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Cognition, Kinesthetics and Performance

Stephanie Jordan, 'Learning to Dance: With our Bodies and Minds'

Monday 16th June, 17.30 - 18.30. Jarman 1

What happens when we experience dance and music, together, or ‘choreomusically’? Is the response one of integrated experience or of two separate ‘voices’? Does one ‘voice’ lead? My paper is concerned primarily with perception, while referring to empathetic responses to, or embodiment of, the two simultaneously-presented media. Although a number of valuable cross-modal, empirical studies deal with basic temporal and spatial concepts, there are few to date that have fore-grounded the more complex relations (or structural meetings) between dance and music. But I argue here that work from cognitive science crossing music and dance could provide useful tools for the profession—choreographers, dancers and dance teachers—as well as for dance analysts.

Biography

Stephanie Jordan is Research Professor in Dance at University of Roehampton. She has had professional and academic experience in both music and dance, which contributes to her current research in choreomusical studies. Her books are Striding Out: Aspects of Contemporary and New Dance in Britain (1992), Moving Music: Dialogues with Music in Twentieth-Century Ballet (2000), and Stravinsky Dances: Re-Visions across a Century (2007, covering modern/postmodern dance as well as ballet). In 2010, Jordan was honoured with the award for Outstanding Scholarly Research in Dance from the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD, USA).

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Last Updated: 05/06/2014