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Dance Research Electronic

Dance Research is pleased to invite contributions to Dance Research Electronic, the new exclusively online complement to Dance Research. Dance Research Electronic will have a
dual function. First, it will enable speedy publication of Special Issues or articles containing topical material whose appearance would otherwise be less timely. Second, it will accommodate supplementary material relating to articles published in the print edition, such as lengthy appendices or media files.

For Special Issues and individual articles, abstracts of the relevant material (up to 800 words for Special Issues and up to 200 words for individual articles) will appear in the subsequent print edition. Material which supplements print edition articles will be referenced in the article with the appropriate website address.

Like Dance Research, Dance Research Electronic is required reading for anyone who seeks to keep abreast of developments in the contemporary understanding of dance practice and culture and will appeal to both to scholars and practitioners alike.

Submissions
Please submit your manuscript electronically by emailing it as an attachment to the Editor, Richard Ralph, at wea@nildram.co.uk. For Special Issue on Dance and Neuroscience, see below.

Dance Research Electronic welcomes use made by authors of illustrations,
film and music clips, providing the author has secured permission to reproduce
these materials from the copyright holder. While concision improves chances of
publication, serious consideration will be given to submissions to Dance Research Electronic where the nature and quality of the content justify greater length.

Articles submitted to Dance Research Electronic are subject to blind refereeing procedures.

Digital Images
Guidelines for submission of digital material can be found here:
Guidelines for Submission of Images in Digital Form

Discounts for Authors
Journal Authors are entitled to a 40% discount on the journal issue containing
their paper, a 20% discount on all EUP books and a 10% discount on any journal
subscription. Please contact marketing@eup.ed.ac.uk to order books at discount and journals@eup.ed.ac.uk for discounted journal subscriptions.

Dance Research Electronic: Call for Papers
Special Issue:
Dance and Neuroscience - New Partnerships

Guest Editors:
Corinne Jola, Frank Pollick, and Dee Reynolds

Introduction

‘You get a sense of when the moment is right for something – and for dance,
this is that moment’ (Duncan Gray, commissioning editor of entertainment for
Sky 1). Gray’s statement is a response to the explosion of interest in dance in
the UK.
The current fascination with dance is visible in manifold ways, such as a steep
rise in the number of boys applying to ballet school, increased audience
members for TV, screen and live dance, but also in the numbers participating in
dance, from clubs to community centres. At the same time, the moment is right
for dance-neuroscience partnerships. With current technological developments,
neuroscientists are extending the boundaries of our knowledge of the human
brain. In particular, results from research using brain imaging techniques have
caught the public imagination. Neuroscientists are drawn to study dance
because, as a highly complex form of movement, it offers a fertile field to
explore mind-body processes as well as the neural basis of aesthetics. In turn,
neuroscience offers dance scholars new insights on long-standing debates
concerning mind-body relations in choreographing, performing and watching
dance.

This field has garnered widespread interest, as evidenced by recent research
and public exposure. In ‘The Dancer’s Body: A Machine that Dances’ (BBC
2, September-October 2003), former Royal Ballet prima ballerina Deborah Bull
investigated the science of dance, featuring both choreographers and brain
scientists. Thinking in Four Dimensions: Creativity and Cognition in Contemporary
Dance, appeared in 2005 (Grove et al. 2005). Key studies, including Calvo-Merino et al, 2005 and 2006 and Cross 2008, drew on findings about the so-called mirror neuron system to investigate the relationship between expertise in performing dance and brain activity when watching it. Their conclusions about the influence of motor expertise on brain activity when watching dance have provided a powerful catalyst to debates about kinesthetic empathy in dance spectators (Foster, 2008). Tanz im Kopf / Dance and Cognition (Birringer & Fenger) appeared in 2005. Several interdisciplinary research projects are exploring related issues, and numerous recent symposia and workshops have addressed dance/neuroscience questions. These include The Dancing Brain (Dana Foundation, London, 2003), Dance and the Brain (Frankfurt, 2004), Dance, Movement in Time and Space (with Mark Morris; Society for Neuroscience,Washington DC, 2008), The Embodied Mind (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation,2008); Research Workshop on Dance and Cognitive Neurosciences (Experimental Psychology Society, London, 2009). Research publications in this field continue to appear (e.g. Calvo-Merino et al, 2008, deLahunta et al, 2009), and Ivar Hagendoorn and Thomas Komendzinski are currently editing a special issue of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences on Dance and Cognitive Science (forthcoming, Fall 2010). Clearly, the dance-neuroscience duet is in the spotlight.

Topics

New partnerships require flexibility and open-mindedness. With the Special
Issue on ‘Dance and Neuroscience – New Partnerships’ we aim to provide a
platform for original research that is relevant to both fields and is presented
in accessible terms We welcome contributions which report the results of
original empirical research and/or which review and assess existing
scholarship, on condition that they throw new light on key issues and
point to innovative directions for the future. As this is an online issue, we
welcome use made by authors of illustrations, film and music clips. Topics we
wish to explore include, but are not limited to, the following:
• What insights do we gain from neuroscientific research on cognitive,
emotional, and physical experiences related to dance and how? For example:
• the multimodal sensory processing used by dancers and dance spectators;
• the reasons why people enjoy performing and watching dance;
• how dancers respond to one another in the group dynamic;
• what neural processes come into play in the act of choreographing dance;
• how choreographers communicate with their dancers, and how dancers visualise
cues and embody them kinesthetically
• What claims made by neuroscience relate to existing debates in dance studies
and how;
• What other disciplines can/should be used to expand/critique knowledge gained
through neuroscience and how? For example:
• Existing or prospective collaborations of neuroscientists and other
disciplines (e.g. cultural studies, philosophy, anthropology, sociology,
qualitative audience research, critical theory) to research this field

Outlines

Prospective contributors are invited to
send a 500-word outline by email to
Katherine.Popperwell@manchester.ac.uk
by 1 May 2010. Abstract submissions will
be subject to blind refereeing procedures. Articles will be chosen for further
consideration by 1 June 2010 and must be submitted in draft by 1 October 2010,
and the definitive version by 30 January 2011. Texts should normally not exceed
7,000 words, including endnotes. However, while concision improves chances of
publication, serious consideration will be given to submissions where the
nature and quality of the content justify greater length. Submissions
must conform to the Dance Research Electronic
stylesheet, which is available upon request. Dance Research Electronic welcomes use made by authors of illustrations,
film and music clips, providing the author has secured permission to reproduce
these materials from the copyright holder. All necessary copyright permissions
must be arranged by individual authors in advance of publication.
Enquiries are most welcome, and should be addressed by email to Dee.Reynolds@manchester.ac.uk.

Publication: Spring 2011

Selected references
BIRRINGER, JOHANNES & FENGER, JOSEPHINE. Tanz im Kopf / Dance
and Cognition (Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung 15, Münster: LIT
Verlag, 2005)
BROWN, S., MARTINEZ, MICHAEL J. AND PARSONS, LAWRENCE M. 2006. 'The Neural Basis of Human Dance'. Cerebral Cortex,
16, 1157-1167.
CALVO-MERINO, B., JOLA,C., GLASER,D.E., HAGGARD,P. 2008. 'Towards a
sensorimotor aesthetics of performing art'. Consciousness and Cognition, 17,
911-922.
CALVO-MERINO, B., GRÈZES,J., GLASER,D.E., PASSINGHAM,R.E., HAGGARD,P. 2006.
'Seeing or doing? Influence of visual and motor familiarity in action
observation'. Current Biology, 16, 1905-1910.
CALVO-MERINO, B., GLASER,D.E., GREZES,J., PASSINGHAM,R.E., HAGGARD,P. 2005.
'Action Observation and Acquired Motor Skills: an fMRI Study with Expert
Dancers'. Cerebral Cortex, 15, 1243-1249.
CROSS, E. S., HAMILTON, A. F. D. C., & GRAFTON, S. T. 2006. 'Building a
motor simulation de novo: Observation of dance by dancers'. Neuroimage,
31, 1257-1267.FOSTER, S. 2008. 'Movement's Contagion: The Kinesthetic
Impact of Performance'. In: DAVIS, T. C. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
DELAHUNTA, S., BARNARD, P.J. & McGREGOR, W. 2009 'Augmenting Choreography:
using insights from Cognitive Science', In BUTTERWORTH, J. AND WILDSCHUT, L.
(eds.) Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader.
GRAFTON, S. T., & CROSS, E. S. (2008). Dance and the brain. In C. Asbury
& B. Rich (Eds.), Learning, arts and the brain: The Dana Consortium Report
on arts and cognition (pp. 61-68). New
York: Dana Press.
McCARTHY, R., BLACKWELL, A., DELAHUNTA, S., WING, A., HOLLANDS, K, BARNARD, P, NIMMO-SMITH, I.
& MARCEL, A. (2006) Bodies Meet Minds: Choreography and Cognition,
Leonardo, 39(5), 475-477.