the bodily aspects for actors and is scenic movement advisor for
theatre groups as Oficcina Multimédia from Fundação de Educação Artística.
AGAR Fonseca is psychologist at the Instituto Cultural Newton Paiva and a neuro-
psychologist at the Center for Advanced Treatment of Epilepsy of the HFR. Reis has a
masters degree in experimental neurophysiology and epilepsy from UFMG and expertise in
clinical psychology, hospital psychology and neuropsychology.
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