The Artist as Critic: Dance Training, Neuroscience and Aesthetic Evaluation
Barbara Gail Montero
It 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.1 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 Bläsing, 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”
(Bläsing 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.”2 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 Dance
If 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. 3
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 motorperception 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).4
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.5 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 motorperception. 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.6 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 motorperception, 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,”7 or Louis Horst who describes the “lyric beauty” of a dance choreographed by Anna
Sokolow as having “a direct appeal to kinesthetic response,”8 or Michael Wade Simpson who describes the finale in a piece by
Helgi Thommasson as “satisfying musically, kinesthetically and emotionally,”9—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.10 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.11 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. 12
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 Critic
I 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, Blässing 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.13 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.)14
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.
*Bläsing, 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: Observation
of dance by dancers. Neuroimage, 31(3), 1257–1267.
*Cross, E. S., Hamilton, A. F., Kraemer, D. J., Kelley, W. M., & Grafton, S. T. (2009), Dissociable
substrates for body motion and physical experience in the human action observation network. The
European 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
2: 593-609.
Graham, G. (2005), “Expresivism” in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, edited by Gaut, B.
(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
Cognitive Neuroscience, vol. 17 282-293.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1835/1975), Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T.M. Knox, 2 vol (Oxford:
Herder, J. G. (1788/2002), Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion’s
Gaiger (University of Chicago Press).
Hume, D. (1757/1993), “Of the Standard of Taste,” in Selected Essays, eds. Copley, Stephen and
Oxford University Press).
Kames, H. (1762/2005), Elements of Criticism, Liberty Fund.
Kivy, P. (1975), “What Makes ‘Aesthetic’ Terms Aesthetic?” Philosophy and Phenomenological
cortex,” Brain, vol. 118, no.
and D. M. Lopes,
pianists,” Journal of
Clarendon).
Creative Dream, trans. J.
Andrew Edgar (Oxford:
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
1 According to data collected by the NEA, between 1982 and 2008, ballet attendance has declined at a rate of 31 per
cent. Summary of the NEA survey of public participation in the arts can be found at
http://www.nea.gov/research/NEA-SPPA-brochure.pdf
2 See also the philosophers David Best and Graham McFee who argue that dance training is irrelevant to one’s aesthetic
judgment of dance (Best 1974 and McFee 1992).
3 Perhaps a similar study could be used to help us understand why ballet dancers generally prefer watching good
ballet much more than watching good modern dance. See Cole and Montero (2007) for a discussion of the pleasure
of bodily movement.
4 I’m hesitant to say that it shows this (rather than it seems to show) this since male dancers still observe more
relatively more male specific movements than do women and female dancers still observe relatively more female
specific movements than do men. This is in part because rehearsals and classes are sometimes held separately. For
example, there will be a rehearsal for the men’s variation and only the men who are doing this role will be there; and
then there is men’s class, and women’s pointe class). Moreover, even when in training together, women watch
women more and men watch men more.
5 A further reason for why females outperformed males may be that, in the ballet world, females generally have
trained more (starting at a younger age and putting in more hours) than males.
6 For a discussion of expressive qualities in art, see Graham (2005).
7 “A Spinning, Twisting Tribute to Ashton, With Skaters and Pigeons” by Alastair Macaulay, New York Times,
Published: December 22, 2008
8 Louis Horst, Dance Observer, 1954
9 “Dancers relay Robbins' gentler, reflective side in Chopin piece” by Michael Wade Simpson, Special to The
Chronicle, Saturday, April 9, 2005
10 McFee (1992 ) seems to argue along these lines.
11 As Jonathan Cole has documented in his book Pride and the Daily Marathon, if an individual suffers a loss of
proprioception, the individual can sometimes learn to know where his or her own body is in space via other sensory
processes, but it takes a tremendous amount of work to do so.
12 See also my (2011) paper, in which I discuss and reject some of the arguments for the view that motor-perception
is irrelevant to aesthetics.
13 Quoted in The NYRB Feb 9, 2012, v. LIX no. 2. “Merce Cunningham & the Impossible,” by Alma Guillermoprieto.
14 I thank Ed Nangle for pointing this out to me.