The Dance of the Scientist
Lennon Hayes
About
Paul Howard Mason is an anthropologist at Macquarie University in Australia. He has fieldwork experience in ethnomusicology and medical anthropology. His area of expertise includes neuroanthropology, dance anthropology, and the anthropology of martial arts. In his article, “Brain, Dance and Culture: The choreographer, the dancing scientist and interdisciplinary collaboration” he draws on his experience in these fields and makes the argument that dance provides a unique area of interest for anthropology.

Dance in Relation to the Brain, Culture, and Environment
Dance is shaped by culture and gives researchers an insight into how people perceive and interpret the world around them by the way they express themselves through dance. Dance is influenced by the embodied brain, culture, and the environment. These three categories overlap among themselves as well. These influences shape how the dancers speak to one another and how they begin to move from improvisation to choreography and finally to performance. Mason chooses a definition of culture from anthropologist Derek Freeman which says culture is made up of alternatives that are socially sanctioned and selected for out of all the possibilities in human variation. Mason says that choreography shows this definition of culture in a small time frame as researchers will be able to see the process of selection. Choreography comes from perception, symbols, and meanings. Researchers will be able to see complexity increasing as they observe the dancers in the studio.

Dance as Play
Play is a vital part of development and learning. The higher cerebral centres of the brain and the limbic system are involved in play. The limbic system is related to imagination and decision-making as well as emotions. This system that contributes to play also contributes to behaviors that are driven by emotion. This makes sense as dance is very often seen as fueled by emotion and being very emotionally impactful for dancers and viewers alike. Play helps individuals learn how to behave in their environment and with those around them. In the context of great socio cultural influence, play begins to create shared meanings and behavior. Mason says that play will then no longer be just for those involved in play but also those watching. This can be seen in the choreography of dance. Choreography shapes play behavior from improvisation with the influence of the brain, culture, and the environment. Dance thus gives researchers a way of seeing how these three categories interact and the influence they have on humans’ behavior.
Evolution and Dance
Mason states that these five processes contribute to evolution: variation, selection, complexity, organisation, and memorisation. They can be seen in relation to dance as they act on how a dance is formed. There are limitless possibilities in improvisation which accounts for the variation. Improvisation is then refined down into choreography, this is the aspect of selection. Complexity is, I believe, the dancers and the choreographers individual opinions and the way they believe the dance should be done. This information is then organized into the choreography for the performance and then the dancers must memorize it.
How to be Interdisciplinary and the Methods Involved
Mason suggests that scientists engage in fieldplay. That they should engage with the possibilities of dance and dancers should engage with science. What this would look like I am not entirely sure I know. This would allow for these concepts to be embodied and for the barrier between these two fields to be broken down. To truly study dance, the scientist must be engaged and dance itself is based in movement. The knowledge found in dance is in movement, which means one should be involved in order to have a better understanding. As one learned the movement necessary for contemporary dance, they can see their perception change. Mason refers to dance as the object and means of investigation. Creating choreography is distributed throughout the dancers, so the researcher must be involved as well. Choreography gives insight into social organization and the way humans express themselves.
How It Relates
This article dealt with embodiment in reference to dance and choreography. Embodiment has been talked about in class and it makes sense that it would apply to dance. A researcher can begin to embody dance while doing fieldplay giving them a better understanding and insight to the process. Emotions and the limbic system also come into play in this article. Dance is often highly related to emotions and creates strong feelings in those that are involved. It would be interesting to see how different forms of dance relate to different emotions. Just two weeks ago we spoke about physical activity in humans. This article on dance was reminiscent of the discussion on capoeira and how culture interacts with biological systems. Different forms of dance could also likely influence the vestibular system.
My Thoughts
I enjoyed this article. I am not a dancer myself so I do not have any first-hand experience that I can relate to the article. The evolutionary systems and dance was interesting. The connection to me was kind of difficult to see. I had to think about it for a while in order to grasp it. I had never really thought about dance in such a way before. I enjoy the idea of “the dancing scientist” and researchers participating in this way. It is a bit humorous to picture but it makes sense. Dance is all about movement and the best way to understand is to participate and understand that feeling. The section where Mason talked about dancers playing with the depths of science was something I would like to understand a bit more as I am not sure how that would be done entirely.
Born For Art
Rob Else
About
Colwyn Trevarthen, born 1931, is a professor emeritus of child psychology and psychobiology at the University of Edinburgh. Among other things, he has studied psychobiology and developmental brain science of expressive movement, human intersubjectivity and cultural learning, chronobiology and “musicality” of human action and applications in development, education, therapy, and art.

An Inborn Proclivity
Trevarthen makes a case for the human propensity for art and fiction as being ingrained in us from birth, and important components of how humans are uniquely adapted when it comes to learning, using, and being shaped by culture. To support this assertion, he uses a number of converging lines of evidence from a variety of different disciplines. First, he notes that Neanderthals, as far as we know, did not have any kind of artistic creations, like art or music, yet Homo sapiens sapiens had a rich history of these aesthetic pursuits. Second, humans are unique among other primates in our abilities of tone and rhythm, which even infants are able to display. Trevarthen calls this “communicative musicality,” and in previous work demonstrated that infant communication has “pulse,” affective “quality,” and a temporal narrative component. Third, human biology is fluid, rather than fixed, in the way that it develops, which Trevarthen suggests is a critical component of the connections that infants make with caregivers. He draws on the concept of epigenetics to show that even our DNA can be shaped in these early formative years, with great impacts later in life. Fourth, humans display a capacity for episodic memory unlike like found in any other animals, which is a key component of storytelling. Finally, Trevarthen draws on neuroanthropological literature that claims that the way that our brain develops in infancy is linked to processes of meaning making and social development.

How It Relates
One of these concepts that Trevarthen brings up, that of communication and play between mother and infant, relates to other readings we did regarding primate cognition, play, and learning. One main concern of ours in class was that we questioned whether we could be certain that non-human primates weren’t communication in similar ways with their babies, just in a manner that we as humans couldn’t pick up on. Further, Trevarthen’s work is similar to that of DeCaro who demonstrates a link between parental attention and well-being among young students.
My Thoughts
Overall, I thought that Trevarthen did not do a good job of structuring an argument for the inborn propensity of humans for art and fiction. While all the pieces are potentially there, he doesn’t discuss art or fiction again in any meaningful way after the first section of the article. It was also rather evident that Trevarthen comes from an evolutionary psychology perspective, and there is some problematic use of gender dynamics throughout the piece. From an anthropological point of view, it would be interesting to do observational work in a number of different cultures with infants as well, or draw upon existing literature, to discuss the relationships that mothers in different cultural settings have with their infants that may or may not promote artistry and fiction.
Questions to Ponder
1. Are there other interdisciplinary studies that would benefit from what Mason calls fieldplay? What do you think of the concept? As well as the idea that even a lifetime is not enough time?
2. In the article, there is a quote from John Blacking about how we understand the minds of non-human animals by observing their movements and non-verbal communication. It then says that humans can be understood in the same way. What are your thoughts on that? Can you think of situations outside of dance that this is applicable and vital to understand?
3. What did you think about the idea of evolutionary systems and how they relate to dance? Do you see what Mason is trying to convey?
4. How does Trevarthen’s work relate to play theory?
5. How would you design a neuroanthropological study to provide further evidence for Trevarthen’s claims?