Louise Douse is a Lecturer in Dance at the University of Bedfordshire where she has recently completed her PhD in dance and technology. Louise has been invited to submit a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook for Dance and Wellbeing (2016) and has presented papers at several international conferences on the topic of flow in improvisation, and the use of motion capture technologies in capturing the experience. Louise is the Secretary of the Laban Guild in the UK and continues to develop her research in the area of movement analysis and optimal experience. Louise has also recently been granted funding from the institution for research in the area of motivation in student learning with the aim of developing an interactive digital tool for skill development and personal goal setting. Phone: 01234 793089 Address: University of Bedfordshire Polhill Avenue Bedford MK41 9AE
This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context o... more This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context of positive psychology, as it was first expounded by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It develops a theory of flow in dance improvisation which draws on the eudaimonic concept of well-being. Drawing on the writings of phenomenologist’s Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger, the chapter makes links between Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow and the defining characteristics of eudaimonia such as personal expressiveness, self-realization, excellence and relatedness. The chapter draws on case-study research which proposes a methodology for engaging with the dancer’s experience of flow. The chapter focusses on the use of dialogic tasks within the choreographic process to develop an understanding of the dancer’s experience of flow. Further, the research employs the method of ‘reflexive embodied empathy’ developed by psychotherapist Dr. Linda Finlay. As a method, it involves a process of hermeneutic reflection for understanding the experience of the participant while enabling an examination of the researcher’s intimate role in the construction of that interpretation. As a result, this chapter articulates flow as an example of intersubjective experience, and specifically as an example of relatedness, as defined in well-being research. It is argued, flow enables the researcher/spectator to connect to, act into, and merge with the experience of the dancer, informing both their understanding of the dancer’s well-being and their own well-being in the moment of observation. Flow thus offers a perspective of well-being that enhances the spectator/dancer relationship.
Final paper/ proceedings of the Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts conference, 2015
This paper extends on Don Ihde’s theories of human/technology relations in order to clarify the a... more This paper extends on Don Ihde’s theories of human/technology relations in order to clarify the affective interactive experience of self with ‘other’ as mediated by technology. It offers a new conceptualization of world, technology and other within digital performance research. The paper argues that technologies such as motion capture can be utilised in the storing and representing of embodied cognitive skills as in dance improvisation, in which knowledge in the body is articulated through motor skill. This ability to store and manipulate enables interaction with the world, and thus with an ‘other’ via a digital double.
This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context o... more This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context of positive psychology, as it was first expounded by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It develops a theory of flow in dance improvisation which draws on the eudaimonic concept of wellbeing. Drawing on the writings of phenomenologist’s Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger, the chapter makes links between Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow and the defining characteristics of eudaimonia such as personal expressiveness, self-realization, excellence and relatedness. The chapter draws on case-study research which proposes a methodology for engaging with the dancer’s experience of flow. The chapter focusses on the use of dialogic tasks within the choreographic process to develop an understanding of the dancer’s experience of flow. Further, the research employs the method of ‘reflexive embodied empathy’ developed by psychotherapist Dr. Linda Finlay. As a method, it involves a process of hermeneutic reflection for understanding the experience of the participant while enabling an examination of the researcher’s intimate role in the construction of that interpretation. As a result, this chapter articulates flow as an example of intersubjective experience, and specifically as an example of relatedness, as defined in wellbeing research. It is argued, flow enables the researcher/spectator to connect to, act into, and merge with the experience of the dancer, informing both their understanding of the dancer’s wellbeing and their own wellbeing in the moment of observation. Flow thus offers a perspective of wellbeing that enhances the spectator/dancer relationship
On the day of the Summer Solstice, five members of the Laban Guild for Movement and Dance perform... more On the day of the Summer Solstice, five members of the Laban Guild for Movement and Dance performed a site-specific, group generated choreography in the forest of the Chateau Millemont just outside Paris. The project developed as a result of meeting with Dr Paul Clarke, a significant roving ambassador in sustainability, who was in the throes of organising an event at Chateau Millemont designed to bring together concerned individuals/groups from all over the world. He saw this as the beginning of a thirty year project!
My recently completed PhD, titled Moving experience: an investigation of embodied knowledge and t... more My recently completed PhD, titled Moving experience: an investigation of embodied knowledge and technology for reading flow in improvisation (2014) explores notions of flow from both a movement analysis and positive psychology perspective. The thesis was concerned with the articulation of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding flow and was developed by expanding on the current definitions of flow both in psychology by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, and in movement analysis by Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb. Within the following article I will identify some of the key areas for comparison between these two definitions and the significance of this endeavour with regard to the notion of mind and body in the context of dance.
The thesis is concerned with the exploration of the notion of ‘flow’ from both a psychological an... more The thesis is concerned with the exploration of the notion of ‘flow’ from both a psychological and dance analysis perspective in order to extend the meaning of flow and move beyond a partiality of understanding. The main aim of the thesis recognises the need to understand, identify and interpret an analysis of the moments of flow perceivable in a dancer’s body during improvisatory practice, through technologically innovative means. The research is undertaken via both philosophical and practical enquiry. It addresses phenomenology in order to resolve the mind/body debate and is applied to research in flow in psychology by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, and flow in movement analysis by Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb. The significance of this endeavour can be seen in the reconsideration of the relation between mind and body, and art and science which informs the methodology for the research (Part One). The three main outcomes of the research are related to each of the three subsequent parts. The first research outcome is the articulation of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding flow and was developed by expanding on the current definitions of flow through an innovative transdisciplinary methodology (Part Two). Research outcome two addresses the intersubjective nature of flow, which was identified within improvisation. From this two methods were constructed for the collection and interpretation of the experience of the dancer. Firstly, through reflective practice as defined by Donald Schön. And secondly, an argument was provided for the use of motion capture as an embodied tool which extends the dancers embodied cognitive capabilities in the moment of improvisation (Part Three). The final research outcome was thus theorised that such embodied empathic intersubjectivity does not require a direct identification of the other’s body but could be achieved through technologically mediated objects in the world (Part Four). Subsequently, the findings from the research could support further research within a number of fields including dance education, dance practice and dance therapy, psychology, neuroscience, gaming and interactive arts.
Flow, as a psychological concept (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), refers to that moment when we are comp... more Flow, as a psychological concept (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), refers to that moment when we are completely involved in what we are doing. Flow is a fundamentally positive experience, but more than this, flow can be considered eudaimonic in its ability to allow us to experience our full potential. Within dance improvisation, flow allows us to break restrictive habits, and find new movement and new ways of being. This paper will explore Heidegger’s understanding of authenticity to elucidate the eudaimonic characteristics of flow experiences in dance improvisation. Whilst Heidegger never explicitly uses the term ‘eudaimonia,’ his writings are heavily influenced by the work of Aristotle and his classical problematic of ethical theory. It can be argued that Heidegger’s explication of the ‘Authentic’ mode of being describes ‘Being’ as revealed in a first-person way, and is characterised by a ‘moment of vision’ in which we have the ‘authentic potentiality-for-being-a-whole’ (Heidegger, 2010, p.224).
Louise Douse will discuss the project ‘A Dance in Time’, a collaboration between five members of ... more Louise Douse will discuss the project ‘A Dance in Time’, a collaboration between five members of the Laban Guild and Dr Paul Clarke, Founder of the award winning Pop Up Foundation, exploring ecological consciousness. ‘A Dance in Time’ is a longitudinal study of our relationship to nature. Over a 30 year period (2015-2045) the Laban Guild members; Maggie Killingbeck, Selina Martin, Cathy Washbrooke, Saul Keyworth and I will explore the sustained stimuli of our responses to deepen over time our understanding of the complex relationship between people and planet. This paper will address the emergent choreographic process that was initiated by our shared understanding of Laban as a learning ecology. Laban’s system of analyzing movement characteristics as pathways through space, and the ‘effort’, ‘shape’ and ‘drive’ of human movement has established dance as a special form of social communication.
While the performance disciplines of dance and theatre within a University setting are increasing... more While the performance disciplines of dance and theatre within a University setting are increasingly moving towards practice based learning, teaching and assessment, no central record or archive of student performance work is currently being collated within the Division of Performing Arts and English at the University of Bedfordshire. The storage capacities and dissemination of such an archive has its challenges; the Division of Performing Arts and English includes three BA courses in performance with several hundred students and 24 performative assessments over the academic year in 2009-10. With the expansion of digital technologies, these challenges have become less problematic; an online archive can deliver large scale storage capacity through video storage sites such as Motionbox.com, brightcove.com and viddler.com. Dissemination of video to both staff and students is thus instantly available via an online website through a digital product delivery system, which allows the sale of downloads of digital files. The problems of video archiving within the Division of Performing Arts and English were elaborated within a funded Research informed Teaching (RiT) project, which aimed to develop research capacity across the University. The aims of the archive project were to allow enhanced opportunities for students to undertake critical analyses of their own performance work and of peers, to enable them to take responsibility for their development in achieving their aims. The archive has only recently been a viable option for the University due to the previously discussed limited technologies available. The increased literacy of the students with such technologies has developed with the use of mobile phones as devices to record and document their practical work, while networking tools such as Facebook and YouTube are increasingly used to upload and share video. This is part of the wider student cultural experience and is particularly pertinent to non-textual modes of research such as practice-led research where video is such a necessary tool for both documentation and analysis. While this is useful for them; and interesting in terms of changing modes of student engagement with learning; these applications are user driven, social software networks, and the archives generated are necessarily partial, subjective and personal; not systematic, which would be an institutional imperative. The project therefore directly impacts on the curriculum for both current students and future cohorts as it not only provides access to students in developing their own portfolio of performance work, but also can be accessed by staff as examples of best-practice to other students. The project looks at the integration and deployment of digital resources within the context of a student performance archive. The digital resources used were chosen in specific relation to the project, an example being the use of video archiving with the ability to embed into another site; his allowed video to be viewed within the University website in conjunction with University search tools. The archive is searchable via the names of all students involved in the particular performance video, enabling collaborative creative work to be accessed; and teaching, learning and scholarship to be shared and developed through a blended learning experience. The poster will evaluate the experience among students and lecturers and discuss the contexts in which the archive is used, in particular, it will address the role of the archive as a learning and evaluative tool.
This poster aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The study ... more This poster aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The study draws on innovative approaches to technology in the application of Motion Capture as a tool for analysis of flow within the body. Flow addresses the state of mind one enters when totally immersed in an activity; as an area of positive psychology, its purpose is to achieve a scientific understanding and implement effective interventions for improving life. Flow in dance engenders sustainable dance making as it addresses intrinsic motivational goals as crucial to enjoyment. The poster proposes that the development of an innovative methodology for the use of motion capture will provide the means by which findings concerning optimizing flow will be evidenced.
This presentation aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The ... more This presentation aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The paper critiques the development of the debate surrounding embodied knowledge and performance by examining recent writing within transcendental philosophy, dance/performance studies, and psychology.
In the last 20 years or more there has been a surge of interdisciplinary interest in the body and... more In the last 20 years or more there has been a surge of interdisciplinary interest in the body and embodiment in conjunction with advances in computing and the development of technologies which inherently change the character of human computer interaction. Philosopher of technology, Don Ihde, defines a theory of ‘embodied technics’ in which an individual can engage in the world by perceiving through embodied technologies, such as a pair of eye glasses. This perception transforms an individual’s perceptual and bodily sense in order to extend the individual’s capabilities. However, the technology must be able to ‘withdraw’ from perception allowing a ‘transparency’ of the technology in order for the individual to experience the world directly [1]. Philip Brey extends on Ihde’s research in terms of both motor and perceptual engagement with the world through technology [2]. In a footnote, he also suggests a third form of engagement via a cognitive embodiment with cognitive artefacts which “are able to represent, store, retrieve and manipulate information” (p. 13). In this case, he refers to handheld technologies such as the calculator which transform the cognitive task into a perceptual and motor task. It could be argued, however, that technologies such as motion capture could be utilised in the storing and representing of embodied cognitive skills as in improvisation in dance, in which knowledge in the body is articulated through motor skill. This ability to store and manipulate enables interaction with the world via a digital double. From this perspective, the world is viewed as being negotiated by a technologically mediated body. However a conceptualization which is largely missing from digital performance literature is that of the body negotiated by a technologically mediated world, as in Idhe’s theory of hermeneutic technics. This is, for example, a method prevalent in many of the sciences, including dance science, where technologies are used to translate the body for research, such as the x-ray machine or the fMRI machine which isolate measurable phenomenon of the body in order that an understanding of the body be made available. What is encapsulated in this formulation is how the objectively defined body is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium. The use of motion capture as an embodied technology therefore not only allows for the storing and extending of embodied cognitive skills, but further allows such data to be read. This paper proposes a new formulation in which a subjective embodied being is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium. Motion capture technologies will be used to translate embodied subjective responses for the purposes of human understanding, drawing on Ihde theories of both embodied and hermeneutic technics. Within this paper, digital visualization will be used as a representation of motion capture data in a non-textual form available for analysis. It could be argued, when viewing the digital visualizations of the captured motion, what an individual sees is the body it refers to, the limbs already suggested in the data points, and further the intersubjective experience of the ‘other’.
This paper argues that the subjective experience of flow within dance improvisation can be identi... more This paper argues that the subjective experience of flow within dance improvisation can be identified within the body through the use of motion capture technologies. As such, it will first articulate flow as a transdisciplinary concept, addressing the fields of positive psychology and movement analysis; flow in positive psychology is considered an optimal experience in which participants are totally immersed in an activity to the benefit of their wellbeing (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb’s work on flow will be drawn on and extended with regard to their research on movement pattern analysis in order to understand movement potential as well as motivational potential with regard to decision-making. My research suggests these moments of optimal experience can be located in an individual’s preferred patterns of movement. In this paper, I will draw on case-study research to discuss the use of motion-capture technologies in capturing this experience of flow. Visualizations of the motion capture data are considered to present the body in order to allow for a ‘reading’ and interpretation of the body drawing on Don Ihde’s theory of embodied-technics. The visualizations are produced with reference to the work of Laban and Lamb to facilitate a readable and recognisable description of the body in flow. These visualisations are innovative in both their application to flow and in their use of Laban for analysing the movement of the whole body, as a tool for analysis.
This workshop is proposed as a networking event for Early Career researchers and academics. Model... more This workshop is proposed as a networking event for Early Career researchers and academics. Modelled on the concept of ‘speed-dating’ in an academic context, it will provide short exchanges across a range of academic levels. This will be valuable for the early career researchers by providing them with an opportunity to articulate their distinctive research to potential collaborators and colleagues. Further, it will enable more experienced academics to engage in multiple discourses around emerging scholarship in dance. The aims of the workshop are: (1) to give a voice to early career academics and researchers, (2) to enable discussion about cutting edge dance scholarship and research, (3) to facilitate cross-institutional networking and collaboration. In order to achieve these aims, 16 early career presenters will be given the opportunity to share their research or practice in short, 3 minute presentations to 1-2 conference participants. The listening participants will be able to register interest in their work and share contact details by completing a short multiple choice postcard. The participants will be directed by the workshop organisers to move between tables at the end of the three minutes ensuring that each of the 16 presenters has been seen during the course of the hour. At the end of the workshop, the postcards will be posted in a ‘letterbox’ and be distributed to the relevant presenters. The presenters will be curated via a call out on the Early Career DanceHE members e-list. We anticipate a diverse range of presenters and topics at various stages of their early career.
This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context o... more This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context of positive psychology, as it was first expounded by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It develops a theory of flow in dance improvisation which draws on the eudaimonic concept of well-being. Drawing on the writings of phenomenologist’s Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger, the chapter makes links between Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow and the defining characteristics of eudaimonia such as personal expressiveness, self-realization, excellence and relatedness. The chapter draws on case-study research which proposes a methodology for engaging with the dancer’s experience of flow. The chapter focusses on the use of dialogic tasks within the choreographic process to develop an understanding of the dancer’s experience of flow. Further, the research employs the method of ‘reflexive embodied empathy’ developed by psychotherapist Dr. Linda Finlay. As a method, it involves a process of hermeneutic reflection for understanding the experience of the participant while enabling an examination of the researcher’s intimate role in the construction of that interpretation. As a result, this chapter articulates flow as an example of intersubjective experience, and specifically as an example of relatedness, as defined in well-being research. It is argued, flow enables the researcher/spectator to connect to, act into, and merge with the experience of the dancer, informing both their understanding of the dancer’s well-being and their own well-being in the moment of observation. Flow thus offers a perspective of well-being that enhances the spectator/dancer relationship.
Final paper/ proceedings of the Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts conference, 2015
This paper extends on Don Ihde’s theories of human/technology relations in order to clarify the a... more This paper extends on Don Ihde’s theories of human/technology relations in order to clarify the affective interactive experience of self with ‘other’ as mediated by technology. It offers a new conceptualization of world, technology and other within digital performance research. The paper argues that technologies such as motion capture can be utilised in the storing and representing of embodied cognitive skills as in dance improvisation, in which knowledge in the body is articulated through motor skill. This ability to store and manipulate enables interaction with the world, and thus with an ‘other’ via a digital double.
This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context o... more This chapter is situated in research on flow which explores optimal experience from the context of positive psychology, as it was first expounded by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It develops a theory of flow in dance improvisation which draws on the eudaimonic concept of wellbeing. Drawing on the writings of phenomenologist’s Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger, the chapter makes links between Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow and the defining characteristics of eudaimonia such as personal expressiveness, self-realization, excellence and relatedness. The chapter draws on case-study research which proposes a methodology for engaging with the dancer’s experience of flow. The chapter focusses on the use of dialogic tasks within the choreographic process to develop an understanding of the dancer’s experience of flow. Further, the research employs the method of ‘reflexive embodied empathy’ developed by psychotherapist Dr. Linda Finlay. As a method, it involves a process of hermeneutic reflection for understanding the experience of the participant while enabling an examination of the researcher’s intimate role in the construction of that interpretation. As a result, this chapter articulates flow as an example of intersubjective experience, and specifically as an example of relatedness, as defined in wellbeing research. It is argued, flow enables the researcher/spectator to connect to, act into, and merge with the experience of the dancer, informing both their understanding of the dancer’s wellbeing and their own wellbeing in the moment of observation. Flow thus offers a perspective of wellbeing that enhances the spectator/dancer relationship
On the day of the Summer Solstice, five members of the Laban Guild for Movement and Dance perform... more On the day of the Summer Solstice, five members of the Laban Guild for Movement and Dance performed a site-specific, group generated choreography in the forest of the Chateau Millemont just outside Paris. The project developed as a result of meeting with Dr Paul Clarke, a significant roving ambassador in sustainability, who was in the throes of organising an event at Chateau Millemont designed to bring together concerned individuals/groups from all over the world. He saw this as the beginning of a thirty year project!
My recently completed PhD, titled Moving experience: an investigation of embodied knowledge and t... more My recently completed PhD, titled Moving experience: an investigation of embodied knowledge and technology for reading flow in improvisation (2014) explores notions of flow from both a movement analysis and positive psychology perspective. The thesis was concerned with the articulation of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding flow and was developed by expanding on the current definitions of flow both in psychology by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, and in movement analysis by Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb. Within the following article I will identify some of the key areas for comparison between these two definitions and the significance of this endeavour with regard to the notion of mind and body in the context of dance.
The thesis is concerned with the exploration of the notion of ‘flow’ from both a psychological an... more The thesis is concerned with the exploration of the notion of ‘flow’ from both a psychological and dance analysis perspective in order to extend the meaning of flow and move beyond a partiality of understanding. The main aim of the thesis recognises the need to understand, identify and interpret an analysis of the moments of flow perceivable in a dancer’s body during improvisatory practice, through technologically innovative means. The research is undertaken via both philosophical and practical enquiry. It addresses phenomenology in order to resolve the mind/body debate and is applied to research in flow in psychology by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, and flow in movement analysis by Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb. The significance of this endeavour can be seen in the reconsideration of the relation between mind and body, and art and science which informs the methodology for the research (Part One). The three main outcomes of the research are related to each of the three subsequent parts. The first research outcome is the articulation of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding flow and was developed by expanding on the current definitions of flow through an innovative transdisciplinary methodology (Part Two). Research outcome two addresses the intersubjective nature of flow, which was identified within improvisation. From this two methods were constructed for the collection and interpretation of the experience of the dancer. Firstly, through reflective practice as defined by Donald Schön. And secondly, an argument was provided for the use of motion capture as an embodied tool which extends the dancers embodied cognitive capabilities in the moment of improvisation (Part Three). The final research outcome was thus theorised that such embodied empathic intersubjectivity does not require a direct identification of the other’s body but could be achieved through technologically mediated objects in the world (Part Four). Subsequently, the findings from the research could support further research within a number of fields including dance education, dance practice and dance therapy, psychology, neuroscience, gaming and interactive arts.
Flow, as a psychological concept (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), refers to that moment when we are comp... more Flow, as a psychological concept (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), refers to that moment when we are completely involved in what we are doing. Flow is a fundamentally positive experience, but more than this, flow can be considered eudaimonic in its ability to allow us to experience our full potential. Within dance improvisation, flow allows us to break restrictive habits, and find new movement and new ways of being. This paper will explore Heidegger’s understanding of authenticity to elucidate the eudaimonic characteristics of flow experiences in dance improvisation. Whilst Heidegger never explicitly uses the term ‘eudaimonia,’ his writings are heavily influenced by the work of Aristotle and his classical problematic of ethical theory. It can be argued that Heidegger’s explication of the ‘Authentic’ mode of being describes ‘Being’ as revealed in a first-person way, and is characterised by a ‘moment of vision’ in which we have the ‘authentic potentiality-for-being-a-whole’ (Heidegger, 2010, p.224).
Louise Douse will discuss the project ‘A Dance in Time’, a collaboration between five members of ... more Louise Douse will discuss the project ‘A Dance in Time’, a collaboration between five members of the Laban Guild and Dr Paul Clarke, Founder of the award winning Pop Up Foundation, exploring ecological consciousness. ‘A Dance in Time’ is a longitudinal study of our relationship to nature. Over a 30 year period (2015-2045) the Laban Guild members; Maggie Killingbeck, Selina Martin, Cathy Washbrooke, Saul Keyworth and I will explore the sustained stimuli of our responses to deepen over time our understanding of the complex relationship between people and planet. This paper will address the emergent choreographic process that was initiated by our shared understanding of Laban as a learning ecology. Laban’s system of analyzing movement characteristics as pathways through space, and the ‘effort’, ‘shape’ and ‘drive’ of human movement has established dance as a special form of social communication.
While the performance disciplines of dance and theatre within a University setting are increasing... more While the performance disciplines of dance and theatre within a University setting are increasingly moving towards practice based learning, teaching and assessment, no central record or archive of student performance work is currently being collated within the Division of Performing Arts and English at the University of Bedfordshire. The storage capacities and dissemination of such an archive has its challenges; the Division of Performing Arts and English includes three BA courses in performance with several hundred students and 24 performative assessments over the academic year in 2009-10. With the expansion of digital technologies, these challenges have become less problematic; an online archive can deliver large scale storage capacity through video storage sites such as Motionbox.com, brightcove.com and viddler.com. Dissemination of video to both staff and students is thus instantly available via an online website through a digital product delivery system, which allows the sale of downloads of digital files. The problems of video archiving within the Division of Performing Arts and English were elaborated within a funded Research informed Teaching (RiT) project, which aimed to develop research capacity across the University. The aims of the archive project were to allow enhanced opportunities for students to undertake critical analyses of their own performance work and of peers, to enable them to take responsibility for their development in achieving their aims. The archive has only recently been a viable option for the University due to the previously discussed limited technologies available. The increased literacy of the students with such technologies has developed with the use of mobile phones as devices to record and document their practical work, while networking tools such as Facebook and YouTube are increasingly used to upload and share video. This is part of the wider student cultural experience and is particularly pertinent to non-textual modes of research such as practice-led research where video is such a necessary tool for both documentation and analysis. While this is useful for them; and interesting in terms of changing modes of student engagement with learning; these applications are user driven, social software networks, and the archives generated are necessarily partial, subjective and personal; not systematic, which would be an institutional imperative. The project therefore directly impacts on the curriculum for both current students and future cohorts as it not only provides access to students in developing their own portfolio of performance work, but also can be accessed by staff as examples of best-practice to other students. The project looks at the integration and deployment of digital resources within the context of a student performance archive. The digital resources used were chosen in specific relation to the project, an example being the use of video archiving with the ability to embed into another site; his allowed video to be viewed within the University website in conjunction with University search tools. The archive is searchable via the names of all students involved in the particular performance video, enabling collaborative creative work to be accessed; and teaching, learning and scholarship to be shared and developed through a blended learning experience. The poster will evaluate the experience among students and lecturers and discuss the contexts in which the archive is used, in particular, it will address the role of the archive as a learning and evaluative tool.
This poster aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The study ... more This poster aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The study draws on innovative approaches to technology in the application of Motion Capture as a tool for analysis of flow within the body. Flow addresses the state of mind one enters when totally immersed in an activity; as an area of positive psychology, its purpose is to achieve a scientific understanding and implement effective interventions for improving life. Flow in dance engenders sustainable dance making as it addresses intrinsic motivational goals as crucial to enjoyment. The poster proposes that the development of an innovative methodology for the use of motion capture will provide the means by which findings concerning optimizing flow will be evidenced.
This presentation aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The ... more This presentation aims to provide new methodologies within the practice-as-research context. The paper critiques the development of the debate surrounding embodied knowledge and performance by examining recent writing within transcendental philosophy, dance/performance studies, and psychology.
In the last 20 years or more there has been a surge of interdisciplinary interest in the body and... more In the last 20 years or more there has been a surge of interdisciplinary interest in the body and embodiment in conjunction with advances in computing and the development of technologies which inherently change the character of human computer interaction. Philosopher of technology, Don Ihde, defines a theory of ‘embodied technics’ in which an individual can engage in the world by perceiving through embodied technologies, such as a pair of eye glasses. This perception transforms an individual’s perceptual and bodily sense in order to extend the individual’s capabilities. However, the technology must be able to ‘withdraw’ from perception allowing a ‘transparency’ of the technology in order for the individual to experience the world directly [1]. Philip Brey extends on Ihde’s research in terms of both motor and perceptual engagement with the world through technology [2]. In a footnote, he also suggests a third form of engagement via a cognitive embodiment with cognitive artefacts which “are able to represent, store, retrieve and manipulate information” (p. 13). In this case, he refers to handheld technologies such as the calculator which transform the cognitive task into a perceptual and motor task. It could be argued, however, that technologies such as motion capture could be utilised in the storing and representing of embodied cognitive skills as in improvisation in dance, in which knowledge in the body is articulated through motor skill. This ability to store and manipulate enables interaction with the world via a digital double. From this perspective, the world is viewed as being negotiated by a technologically mediated body. However a conceptualization which is largely missing from digital performance literature is that of the body negotiated by a technologically mediated world, as in Idhe’s theory of hermeneutic technics. This is, for example, a method prevalent in many of the sciences, including dance science, where technologies are used to translate the body for research, such as the x-ray machine or the fMRI machine which isolate measurable phenomenon of the body in order that an understanding of the body be made available. What is encapsulated in this formulation is how the objectively defined body is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium. The use of motion capture as an embodied technology therefore not only allows for the storing and extending of embodied cognitive skills, but further allows such data to be read. This paper proposes a new formulation in which a subjective embodied being is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium. Motion capture technologies will be used to translate embodied subjective responses for the purposes of human understanding, drawing on Ihde theories of both embodied and hermeneutic technics. Within this paper, digital visualization will be used as a representation of motion capture data in a non-textual form available for analysis. It could be argued, when viewing the digital visualizations of the captured motion, what an individual sees is the body it refers to, the limbs already suggested in the data points, and further the intersubjective experience of the ‘other’.
This paper argues that the subjective experience of flow within dance improvisation can be identi... more This paper argues that the subjective experience of flow within dance improvisation can be identified within the body through the use of motion capture technologies. As such, it will first articulate flow as a transdisciplinary concept, addressing the fields of positive psychology and movement analysis; flow in positive psychology is considered an optimal experience in which participants are totally immersed in an activity to the benefit of their wellbeing (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb’s work on flow will be drawn on and extended with regard to their research on movement pattern analysis in order to understand movement potential as well as motivational potential with regard to decision-making. My research suggests these moments of optimal experience can be located in an individual’s preferred patterns of movement. In this paper, I will draw on case-study research to discuss the use of motion-capture technologies in capturing this experience of flow. Visualizations of the motion capture data are considered to present the body in order to allow for a ‘reading’ and interpretation of the body drawing on Don Ihde’s theory of embodied-technics. The visualizations are produced with reference to the work of Laban and Lamb to facilitate a readable and recognisable description of the body in flow. These visualisations are innovative in both their application to flow and in their use of Laban for analysing the movement of the whole body, as a tool for analysis.
This workshop is proposed as a networking event for Early Career researchers and academics. Model... more This workshop is proposed as a networking event for Early Career researchers and academics. Modelled on the concept of ‘speed-dating’ in an academic context, it will provide short exchanges across a range of academic levels. This will be valuable for the early career researchers by providing them with an opportunity to articulate their distinctive research to potential collaborators and colleagues. Further, it will enable more experienced academics to engage in multiple discourses around emerging scholarship in dance. The aims of the workshop are: (1) to give a voice to early career academics and researchers, (2) to enable discussion about cutting edge dance scholarship and research, (3) to facilitate cross-institutional networking and collaboration. In order to achieve these aims, 16 early career presenters will be given the opportunity to share their research or practice in short, 3 minute presentations to 1-2 conference participants. The listening participants will be able to register interest in their work and share contact details by completing a short multiple choice postcard. The participants will be directed by the workshop organisers to move between tables at the end of the three minutes ensuring that each of the 16 presenters has been seen during the course of the hour. At the end of the workshop, the postcards will be posted in a ‘letterbox’ and be distributed to the relevant presenters. The presenters will be curated via a call out on the Early Career DanceHE members e-list. We anticipate a diverse range of presenters and topics at various stages of their early career.
In both improvisation and butoh practice, habit is often referred to negatively, restricting ones... more In both improvisation and butoh practice, habit is often referred to negatively, restricting ones creative capabilities. However within flow studies in positive psychology, habit is constitutive of optimal experience. How then can this negative side of habit be reconciled with the positive, action enabling side which informs that flow state? The discomfort of getting stuck in habitual movement, acknowledged by many within improvisation can be linked to the butoh concept of ‘ma’. Ma is a Japanese word which can roughly be translated as ‘interval’ and is often referred to as a negative space. It also has a temporal meaning thus representing space, time and space-time. Ma can be experienced as both a static and a dynamic state and is a “way of sensing the moment of movement.” (Isozaki cited in Pilgrim, 1995, p. 69). In butoh, Hijikata developed the term ma-gusare (rotting space) operating at the interstices of being and non-being in a dangerous territory of dark unknowing. This concept of ‘ma’ can also be related to Victor Turner’s concepts of liminality; “literally “being-on-a-threshold” means a state or process which is betwixt-and-between the normal, day-to-day…” (Turner, 1979, p. 465). Turner identifies the negative connotation in this state as it exists between the once positive past and yet to be positive future. However, Turner further links the liminal to Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow through performance practices. He notes that liminality only takes place within highly structured societies and then describes the liminoid as events or behaviours which are simply undertaken for pleasure. For Turner then, liminoid experiences always have a flow quality which is produced by their highly structured organisation. This therefore relates to the characteristic of challenge/skill balance within flow. For example, flow, as defined by Csikszentmihalyi exists within a balance of skill and challenge, in which the skill of the individual must not match the challenge exactly or else it may become too easy and boring and yet the challenge should not be so hard that the individual is unable to meet the demands through a lack of skill. The role of habit, therefore, in relation to skill is both enabling and disabling: “[Improvisation] demands a reflexive awareness of the known becoming a stereotype.” (cited in Cooper Albright and Gere, 2003, p. 7). It could be argued, therefore that ‘ma’ or the liminoid, is this in-between state in which habit is both constitutive and creative, negative and positive. Flow always requires a challenge in which the self is at stake.
This paper proposes a theory of habit which relies on a liminal memory, combining permanence with... more This paper proposes a theory of habit which relies on a liminal memory, combining permanence with transience and the mental with the physical. The research draws on the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, examining how the embodied being is both constituted by, and freed from, its habitual body through the process of sedimentation. This experience of freedom however, is a conscious intention to act on the world and reveals an individual’s potential for being in that world as an issue for itself. It is thus only in those moments when an individual’s embodied being is brought into question and revealed through action that they experience a ‘potential-to-be-whole’ or ‘flow’ phenomenon; a fundamentally positive experience. The paper draws on case-study research which articulates a theory of habit in improvisation as an example of both the challenge to and construction of self. Improvisation requires the individual to generate an instant flow of movement, where it is considered they must avoid habitual movement patterns in order to invent original material. However, Susan Foster acknowledges that “we could never accomplish this encounter with the unknown without engaging in the known.” (cited in Cooper Albright and Gere, 2003, p.4). Consequently, this paper argues for habit as a form of reconstitution or repair of the self.
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The chapter draws on case-study research which proposes a methodology for engaging with the dancer’s experience of flow. The chapter focusses on the use of dialogic tasks within the choreographic process to develop an understanding of the dancer’s experience of flow. Further, the research employs the method of ‘reflexive embodied empathy’ developed by psychotherapist Dr. Linda Finlay. As a method, it involves a process of hermeneutic reflection for understanding the experience of the participant while enabling an examination of the researcher’s intimate role in the construction of that interpretation.
As a result, this chapter articulates flow as an example of intersubjective experience, and specifically as an example of relatedness, as defined in well-being research. It is argued, flow enables the researcher/spectator to connect to, act into, and merge with the experience of the dancer, informing both their understanding of the dancer’s well-being and their own well-being in the moment of observation. Flow thus offers a perspective of well-being that enhances the spectator/dancer relationship.
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The first research outcome is the articulation of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding flow and was developed by expanding on the current definitions of flow through an innovative transdisciplinary methodology (Part Two). Research outcome two addresses the intersubjective nature of flow, which was identified within improvisation. From this two methods were constructed for the collection and interpretation of the experience of the dancer. Firstly, through reflective practice as defined by Donald Schön. And secondly, an argument was provided for the use of motion capture as an embodied tool which extends the dancers embodied cognitive capabilities in the moment of improvisation (Part Three). The final research outcome was thus theorised that such embodied empathic intersubjectivity does not require a direct identification of the other’s body but could be achieved through technologically mediated objects in the world (Part Four).
Subsequently, the findings from the research could support further research within a number of fields including dance education, dance practice and dance therapy, psychology, neuroscience, gaming and interactive arts.
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Conference Presentations by Louise Douse
The problems of video archiving within the Division of Performing Arts and English were elaborated within a funded Research informed Teaching (RiT) project, which aimed to develop research capacity across the University. The aims of the archive project were to allow enhanced opportunities for students to undertake critical analyses of their own performance work and of peers, to enable them to take responsibility for their development in achieving their aims. The archive has only recently been a viable option for the University due to the previously discussed limited technologies available. The increased literacy of the students with such technologies has developed with the use of mobile phones as devices to record and document their practical work, while networking tools such as Facebook and YouTube are increasingly used to upload and share video. This is part of the wider student cultural experience and is particularly pertinent to non-textual modes of research such as practice-led research where video is such a necessary tool for both documentation and analysis. While this is useful for them; and interesting in terms of changing modes of student engagement with learning; these applications are user driven, social software networks, and the archives generated are necessarily partial, subjective and personal; not systematic, which would be an institutional imperative. The project therefore directly impacts on the curriculum for both current students and future cohorts as it not only provides access to students in developing their own portfolio of performance work, but also can be accessed by staff as examples of best-practice to other students.
The project looks at the integration and deployment of digital resources within the context of a student performance archive. The digital resources used were chosen in specific relation to the project, an example being the use of video archiving with the ability to embed into another site; his allowed video to be viewed within the University website in conjunction with University search tools. The archive is searchable via the names of all students involved in the particular performance video, enabling collaborative creative work to be accessed; and teaching, learning and scholarship to be shared and developed through a blended learning experience. The poster will evaluate the experience among students and lecturers and discuss the contexts in which the archive is used, in particular, it will address the role of the archive as a learning and evaluative tool.
Philip Brey extends on Ihde’s research in terms of both motor and perceptual engagement with the world through technology [2]. In a footnote, he also suggests a third form of engagement via a cognitive embodiment with cognitive artefacts which “are able to represent, store, retrieve and manipulate information” (p. 13). In this case, he refers to handheld technologies such as the calculator which transform the cognitive task into a perceptual and motor task. It could be argued, however, that technologies such as motion capture could be utilised in the storing and representing of embodied cognitive skills as in improvisation in dance, in which knowledge in the body is articulated through motor skill.
This ability to store and manipulate enables interaction with the world via a digital double. From this perspective, the world is viewed as being negotiated by a technologically mediated body. However a conceptualization which is largely missing from digital performance literature is that of the body negotiated by a technologically mediated world, as in Idhe’s theory of hermeneutic technics. This is, for example, a method prevalent in many of the sciences, including dance science, where technologies are used to translate the body for research, such as the x-ray machine or the fMRI machine which isolate measurable phenomenon of the body in order that an understanding of the body be made available. What is encapsulated in this formulation is how the objectively defined body is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium.
The use of motion capture as an embodied technology therefore not only allows for the storing and extending of embodied cognitive skills, but further allows such data to be read. This paper proposes a new formulation in which a subjective embodied being is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium. Motion capture technologies will be used to translate embodied subjective responses for the purposes of human understanding, drawing on Ihde theories of both embodied and hermeneutic technics. Within this paper, digital visualization will be used as a representation of motion capture data in a non-textual form available for analysis. It could be argued, when viewing the digital visualizations of the captured motion, what an individual sees is the body it refers to, the limbs already suggested in the data points, and further the intersubjective experience of the ‘other’.
The chapter draws on case-study research which proposes a methodology for engaging with the dancer’s experience of flow. The chapter focusses on the use of dialogic tasks within the choreographic process to develop an understanding of the dancer’s experience of flow. Further, the research employs the method of ‘reflexive embodied empathy’ developed by psychotherapist Dr. Linda Finlay. As a method, it involves a process of hermeneutic reflection for understanding the experience of the participant while enabling an examination of the researcher’s intimate role in the construction of that interpretation.
As a result, this chapter articulates flow as an example of intersubjective experience, and specifically as an example of relatedness, as defined in well-being research. It is argued, flow enables the researcher/spectator to connect to, act into, and merge with the experience of the dancer, informing both their understanding of the dancer’s well-being and their own well-being in the moment of observation. Flow thus offers a perspective of well-being that enhances the spectator/dancer relationship.
The first research outcome is the articulation of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding flow and was developed by expanding on the current definitions of flow through an innovative transdisciplinary methodology (Part Two). Research outcome two addresses the intersubjective nature of flow, which was identified within improvisation. From this two methods were constructed for the collection and interpretation of the experience of the dancer. Firstly, through reflective practice as defined by Donald Schön. And secondly, an argument was provided for the use of motion capture as an embodied tool which extends the dancers embodied cognitive capabilities in the moment of improvisation (Part Three). The final research outcome was thus theorised that such embodied empathic intersubjectivity does not require a direct identification of the other’s body but could be achieved through technologically mediated objects in the world (Part Four).
Subsequently, the findings from the research could support further research within a number of fields including dance education, dance practice and dance therapy, psychology, neuroscience, gaming and interactive arts.
The problems of video archiving within the Division of Performing Arts and English were elaborated within a funded Research informed Teaching (RiT) project, which aimed to develop research capacity across the University. The aims of the archive project were to allow enhanced opportunities for students to undertake critical analyses of their own performance work and of peers, to enable them to take responsibility for their development in achieving their aims. The archive has only recently been a viable option for the University due to the previously discussed limited technologies available. The increased literacy of the students with such technologies has developed with the use of mobile phones as devices to record and document their practical work, while networking tools such as Facebook and YouTube are increasingly used to upload and share video. This is part of the wider student cultural experience and is particularly pertinent to non-textual modes of research such as practice-led research where video is such a necessary tool for both documentation and analysis. While this is useful for them; and interesting in terms of changing modes of student engagement with learning; these applications are user driven, social software networks, and the archives generated are necessarily partial, subjective and personal; not systematic, which would be an institutional imperative. The project therefore directly impacts on the curriculum for both current students and future cohorts as it not only provides access to students in developing their own portfolio of performance work, but also can be accessed by staff as examples of best-practice to other students.
The project looks at the integration and deployment of digital resources within the context of a student performance archive. The digital resources used were chosen in specific relation to the project, an example being the use of video archiving with the ability to embed into another site; his allowed video to be viewed within the University website in conjunction with University search tools. The archive is searchable via the names of all students involved in the particular performance video, enabling collaborative creative work to be accessed; and teaching, learning and scholarship to be shared and developed through a blended learning experience. The poster will evaluate the experience among students and lecturers and discuss the contexts in which the archive is used, in particular, it will address the role of the archive as a learning and evaluative tool.
Philip Brey extends on Ihde’s research in terms of both motor and perceptual engagement with the world through technology [2]. In a footnote, he also suggests a third form of engagement via a cognitive embodiment with cognitive artefacts which “are able to represent, store, retrieve and manipulate information” (p. 13). In this case, he refers to handheld technologies such as the calculator which transform the cognitive task into a perceptual and motor task. It could be argued, however, that technologies such as motion capture could be utilised in the storing and representing of embodied cognitive skills as in improvisation in dance, in which knowledge in the body is articulated through motor skill.
This ability to store and manipulate enables interaction with the world via a digital double. From this perspective, the world is viewed as being negotiated by a technologically mediated body. However a conceptualization which is largely missing from digital performance literature is that of the body negotiated by a technologically mediated world, as in Idhe’s theory of hermeneutic technics. This is, for example, a method prevalent in many of the sciences, including dance science, where technologies are used to translate the body for research, such as the x-ray machine or the fMRI machine which isolate measurable phenomenon of the body in order that an understanding of the body be made available. What is encapsulated in this formulation is how the objectively defined body is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium.
The use of motion capture as an embodied technology therefore not only allows for the storing and extending of embodied cognitive skills, but further allows such data to be read. This paper proposes a new formulation in which a subjective embodied being is interrogated and interpreted through a technological medium. Motion capture technologies will be used to translate embodied subjective responses for the purposes of human understanding, drawing on Ihde theories of both embodied and hermeneutic technics. Within this paper, digital visualization will be used as a representation of motion capture data in a non-textual form available for analysis. It could be argued, when viewing the digital visualizations of the captured motion, what an individual sees is the body it refers to, the limbs already suggested in the data points, and further the intersubjective experience of the ‘other’.
The discomfort of getting stuck in habitual movement, acknowledged by many within improvisation can be linked to the butoh concept of ‘ma’. Ma is a Japanese word which can roughly be translated as ‘interval’ and is often referred to as a negative space. It also has a temporal meaning thus representing space, time and space-time. Ma can be experienced as both a static and a dynamic state and is a “way of sensing the moment of movement.” (Isozaki cited in Pilgrim, 1995, p. 69). In butoh, Hijikata developed the term ma-gusare (rotting space) operating at the interstices of being and non-being in a dangerous territory of dark unknowing.
This concept of ‘ma’ can also be related to Victor Turner’s concepts of liminality; “literally “being-on-a-threshold” means a state or process which is betwixt-and-between the normal, day-to-day…” (Turner, 1979, p. 465). Turner identifies the negative connotation in this state as it exists between the once positive past and yet to be positive future. However, Turner further links the liminal to Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow through performance practices. He notes that liminality only takes place within highly structured societies and then describes the liminoid as events or behaviours which are simply undertaken for pleasure. For Turner then, liminoid experiences always have a flow quality which is produced by their highly structured organisation.
This therefore relates to the characteristic of challenge/skill balance within flow. For example, flow, as defined by Csikszentmihalyi exists within a balance of skill and challenge, in which the skill of the individual must not match the challenge exactly or else it may become too easy and boring and yet the challenge should not be so hard that the individual is unable to meet the demands through a lack of skill. The role of habit, therefore, in relation to skill is both enabling and disabling: “[Improvisation] demands a reflexive awareness of the known becoming a stereotype.” (cited in Cooper Albright and Gere, 2003, p. 7). It could be argued, therefore that ‘ma’ or the liminoid, is this in-between state in which habit is both constitutive and creative, negative and positive. Flow always requires a challenge in which the self is at stake.