First published 2010
by Psychology Press
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Psychology Press
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2010 Psychology Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The neurocognition of dance : mind, movement and motor skills / edited
by Bettina Blsing, Martin Puttke and Thomas Schack.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84872-024-4 (hb)
1. Dance. 2. Cognition. I. Blsing, Bettina, 1970 II. Puttke-Voss,
Martin. III. Schack, Thomas, 1962
GV1588.N48 2010
792.8dc22
2009042154
ISBN: 978-1-84872-024-4 (hbk)
http://www.psypress.com/the-neurocognition-of-dance-9781848720244
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Towards a neurocognitive science of
dance two worlds approaching or two approaches to the
same world of movement?
vii
ix
BETTINA BLSING, MARTIN PUTTKE AND THOMAS SCHACK
PART I
The science perspective
1 Building blocks and architecture of dance
9
11
THOMAS SCHACK
2 Shall we dance? Action researchers and dancers
can move together
41
DAVID ROSENBAUM
3 Getting cognitive
53
HOLK CRUSE AND MALTE SCHILLING
4 The dancers memory: Expertise and cognitive
structures in dance
75
BETTINA BLSING
PART II
The dance perspective
5 Learning to dance means learning to think!
MARTIN PUTTKE
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99
101
vi
Contents
6 Searching for that other land of dance: The
phases in developing a choreography
115
GREGOR ZLLIG
7 Overcoming the dyslexia barrier: The role of
kinesthetic stimuli in the teaching of spelling
123
GALEET BENZION
PART III
Neurocognitive studies of dance
8 Neural mechanisms for seeing dance
151
153
BEATRIZ CALVO-MERINO
9 Building a dance in the human brain: Insights from
expert and novice dancers
177
EMILY S. CROSS
10 Research and choreography: Merging dance
and cognitive neuroscience
203
CORINNE JOLA
Author index
Subject index
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235
243
Introduction
Towards a neurocognitive science of
dance two worlds approaching or
two approaches to the same world
of movement?
Bettina Blsing
Neurocognition and Action Research Group, Faculty of Psychology and
Sport Sciences & Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology
(CITEC), University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Martin Puttke
Berlin, Germany
Thomas Schack
Neurocognition and Action Research Group, Faculty of Psychology and
Sport Sciences & Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology
(CITEC), University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
What will happen when dancers, choreographers, cognitive and neuroscientists come together to talk about movement, the body and the brain in order
to understand the phenomenon of dance? We were intrigued by this question
when we organised the symposium that nally led to the production of this
book. What we witnessed during these 3 days truly exceeded our expectations.
We were impressed by the positive personal reactions by members of the
scientic community, who, in several situations, were simply amazed and
touched by the mere beauty, precision and energy of movement of the
dancers who improvised or demonstrated their movement sequences in the
lecture hall. Dancers and dance teachers were equally as fascinated when they
discovered that many of the theoretical ideas and results that were brought
forward in the talks also yielded beauty and precision, and often also practical benet for the dance community. The reactions on both sides expressed
silent respectful amazement, which may be the premise for a true gain of
knowledge, the origin of mutual understanding. It might have been this personal experience of feeling deeply touched that keeps bringing the newly
established community of dancers and scientists together and that has given
rise to the idea of writing this book together.
One motivation for this project certainly is an emotional one, as the chapter titles chosen by some of the authors suggest. Another motivation lies in
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Blsing, Puttke, Schack
the shared view that important insight into the nature of human movement
and action has been gained over the last decade, and that this insight has to
be communicated and discussed beyond the borders of professional communities. Dance has always been an important aspect of human cultures, and
bringing dance into the focus of the cognitive sciences will certainly broaden
our understanding of the nature of human minds and brains.
Since the cognitive sciences have discovered the importance of embodiment, of the concept of minds being grounded in the physical environment in
which they have evolved and with which they constantly interact (see Wilson,
2002), movement of the human body has become a topic of increasing relevance. Questions of how human body movement is controlled and how
special movements are learnt concern not only scientists interested in
muscle physiology and biomechanics, but also those trying to understand
how thinking, reasoning and learning are processed by the human brain.
Experimental psychology has discovered a wide range of interrelations of
body postures and body movements with perception, mental processing and
action planning (e.g., Homann, Stoecker, & Kunde, 2004; Hommel,
Msseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001; Koch, Keller, & Prinz, 2004; for an
overview see Schack & Tenenbaum, 2004a, 2004b), for example in paradigms
like the Simon eect (Simon & Rudell, 1967) or mental rotation tasks
(e.g., Shepard & Metzler, 1971; Parsons, 1987; Jola & Mast, 2005).
Only a little more than a decade ago, scientists in Parma, Italy, discovered
the so-called mirror neurons in the monkey brain neurons that re during
performance of a specic action as well as during observation of that same
action performed by others (e.g., Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 1996;
Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Gallese, & Fogassi, 1996). This discovery and the subsequently arising interest in the principles of a neurocognitive mirror system
in the human brain have initiated an extensive shift within the neurosciences,
in a close cooperation with experimental psychology, towards research
related to the coupling of neural codes for action observation and action
execution (e.g., Arbib, 2002; Iacoboni, 2008). This eld of research investigates general principles of the interplay between perception, cognition and
action in humans (e.g., Schtz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007). It oers a new understanding of the cognitive basis of model learning (see Bandura, 1986), based
on a better description of the human action observation system (Cross,
Hamilton, & Grafton, 2006).
What happens in our brain when we observe someone performing a simple
task, or a complex movement sequence? What does it mean to understand
an action, or a movement, as such, and how does this relate to language? Why
do we have the ability to imitate the actions of others, and how does this help
us to learn? How do we understand what our interlocutor feels, or expresses,
by watching his facial expression, gesture, movement quality, and body posture? And how do we apply this mutual understanding in a social context in
real time to interact successfully with each other, to join into others actions,
to compete or collaborate, and to communicate?
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Introduction
When we think about learning and performing complex movements, probably in interaction with others, sooner or later, dance comes to mind. A
dancers skill includes not only expert physical abilities but also a wide range
of cognitive skills which again might reect how closely related these
domains are when it comes to human body movement. Dancers often have to
learn highly complex designed movement sequences combined in choreographies that might last for hours. They have to be able to perform their part
not only perfectly, reproducing the movements without variation, but also
with adequate expressive quality, no matter how nervous, tired or exhausted
they are, seemingly independent of their own emotional state. While dancing,
they constantly have to keep track of their surroundings, space and objects,
partners and co-dancers, dynamical qualities of the music, and their audience. While learning movement sequences during the training or during
rehearsals for choreographies, they have to be able to immediately transfer
steps from one side of the body to the other side or from the forward to the
backward direction, as well as from one direction in space to another, without
losing orientation. Choreographers rely on these skills and apply them to
create and develop the pictures and scenes they have in their mind, to convey
the stories they want to tell, to arouse the intended emotional reactions in the
audience. Many of the concepts and ideas that are now in the focus of cognitive research have implicitly been in the minds of dancers and choreographers
for a long time, yet without deeper scientic understanding of brain functions
or cognitive processing. The interest the dance world takes in the neuroscientic side of their art is equally as young as the interest cognitive and brain
scientists take in embodiment, the situatedness of the human mind in the
physical world and related questions of human body movement. Yet, a
mutual fascination has grown during recent years (see, e.g., Stevens, 2005 for
an interdisciplinary approach to choreographic cognition).
A few psychologists and neuroscientists have started to work with dancers
to nd out if and how their highly specialised expert training may have
enhanced or modied their cognitive abilities; how their brains integrate all the
necessary information while they perform highly sophisticated physical tasks,
lined up in hour-long choreographies, that have to be awlessly remembered,
at the same time producing expressions of a deep emotional quality that have
the power to captivate the audience (e.g., Blsing, Tenenbaum, & Schack,
2009; Calvo-Merino, Glaser, Grzes, Passingham, & Haggard, 2005; CalvoMerino, Grzes, Glaser, Passingham, & Haggard, 2006; Cross et al., 2006;
Jola, Davies, & Haggard, 2009; Jola & Mast, 2005). Some of these scientists
also have followed a career in dance or choreography themselves, which
makes them even more qualied to explain and integrate the most relevant,
most promising aspects of both worlds.
Questions and ideas that derive from the interconnection of complex
movements and related cognitive processing are not only of interest when
regarding high-level professional classical or modern dance and choreography. Pre-school and primary school teachers increasingly apply movement
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Blsing, Puttke, Schack
and movement learning as tools, as vehicles for learning in general, even of
abstract principles in maths or grammar. They come to the conclusion that
children who are allowed to run, jump and dance become more motivated,
better learners, and that movement sometimes can teach children more about
geometry and dynamics than images and words can. Learning to move in
dierent ways, with dierent pace and qualities, to express feelings with the
body, to interact with space, rhythm, sound and with each other allows children and adults to grow more self-condent and courageous. Learning to
dance on a professional level, and learning to teach others how to dance, can
be a great challenge and gratication for body and mind. A professional
career in dance, however, can also become a thorny path if the teaching
methods applied diverge too far from the basic physical, neural and cognitive
principles of human motor learning. Therefore, one of the aims of this book
is to oer new scientic perspectives on the neurocognition of dance, and to
give the impetus to integrate scientic knowledge and principles into the way
of teaching dance.
When we started our cooperation between the Neurocognition and Action
Biomechanics research group of the Department of Psychology and Sport
Science at the University of Bielefeld and the aalto ballett theater Essen 2 years
ago, our common goal was to study mental representations underlying
movements from classical dance and, based on these studies, to develop
improved teaching methods. Within minutes of our rst meeting, we already
found ourselves discussing questions that went far beyond dance training and
sport science, questions of the human mind and the many ways it relates to
dance. How are dance sequences created from moving images in the choreographers mind? How are they processed and embodied by the dancer and
communicated to the observer in the audience? What happens in the brain of
that observer, and what role does his or her own dance experience play? What
does that tell us about movement learning in general and especially about
teaching dance? From this discussion, it was only a short step to the idea of
organising a brain pool meeting of professionals interested in the above
topics.
In October 2007, we had the opportunity to arrange a meeting that
brought together dancers, choreographers, dance teachers and leading scientists from the elds of neuroscience, psychology, cognitive and movement
science, providing a platform for mutual introductions into each others disciplines and approaches to thinking, learning and movement. The Werkwoche
[Workshop] Intelligence and Action Dance in the Focus of Cognitive
Science took place at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at
Bielefeld, Germany, and was hosted by Tanzplan Essen 2010 (Tanzplan Essen
2010 is supported by Tanzplan Deutschland, an initiative of The Federal
Cultural Foundation, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Germany). The Werkwoche
was one of the most inspiring and broad minded conferences many of us had
ever encountered, and it left us with the impression that the innovative combination of scientic talks, dance performance, choreographic workshop, lec-
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Introduction
ture demonstration and other topics we had immersed ourselves in during
these 3 days had been like jigsaw pieces, diverse at rst sight but tting
together beautifully at second, revealing promising parts of an impressive
whole picture.
With the publication of this book, we want to share our ideas and insights
with a broader audience, with professionals from the worlds of dance and
science, with teachers, trainers, therapists, and with everyone interested in
dance and cognition. We hope to initiate a process of mutual exchange
and stimulation between dancers and cognitive scientists, psychologists and
choreographers, ballet teachers and neurobiologists, and we hope that this
process might lead to a deeper understanding of dance as movement of the
human body and mind.
This book is addressed to a diverse audience, to those readers who are used
to digging into scientic theory as well as to those whose work consists of
creating, performing or teaching movement. We know that the aim to make
this book equally informative and enjoyable for all of them must be a challenge. We have therefore structured the content of our book in such a way
that chapters written from similar perspectives are grouped together, in order
to provide our readers with a line of orientation. First, scientists introduce
ideas that oer dierent perspectives on human movement and therefore can
be applied to dance. Second, professionals from the world of dance have their
say, reporting how their creative and pedagogical work relates to cognition
and learning. Finally, researchers with personal links to the dance world
demonstrate how neurocognitive methods are applied to studying dierent
aspects related to dance.
In Part I of the book (The science perspective), we present basic approaches
to movement control, providing dierent perspectives on the way movements
are initiated, adapted and stored in memory. The contents of these chapters
range from theoretical foundations over experimental studies to computer
simulation models. Thomas Schack (Building blocks and architecture of dance;
Chapter 1) introduces his cognitive architecture model of dance that is based
on the idea of mental representation of movements in long-term memory.
Schack illustrates how this model can be applied to the study of movement
expertise in sports and dance and raises implications for psychological training methods. David Rosenbaum (Shall we dance? Action researchers and
dancers can move together; Chapter 2) introduces the concept of goal postures
and explains their vital role in motor planning. Rosenbaum shows how continuous movements, from everyday grasping actions to dance, are anticipated
and stored in memory by the mental representation of goal postures. Holk
Cruse and Malte Schilling (Getting cognitive; Chapter 3) demonstrate how a
biomimetic computer simulation of walking behaviour can be augmented to
develop internal world models and, progressively, become cognitive. Cruse
and Schilling take a computational approach based on articial neural
networks to explain phenomena ranging from motor control to subjective
experience and even illusions. At the end of the rst part, Bettina Blsing
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Blsing, Puttke, Schack
(The dancers memory: Expertise and cognitive structures in dance; Chapter 4)
shows how movement can be studied on dierent levels, including the cognitive one. Blsing illustrates how information is stored in the dancers longterm memory and presents a study in which dancers of dierent expertise
levels were compared based on the quality of their mental representations of
classical dance movements.
In Part II (The dance perspective), professionals from the dance world
report on their practical work and share their experiences of how dance
relates to cognition in dance education, pedagogy and choreography. Martin
Puttke (Learning to dance means learning to think!; Chapter 5), former
Director of the State Ballet School Berlin and Director of the aalto ballett
theater Essen, explains why cognitive skills make good dancers. By giving
examples from his rich experience of developing world-class dancers, Puttke
shows how ballet teachers can improve their dancers physical and artistic
qualities by substantiating the training process with cognitive methods.
Choreographer Gregor Zllig (Searching for that other land of dance: The
phases in developing a choreography; Chapter 6) describes the process of
nding novel movements while creating a choreography. Zllig, who portrays himself as a traveller in that other land of dance, prefers a working
style that integrates ideas and improvisations of his company into the creative process. Galeet BenZion (Overcoming the dyslexia barrier: The role of
kinesthetic stimuli in the teaching of spelling; Chapter 7), dancer, choreographer and primary school director, introduces her pedagogical concept
called the kinematics teaching method. BenZion has developed this
method to help children with learning diculties, especially related to dyslexia, to acquire their own way of learning by creating meaningful
movements.
In Part III (Neurocognitive studies of dance), scientists present recent studies that bridge the gap between neurocognitive research and dance, showing
how dancers as experimental subjects can help to enlighten our understanding of the ways in which the human brains process dierent aspects of
movement. Beatriz Calvo-Merino (Neural mechanisms for seeing dance;
Chapter 8) demonstrates how the discovery of mirror neurons in the brain
has inuenced the way cognitive neuroscientists think about movement, and
presents her studies on action observation and dance expertise. Subsequently,
Calvo-Merino illustrates how the human brain might generate the aesthetic
evaluation of beauty we experience while watching dance. Emily S. Cross
(Building a dance in the human brain: Insights from expert and novice dancers;
Chapter 9) introduces the concept of an action observation network in the
human brain and explains the role of this network in learning complex
movement sequences in dance. Cross and colleagues have investigated how
activity in the dancers brains changes over the course of learning a new
movement sequence or choreography, and how this diers in dance experts
and novices. Finally, Corinne Jola (Research and choreography: Merging
dance and cognitive neuroscience; Chapter 10) presents the idea of experi-
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Introduction
mental choreography and shows how this idea can be put into practice. Jola
gives examples from her own works in science and choreography. She has
been investigating cognitive abilities of dancers to mentally rotate images of
human bodies and to measure their own body posture based only on proprioceptive information.
We would like to recommend this book to students and professionals from
the elds of psychology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, cognitive
robotics sport psychology, sport science, movement science, motor control,
motor development, kinesiology, dance, choreography, dance education,
dance therapy; to teachers who use or want to use (dance) movement as a
means of teaching, or who want to teach dance to students of any age.
Finally, we hope that our enthusiasm will be shared by many of our readers,
and we are looking forward to learning about their ideas and projects in this
young eld, the neurocognition of dance, in the near future.
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