Watching Dance: Kinesthetic Empathy

RESEARCH QUESTIONS The project will be the first to use audience research and neuroscience to explore audience responses to dance. It will investigate how dance spectators respond to and identify with movement. To what extent do they internally simulate the movement observed? What conditions favour empathetic response (e.g. interactions between movement and sound) and what are the roles of social engagement and emotional response in kinesthetic empathy? CONTEXT AND METHODOLOGY Arguments have been made in very different fields (phenomenology and aesthetics) that kinesthesia (sensation of movement and position) is central to consciousness and to spectator response, and that dance audiences can experience physical and imaginative effects of movement even without actually moving their bodies. Spectators can react in certain respects as if they were moving, or preparing to move. However, these views have remained controversial. Current techniques of neurophysiological investigation make it possible to investigate these claims more closely. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) enables measurement of the extent to which neural pathways from the brain to the muscles are primed for action. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can show which brain regions are active. Neurophysiological research using these techniques (including our 2007 pilot study) has shown that kinesthetic response is more likely to be activated if viewers have themselves acquired the necessary skills to execute the observed action. However, no-one has yet investigated whether familiarity with viewing dance movements also influences response, and whether sound and music play roles in activating this response. Research using fMRI cannot investigate response to live performance, as subjects need to be lying in a scanner, and TMS cannot be used in a theatre context. Neurophysiological research cannot investigate the social context or the lived experience of spectators, about which we know very little, nor explore what meanings spectators attach to their responses. Therefore our project is multidisciplinary and will employ innovative and in-depth audience research techniques in interaction with neurophysiological research. These techniques include participatory workshops (where the audience members are self-reflective participants), semi-structured interviews (where participants can influence the parameters of discussions) and creative workshops (where participants will engage in creative writing and drawing/painting). To facilitate comparison and interaction between the audience and neurophysiological research, we shall use the same criteria to define spectator categories. Some dance material will developed and performances/recordings used in the science experiments, and some subjects will participate in both audience research and science parts of the study. Participants in the TMS study will be interviewed. POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS The results will provide, for the first time, strong grounds on which to assess the role of kinesthetic response in dance spectatorship. In addition to having a decisive impact on the field of dance studies (with implications for reception of other art forms), this knowledge will be valuable for audience development and education.The insights into response to dance and the context in which it is seen by spectators with different levels of expertise will be helpful to those seeking to widen access and will thereby potentially enrich the cultural experience and quality of life of greater numbers of people. The neuroscience will build bridges between the fields of motor physiology, affective neuroscience and social neuroscience. The results will shed new light on the mirror system in humans, exploring its relationships with emotion perception on the one hand and sound and sight interaction on the other. The collaborative process and reflection on it could provide paradigms for future multidisciplinary research.