Body and Mind in Motion
Body and Mind in Motion (Book)
Dance and Neuroscience in Conversation
Drawing from the burgeoning field of 'embodiment' – itself an idea at the intersection of the sciences, humanities, arts and technologies – Body and Mind in Motion highlights the relevance of somatic education within dance education, dance science and body-mind studies.
Edition
Western contemporary dance and body-mind education have engaged in a pas de deux for more than four decades. The rich interchange of somatics and dance has altered both fields, but scholarship that substantiates these ideas through the findings of twentieth-century scientific advances has been missing. This book fills that gap and brings to light contemporary discoveries of neuroscience and somatic education as they relate to dance. Drawing from the burgeoning field of 'embodiment' – itself an idea at the intersection of the sciences, humanities, arts and technologies – Body and Mind in Motion highlights the relevance of somatic education within dance education, dance science and body-mind studies.
Margaret Wilson is a professor at the University of Wyoming, where she teaches modern dance, Pilates, kinesiology, twentieth-century dance history, pedagogy and vertical dance, and co-directs the B.F.A. in dance science. Her research interests are in scientific aspects of dance, integrating somatic practices into pedagogy, and pursuing and facilitating interdisciplinary work. In addition, she choreographs and performs for productions at the University of Wyoming, including vertical dance performances in an outside venue, and she co-directs the Snowy Range Summer Dance Festival. She serves on the board of directors for the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) and publishes in the Journal of Dance Medicine & Science.
Introduction
Chapter 1: From Conversation to Discourse
Chapter 2: Locating the Discourse
Chapter 3: Researching Dance Cognition – Task-Based Analysis
Chapter 4: Reframing Embodiment
Chapter 5: Enaction
Chapter 6: Attention and Effort
Chapter 7: Training Attention – The Somatic Learning Environment
Chapter 8: Somatic Approaches to Training Attention: Part I
Chapter 9: Somatic Approaches to Training Attention: Part II
Chapter 10: Vertical Dance: Re-Experiencing the World
Chapter 11: The Road Forward
Appendix I: Primer on Balance
Appendix II: Explorations and Reflections
'It is a very exciting book in which any possible correlations between body, mind and movement are analyzed in a simple and never boring way.'
