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The Artist as Critic: Dance Training, Neuroscience and Aesthetic EvaluationBarbara Gail MonteroIt is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is the proper judge of it. Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist” It is difficult, if not impossible, for those who do not perform to be good judges of the performance of others.Aristotle, Politics 1340b. Despite the recent flurry of interest in ballet after the release of the psychological thriller, Black Swan, dance is suffering at the box office. Yet while interest in attending live performances wanes, interest in dance as a tool for scientific research—in particular, for the purpose of understanding links between action perception and action execution—is burgeoning. As Vassilis Sevdalis and Peter Keller (2011) put it in a review of recent empirical studies that use dance as a means to investigate action understanding and social cognition, “the field is growing rapidly …which signals augmented interest in the use of dance as a means of exploring the perceptual, motor, and social capacities of the human body” (p.231). This is an exciting time for cognitive scientists, according to Bettina Bl?sing, since “dance has not only the potential to provide insights into cognitive, emotional, and aesthetic function and behavior, but also it has the potential to impact contemporary scientific approaches” (Bl?sing et al. 2012, p.306).In what follows, I address some of this rapidly developing research and its relevance to the question of how dance training affects one’s perception and aesthetic evaluation of dance. The dance critic Clive Barnes (1979, p.24) claimed to “doubt whether the critics should come from the normal ranks of professional dancers.” Going one step further, Oscar Wilde, in his dialogue, “The Critic as Artist,” expresses the view that critics have keen insight into the world about which they write precisely because they can only observe it from the outside. In contrast, I shall argue that an insider’s view of dance is in some ways advantageous, in particular, there are certain aspects of dance—aspects that have to do with the way in which watching dance movements produce an “internal resonance” of these movements in an observer’s body—that tend to be missed, or not fully appreciated, by those who cannot, or at least have never danced themselves. Lamentably enough, although I have little to say about the problem of diminishing box office revenues, I do conclude with a discussion of some of the dance related neuroaesthetic literature purportedly relevant to this issue.1. Dance Training and the Perception of DanceIf you are a dancer yourself or if you have ever attended a dance performance with a dancer, you probably already know that dancers perceive certain aspects of dance that that might go unnoticed by the uninitiated. “My God, such amazing feet!,” a dancer might exclaim in observing an especially beautiful high-arch; or even, “I love how her shoes conform exactly to her instep,” which, though pointing to a seemingly trivial aspect of the dancer’s performance, is, at least for dancers, quite important since without a shoe that hugs the foot, one cannot fully appreciate that beautiful arch. That training facilitates the ability to see what others may not, is nothing new; it is apparent not only in dancers’ reactions to performances, but also in the reaction of choreographers, musicians, dramaturges, lighting designers, costume designers, and set designers. And it applies, of course, not just to watching dance. I remember taking the train home after a performance of what struck me as a terrible, just awful, play and overhearing two lighting designers talk about it in glowing terms, “I loved the palette,” “the back lighting created so much depth on the stage,” “her choices really made the environment,” and so forth. Though the title of the production has, thankfully, faded from memory, I think of it now as “the play only a lighting designer could love.” Background knowledge and training in the performing arts, and elsewhere, as we all know, colors perception. The recent empirical literature on how dance training is relevant to one’s perception of dance, however, suggests a particularly intriguing way in which perception may be colored, and that is, that dance practice may heighten an observer’s “motor perception” of dance, where motor perception involves visual input of bodily movement producing an internal resonance, or kinesthetic effect, in the perceiver; though stationary, it is very much as if the perceiver were moving herself. Or as I’ve referred to it elsewhere, admittedly somewhat paradoxically, it suggests how it may be that dance training facilitates the “proprioception of someone else’s movements” (Montero 2006a and b). This view, which leaves open the question of whether such motor perception is conscious, is intimated by a combination of neuroscientific and behavioral studies. The neuroscientific literature, on the one hand, indicates that certain areas of the brain—areas that have been shown to exhibit increased activity during execution and observation of the same or similar movements and have been variously referred to as the “human mirror system” (Rizzolati at al. 2001), the “action-observation network” (Cross et al. 2009), and the “action resonance circuit” (Cross 2006)—are relatively more active when individuals watch movements that they have been trained to perform. The behavioral studies, on the other hand, suggest that dance training facilitates the ability to detect certain subtle differences between dance movements better than those without training. Putting these hands together, there seems to be good reason to think that one way in which dance training colors one’s perception of dance is that it improves motor-perception of dance. And if motor-perception is aesthetically relevant, we are lead to the idea that dance training can improve the aesthetic appreciation of certain aspects of dance, that it can improve the aesthetic appreciation of beauty, grace, power, et cetera. But before we muddy the empirical waters with any aesthetic concepts, let us look at some of the scientific research in a bit more detail. A paragon study using dance to better understand how expertise affects perception is Calvo-Merino and her research group’s (2005) investigation into what occurs in dancers’ brains when they observe kinesthetically familiar movements as opposed to kinesthetically unfamiliar ones. In this study, the researchers had dancers from the Royal Ballet, experts in capoeira (a Brazilian martial art-dance form), and an inexpert control group watch videos of ballet and capoeira movements while their brain activity was recorded with fMRI. The outcome was that the expert groups had greater activity in various motor areas involved in preparation and execution of action when they viewed kinesthetically familiar movements compared to kinesthetically unfamiliar ones. The inexpert control group, on the other hand, showed the same pattern of neural activity whether they were watching the ballet or the capoiera video. The action-observation network, this study seems to show, is more active when watching a form of dance that you have experienced dancing. A number of other studies have supported this conclusion. For example, in an fMRI study, Cross et. al (2006) measured neural activity in a group of dancers various times over a five-week period while they observed dance movements that they were rehearsing during that period and dance movements that they were neither rehearsing nor (as judged by themselves) able to perform. When the dancers observed movements that they were rehearsing, the study showed, the action-observation network is more active than when they observe movements that they were neither rehearsing nor able to perform. Moreover, as the rehearsals proceeded during this five-week period, and the dancers became increasingly proficient at performing the movements, the action-observation activity increased as well. The conclusion these researchers arrived at is that “it is one’s own ability to actually generate the movement that has the greatest influence on further increasing activity within action understanding areas” (Cross 2006). Another study, using electroencephalography, measured the amount of event-related desynchronization in alpha and lower beta frequency bands (which is thought to increase during action observation) while dancers and nondancers watched dance movements and everyday movements and categorized them as either dance or everyday movements. The largest increase in event-related desynchronization was found in dancers watching dance movements and the smallest in nondancers watching dance movements. Almost directly between these two values was the desynchronization in both the dancers and nondancers watching everyday movements, with dancers showing a somewhat greater increase. The conclusion the authors draw is that “in line with results from functional magnetic resonance imaging studies [such as those by Calvo-Merino et. al. 2005, 2006; and Cross et al. 2006], the human observation-execution matching system is closely tuned to the individual motor repertoire” (Orgs, Dombrowski, Heil, & Jansen-Osmann 2008). One question one may have about these various studies is whether they show that it is the training dancers receive, rather than their naturally keen motor-perception, that is responsible for their relatively heightened action-observation network activity during action observation, for most likely, many of those who go on to dance professionally, have a stronger than average motor reaction to movement they see. However, it seems that the studies were designed to guard against the possibility that this natural disposition of dancers was the sole relevant factor. In Calvo-Merlino’s study, capoiera was chosen specifically because it is kinematically very similar to ballet. For example, they both involve turns, high kicks, and big jumps with the legs scissoring past each other. And a professional choreographer was recruited to choose the video clips that were the best kinematically matched. Most likely, none of our brains are so innately fine-tuned that observing Capoiera but not ballet produces a motor response in some of us while in others observing ballet but not Capoiera produces a motor response. Moreover, in Cross’s study, the contrast was found within the group of dancers themselves, and in Orgs’ study, the dancers’ event-related desynchronization was most apparent when dancers observed dance movements with which they were familiar. To be sure, dancers have also “practiced” everyday activities, such as waving, however, they have not deliberately practiced them, where deliberate practice is practice with the intent to improve, and what this study seems to show is that it is deliberate practice that is relevant to the action-observation network effects. A more vexing question is whether experience dancing per se is relevant to a dancer’s heightened motor processing of dance, or whether the results of these studies can be accounted for by the fact that dancers have also have spent comparatively greater number of hours watching ballet (or in Cross’s study comparatively greater number of hours watching movements that they had practiced). This question is important to the issue at hand, for if watching ballet can lead to the same heightened motor-perception as actually performing ballet, then such studies do not help support the idea that a dancer has any special role to play in aesthetically evaluating dance. A critic too, if she is diligent enough, may spend many hours intently watching ballet, even if she has never danced herself. So is it experience per se that is relevant to the outcome of these studies, or can the results be explained by a dancer’s long hours observing dance?A further study by Calvo-Merino et al. (2006) addressed this uncertainty. In ballet, although many movements are gender specific—that is, there are movements, such a double tour en lair, that only men perform and movements, such as fouetté turns, that only women perform—both male and female dancers typically train together, and thus have spent, roughly, the same amount of time observing gender specific moves of both male and female dancers. Thus, to test whether the observed neural differences are due to kinesthetic as opposed visual familiarity with a movement, fMRI was performed on female ballet dancers while they watched moves that tend to be performed only by men, movements that tend to be performed only by women, and gender neutral movements, that is, movements that both men and women perform. The researchers found greater activity in motor areas in the brain when dancers watched gender specific movements that matched their own gender than when they watched opposite gender specific movements. This seems to show, as the researchers claim, that “the brain’s response to seeing an action depends not only on previous visual knowledge and experience of seeing the action, but also on previous motor experience of performing the action” (p. 1907). So far, the empirical data indicates that dance training leads to greater activity in the action-observation network relative to those without training. A further question, however, is whether, not just motor areas in a ballet dancer’s brain react to watching ballet in a distinct way, but a ballet dancer’s perception of ballet is affected by dance training. Although the aforementioned studies on the connection between expertise and perception do not answer this question, various behavioral studies suggest that training affects not only the brain’s mirror system, but that it also has higher-level perceptual effects. For example, Casile and Giese (2006) found that nonvisual motor training improved subjects’ visual recognition of gait patterns from point-light stimuli, demonstrating, as they put it, “a direct and highly selective influence of motor representations on visual action perception, even if they have been acquired in the absence of visual learning” (p. 69). Applying this method to look at dance movements, Calvo-Merino et al. (2010) had male and female dancers and a control group of male and female non-dancers compare point light displays of ballet steps. Some of these displays were identical, while some were slightly different, having been made from two instances of a step being performed by the same individual. They found that the experts were much better than the nonexperts at identifying which displays were the same and which were different. When the light displays were presented upside-down, experts were no better than nonexperts at the task, indicating that the differences between the two groups are not due to different innate perceptual abilities but rather to training. Is this effect due to bodily training, per se, or is it merely that training affords more visual exposure? In the study, the point light displays were of both female-specific and gender-neutral movements, yet there was no significant improvement in the male dancers’ ability to detect differences when observing gender-neutral movements in contrast to female-specific ones. Does this mean that the essential element is visual exposure? The researchers think that this would be a hasty conclusion since, as they explain it, the study also found that among experts, the females were much better than the males at identifying both female specific and gender common movements, suggesting that what might be relevant is that the observed dancer was female. Although the researchers do not discuss why female dancers would be better than male dancers at perceiving differences in movements done by females even when the movements are gender neutral, one possible reason is that women ballet dancers tend to move differently from male ballet dancers, so that, even with gender neural movements, it is easier for female dancers to map the observed movements onto their own bodies. For example, the way a female dancer’s arm moves or the way her head inclines are slightly, and sometimes significantly different from the way a male dancer typically moves his arms or uses his head (for instance, women tend to incline, or tip to the side, their heads much more than men do). In other words, ballet movements performed by women are, in the way they are performed, gender specific. As such, women’s training would be specifically advantageous to their ability to detect subtle differences between female dancers’ movements, regardless of whether the movements are gender-neutral, female-specific, or, perhaps even male specific.These neurological and behavioral studies point to the idea that training in dance improves one’s motor-perception upon watching dance, indeed, upon watching the specific style of dance in which one has been trained. 2. Aesthetic Considerations It is a leap from data about brains and behavior to conclusions about aesthetic experience, and although I do not propose to show how to derive an aesthetic “ah” from an empirical “is,” I think that when we combine the empirical data with considerations about the aesthetic relevance of motor perception we are led to the view that the dancer as critic has heightened insight into certain aesthetically relevant properties, such as being beautiful, graceful or powerful as experienced and understood via motor-perception. Part of the aesthetic pleasure in watching dance, I proffer, at least for those with dance training, comes from the experience of conscious motor-perception, that is, the experience of feeling the dancer’s movement, as one watches the dancer, in one’s own body. The dance critic John Martin advocated this view, arguing that in order to appreciate dance fully one must make use of "kinesthetic sympathy." In his words, "not only does the dancer employ movement to express his ideas, but, strange as it may seem, the spectator must also employ movement in order to respond to the dancer's intention and understand what he is trying to convey" (1972, p.15). “The irreducible minimum of equipment demanded of a spectator, “Martin tells us, “is a kinesthetic sense in working condition” (1972, p. 17). Accordingly, his reviews of dance were rife with references to the qualities of dance appreciated via kinesthetic sympathy, or motor-perception. For example, he speaks of the dynamic variation in a dancer’s movement that gave it a “rare beauty and a powerful kinesthetic transfer,” or “[a] gesture which sets up all kinds of kinesthetic reactions,” or even a dancer who “leaves you limp with vicarious kinesthetic experience.” Edwin Denby is another critic who frequently emphasizes the relevance of motor-perception in his writings. For example, in a review of a performance of Afternoon of a Faun, he mentions the bodily feeling that results from imitating the depictions of people on Greek vases and bas reliefs: “the fact is that when the body imitates these poses, the kind of tension resulting expresses exactly the emotion Nijinsky wants to express;” he continues: “both their actual tension and their apparent remoteness, both their plastic clarity and their emphasis by negation on the center of the body (it is always strained between the feet in profile and the shoulders en face)—all these qualities lead up to the complete realization of the faun’s last gesture” (1998 pp. 34-35). Denby is characterizing something kinesthetic, something that we come to understand not through our visual experience alone. Through motor perception, Denby feels the tension of the bodily torque. Denby illustrates how kinesthetic qualities provide insight into what are commonly called the “expressive qualities” of the work. Expressive qualities reveal the emotion represented in a work of art, and Denby’s contention is that via the strained and twisted comportment of the faun, Nijinsky expresses discomfiting emotions. In a piece such as this, the dancer’s movements, among other things, also represent some of the expressive qualities of the Debussy score. As such, it is in part via motor perception that audience members—especially those with dance training—experience both the expressive qualities of a dancer’s movements and, more indirectly, the expressive qualities of the music. Yet the role of motor-perception in aesthetic judgment, as I see it, is not limited to the judgment of expressive qualities since part of the value of watching dance has to do with the motor perceptual experience of such aesthetic properties as beauty, precision, fluidity, and grace which are not emotions themselves. In watching a dancer, we not only visually experience the beauty of her movements, but we may motor-perceptually experience this beauty as well.So John Martin, Edwin Denby and other dance critics—such as Alastair Macaulay, who frequently alludes to motor-perception, in one review, for example, talking about Fredrick Ashton’s choreography as “more kinesthetically affecting than any other ballet choreographer’s,” and telling us that in “watching [it], you feel the movement so powerfully through your torso that it is often hard to sit still in your seat,” or Louis Horst who describes the “lyric beauty” of a dance choreographed by Anna Sokolow as having “a direct appeal to kinesthetic response,” or Michael Wade Simpson who describes the finale in a piece by Helgi Thommasson as “satisfying musically, kinesthetically and emotionally,”—understand motor perception as a valid means by which we come to understand and experience various aesthetic qualities of dance. But are such critics correct? There are really two questions here: How do we know that such critics really have the sorts of experiences they claim to have? And why should we think that, even if they do have them, they are aesthetically relevant? With respect to the first question, it is common knowledge that one may misidentify what one is experiencing, but the default position with regard to whether we are accurately identify any particular experiences must be that we are. Unless there is good reason to think that Sally is not having a visual experience as of red, feeling pain, feeling jealousy, or, for that matter, experiencing kinesthetic sympathy, we should believe what Sally says when she says she is experiencing these things. Thus, unless there are good reasons to think that these dance critics are not experiencing what they write about, then we should accept that they are having kinesthetic experiences upon watching dance. Are there any such reasons? Elizabeth Anscombe (1963), argued that we come to learn of the positions of our limbs without observation, which may lead one to think that there are no conscious sensations involved in proprioception, which, in turn, might lead one to think that there are no conscious sensations involved in motor perception. Anscombe arrives at this view by arguing that we do not acquire proprioceptive knowledge by noticing various sensations, it is not as if, she tells us, we know that our legs are crossed because we notice a tingle in the knee. Rather, according to Anscombe, we know that our legs are crossed because we have directed them to cross (1963, p. 14). Just as an architect might now what a completed building looks like without seeing it, we know, according to Anscombe, where our limbs are. But is this really how we come to understand our bodily positions and movements? Anscombe is correct that information from tingles, pressure, touch and vision are not normally a sufficient for us to know such things. However, just because we do not arrive at knowledge of our bodily positions via those sensations does not mean that we do not arrive at it via the sense of proprioception itself. Moreover, although it does seem that we sometimes arrive at the knowledge of our own movements and positions because we have directed them to move in just that way, this is not the such “director’s knowledge” would not account for our knowledge of entirely passive bodily movements, yet even if someone is lifting your arm for you, you know that it is going up. Thus, regarding Anscombe’s argument, it seems that it does not provide a sufficient reason to reject Hannah Pickard’s (2004) claim that “just as we perceive the world through the five senses, we perceive our own bodies ‘from the inside’” (p. 210). And, thus, it does not succeed in showing up that there is no such thing as conscious motor perception. To someone, like myself, for whom it seems obvious that, for example, watching Alonzo King’s choreography can be, as Alstair Macaulay put it, “less visual than kinesthetic,” it is difficult to know what to say to those who deny the possibility of conscious kinesthetic sympathy, or motor perception. But let me try to address this view with an analogy. With respect to conscious motor-perception some say, “I don’t experience anything like that consciously, so it doesn’t exist.” It seems to me that I experience conscious motor-perception, however, when a wine is described as having aromas of nutmeg mingled with characteristics of sandalwood, pine and tobacco,” I may wonder if anyone really finds all this in the wine, as I can’t do so myself. Yet wouldn’t it be rash for me, solely on the basis of my own experience, to reject the idea that wine can have these perceptible qualities; and wouldn’t this be especially rash given that I tend towards teetotaling? Even more, wouldn’t a blind person be mistaken (though perhaps psychologically savvy) in thinking that there is nothing great about vision. Perhaps those who doubt the existence of kinesthetic responses to dance are in a position similar to the one I am with respect to wine: they should be open minded, especially at least until they have had some dance training themselves since kinesthetic responses to dance (and according to the research by Orgs et al. even somewhat to ordinary movements) are facilitated by having danced oneself. Will these comments persuade those who reject the idea that motor perception can be experienced? I am unsure, but, as I think that they should, let me move on to the question of whether motor perception is relevant to our aesthetic appreciation of dance. To address this issue, let me present another analogy. It seems reasonable to understand scientific knowledge as providing the best picture of what sorts of things exist in the world. Or at least, it seems reasonable to say that if something is theorized by scientists to exist, such as atoms and cells, or if something is classified by scientists in a certain way, such as a whale being classified as a mammal, it is reasonable to think that these things do exist and that these classifications are accurate unless we have very strong arguments to the contrary. (For example, some might take Bas van Frassen’s argument for constructive empiricism to show that some of the posits of science actually do not exist.) I think that our attitude towards the posits of art critics, when they are writing in their area of expertise, should be analogous to our attitude towards the posits of scientists when they are writing in their area of expertise. That is, if art critics generally accept something as a work of art, such as a Duchamp ready-made, it is reasonable to accept it as such unless one has good arguments to the contrary, and if critics generally accept kinesthetic sympathy as being aesthetically relevant, as they seem to do, it is reasonable to accept it as such unless there are good arguments to the contrary. And from my point of view, there are no good arguments to the contrary. What am I to say about Clive Barnes’ (1976) comment that dance critics should not come from the ranks of dancers? My guess is that he arrived at this view based on a false dilemma, for he also claims that he “would rather have a perfectly fulfilled critic than a disappointed dancer” ( p. 24), yet not every critic with dance training was a disappointed dancer; dance careers are relatively short leaving plenty of time to pursue the art of criticism (or, indeed, philosophy) after retirement.3. The Dancer as CriticI have argued that empirical data indicates that that those with dance training and those without manifest different neural and perceptual responses to observing dance. I have also argued that motor-perception is a means by which we can appreciate the aesthetic qualities of a dancer’s movements. Dance training, then, if I am correct, enables one to better identify certain aesthetic properties, such the dancer’s limpness (Martin), or emotional tension (Denby), or power (Macaulay), or lyric beauty (Horst). The motor-perceptual element of dance, however, is only one aspect of dance, thus my claim is not, in direct opposition to Oscar Wilde, that it is because someone can dance that she is the proper judge of it, nor even is it, as Aristotle claims, that without having danced, it is difficult to be a good judge of dance. Rather, it is simply the view that that a keen ability to detect and evaluate the aesthetic qualities of a dancer’s movements that are represented kinesthetically rather than visually is facilitated by having danced oneself. Whether such an ability is required to be a good judge of dance, I leave as an open question, for it might be that while such training makes one a better aesthetic judge in one respect, it makes one a worse aesthetic judge in other respects. John Stuart Mill (2001/1861) suggested that we could determine which pleasures are higher by asking someone who has experienced both. So perhaps we might be able to determine which form of perception (the dancer’s or the nondancers’) the higher aesthetic pleasure by asking someone who has experience both. Yet it is not clear that we could find such individuals to interview. The layperson who has never danced certainly has not experienced both perception informed by dance training and perception not so informed. And given that dance training often begins at a young age—at least for those who go on to become professional dancers—we probably cannot find a professional dancer who has experienced and can remember watching dance before becoming a dancer. There may be individuals, however, who started dance training later in life and can remember a a before and after the ballet studio. However, if we were to such individuals, the question of whether they are just appreciating the mechanics of dance more, or whether they also have a greater aesthetic appreciation of dance would remain; it would also be difficult to factor out how much of their changed appreciation, if any, is due to training as opposed to increased time observing dance. So I am not sure that Mill’s suggestion is going to help us here. How might dance training be detrimental to a critic? Probably the only possible risk is that dance training leads one to focus too much on the dancers (to say nothing of the dancer’s shoes) and too little on the choreography yet it may be that the ideal critic should be able to take in all aesthetically relevant aspects of a dance performance and give each its due. If this is indeed the problem, however, perhaps the critic ought to take Aristotle’s advice, for although he thought that “they should begin to practice early, although when they are older they may be spared the execution; they must have learned to appreciate what is good and to delight in it, thanks to the knowledge which they acquired in their youth” (Pol. 1340b). So it may be the best critics have engaged in just the amount of training that lies in the Aristotelian mean between two extremes. 4. Back to the Box Office Perhaps too long ago in this paper to recall, I lamented that little of what I had to say would help alleviate the problem of diminishing box office revenues. Some recent empirical work, however, which falls under the heading of “neuroaesthetics,” does boast such an effect. This work tries, among other things, to identify which areas of the brain increase in activity when subjects view movements that they rate as highly aesthetically pleasing, and it is seen by some as potentially being of use in making choreographic decisions. For example, Bl?ssing and her colleagues in their review article on neurocognitive control in dance perception and performance comment that various fMRI neuroaesthetic studies—such as a study by Calvo-Merino and her colleagues (2008), which found, among other things, that participants preferred movements with a higher level of visual motion over those with less visual motion and a study by Cross and her colleagues ( 2011), which found, among other things, that participants preferred dance movements they took to be difficult over ones that they thought were easy—can, in their words, “be communicated to the dance community and, where there is interest, such information could be used to create a dance phrase esthetically pleasant for the human brain.” And Cross and Ticini (2012) suggest that such research “could prove to be particularly fruitful as it has the potential to not only inform scientists about how the brain beholds and appreciates art but could also provide some direct benefits back to the dance community.” It sounds like a truly symbiotic relation: researchers benefit by studying dancers while dancers and the dance community benefit by studying the research. Yet I’m not convinced it would work like this.Although choreographers (and dancers) may find inspiration where they like, my concern with this direction of work is with whether ballet choreographers should aim to create movements that have been identified as possessing the greatest appeal to the greatest number. People like Lady Gaga have this down pat, yet, I doubt that someone like the modern dance choreographer, Merce Cunningham, whose brother once asked him, “Merce, when are you going to make something the public likes?” would have benefitted from this line of research. Of course, if such studies do reveal what people tend like, and if ballet is in serious trouble at the box office, perhaps ballet choreographers need to include a bit more visual motion, a bit more technical difficulty, and perhaps even a few Gagaesque bumps and grinds. Indeed, some great choreographers have occasionally aimed at gratifying the masses in such a way while still maintaining their integrity. Nonetheless, this approach to neuroaesthetics seems to miss much of the point of artistic vision, which—at least as I understand it—has quite a bit to do with training an audience’s sensibilities rather than just pandering to them. (And, to give Lady Gaga her due, it should be pointed out that she engages in quite a bit of training as well.)As for the cash value to the box office of my idea that we should value the dancer as critic, perhaps it could inspire more dancers to try their hand at dance criticism, though whether this would inspire more people to attend the ballet is debatable. In addition to this, however, if dance training on balance increases our appreciation of dance, perhaps one way to increase ticket sales would be to make dance training more widely available. (The National Dance Institute, founded by Jacques d’Amboise, does a great job of this.) It is interesting that in the United States, at least, many more women than men attend the ballet. Is this because more women have had ballet training? In cultures where the percentage of those with ballet training is not as skewed towards one gender, are ballet audiences more gender balanced? I also wonder about our current love of tricks—of multiple turns, extreme extensions and what not. Though ticket sales are down, there are millions of clicks on YouTube’s “super pirouette,” and other such clips of amazing technical feats. The masses, it seems, like tricks. Yet, rather than pandering to the masses, I wonder if dance training might facilitate the appreciation of artistic subtleties. Of course, even if this were true, the problem of how to actually get people into the theater would remain, especially when iphones, ipods, ipads and other paraphernalia have to be turned off for the entire time. Undoubtedly, attending a live performance has certain advantages—choosing your own viewing angle, sharing a communal experience, being social, being part of an audience that is communicating, via applause, for example, with the performers, knowing that the production hasn’t been edited and thus experiencing the risk involved—yet do these advantages outweigh the perceived advantage of being able to update one’s Facebook page on one side of the screen while watching multiple pirouettes on the other? How do we inspire people to power down and focus on one thing at least until the first intermission? I wonder if anything of interest would be revealed in an fMRI study that compares what goes on in our brains when we watching a dance video in a movie theater with what goes on when we watch that same dance live in a theater. I would like to see the results of these studies, however, even if they were to reveal interesting differences, I admit that selling ballet tickets on the basis of such research is an academician’s sorry excuse for an advertising campaign. So, as I said, lamentably enough, there is little here to inspire box office sales. Nonetheless, I do hope that some of the ideas I have expressed will inspire further work in the budding field that investigates the links between perception and action by studying dance. Aristotle (1999), Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Terence Irwin (Hackett Publishing Company)Aristotle (1992), The Politics (Penguin Classics). *Barnes, C. (1976), “The Functions of a Critic,” in Visions ed. Michael Crabb. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Conference, The National Ballet of Canada, November 1976. (Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1979), p.24. *Bl?sing, B., B. Calvo-Merino, E. S. Cross, C. Jola, J. Honisch and C. J. Stevens (2012), “Neurocognitive control in dance perception and performance,” Acta Psychologica, v.139: 300–308.*David, B. (1974), Expression in Movement and the Arts (London: Lepus Books).*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(8), 1243-1249. *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(19), 1905-1910.*Calvo-Merino, B., Ehrenberg, S., Leung, D., Haggard, P. (2010), “Experts see it all: configural effects in action observation,” Psychological Research, 74(4), 400-406.*Casile A, Giese M. A. (2006), Non-visual motor learning influences the recognition of biological motion, Current Biology, 16(1):69-74.Cohen, Ted (1973), “A Critique of Sibley's Position”, Theoria, 1973, pp. 113-152.Cole, J. (2004), Still Lives; Narratives of Spinal Cord Injury, (MIT Press).Cole, J. (1995), Pride and the Daily Marathon, (MIT Press).Cole, J. and Montero, B (2007), “Affective Proprioception,” Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, Special Issue Edited by?Shaun Gallagher, 9.2 ( 2007), pp. 299-317. *Cross, E. S., Hamilton, A. F., & Grafton, S. T. (2006). Building a motor simulation de novo: Observationof dance by dancers. Neuroimage, 31(3), 1257–1267.*Cross, E. S., Hamilton, A. F., Kraemer, D. J., Kelley, W. M., & Grafton, S. T. (2009), Dissociablesubstrates for body motion and physical experience in the human action observation network. TheEuropean Journal of Neuroscience, 30(7), 1383–1392.*Denby, E. (1998), Dance Writings and Poetry (Yale University Press).Gallese, V., L. Fadiga, L. Fogassi and G. Rizzolatti (1996), “Action recognition in the premotor cortex,” Brain, vol. 118, no. 2: 593-609. Graham, G. (2005), “Expresivism” in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, edited by Gaut, B. and D. M. Lopes, (Routledge), pp. 133-145. Haslinger, B. P. Erhard, E. Altenmüller, U. Schroeder, H. Boecker, and A. O. Ceballos-Baumann (2005), “Transmodal sensorimotor networks curing action observation in professional pianists,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, vol. 17 282-293.Hegel, G. W. F. (1835/1975), Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T.M. Knox, 2 vol (Oxford: Clarendon).Herder, J. G. (1788/2002), Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion’s Creative Dream, trans. J. Gaiger (University of Chicago Press). Hume, D. (1757/1993), “Of the Standard of Taste,” in Selected Essays, eds. Copley, Stephen and Andrew Edgar (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Kames, H. (1762/2005), Elements of Criticism, Liberty Fund.Kivy, P. (1975), “What Makes ‘Aesthetic’ Terms Aesthetic?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, pp. 197-211. *Martin, J. (1972), Introduction to the Dance, *Dance Horizons Inc.).*McFee,G. (1992), Understanding Dance (New York, Routledge).Mill, J. S. (2001/1861) Utilitarianism, (Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.). *Montero, B (2006a), “Proprioceiving Someone Else’s Movement,” Philosophical Explorations, 9:2 pp. 149-161. *Montero, B. (2006b), “Proprioception as an Aesthetic Sense,” Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64: 2 pp. 231-242.* Rizzolatti, G., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V. (2001), “Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the understanding and imitation of action.” Nat. Rev., Neurosci. 2 (9), 661–670.Sacks, O. (1985), The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat And Other Clinical Tales,(Touchstone Books). Sibley, F. (1965), "Aesthetic and Nonaesthetic," Philosophical Review, Vol. 74: 135-159. Valéry, P. (1958), The Art of Poetry, Bollingen Series XLV, Vol. 7, (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Sevdalis, V. and Keller P. (2011), “Captured by motion: Dance, action understanding, and social cognition,” Brain and Cognition, Vol. 77, Issue 2: 231-236. . Orgs, Dombrowski, Heil, & Jansen-Osmann 2008 ................
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