How To Convey Emotion Nonverbally Through Dance, A Study
Christopher Philip
Japanese researchers Nao Shikanai, Misako Sawada and Motonobu Ishii conducted a study looking at the bodily expressions of three emotions, joy, sadness and anger, but with a novel method. Specifically, they wished to ascertain the accuracy of expression of emotions through body movements in dance.
We understand that emotion is important to convey, and that it is expressed through facial, vocal expression, posture, gesture and body movement.
However, little attention has been placed on gestures, movements with respect to facial expressions and certainly little with respect to bodily movement in a dynamic situation.
Curiously, static bodies and static faces form a very small part of our lives, so analyzing them, while easier, is far too simplistic when compared to assessing and reading emotion in daily life. The lack of study, likely has less to do with its overall importance, than with the difficulty with which dynamic bodies can be studied.
Bodies, in life, are in a constant state of flux.
In the current study, participants watched an analyzed dance for how “fast,” “expansive,” “energetic,” “active” or “pleasant” they were.
Results indicated that sad dance was perceived as “not fast,” “not energetic,” and “unpleasant” whereas angry dance was “fast” and “unpleasant.”
Over the course of the study, body movements were classified for trunk movement, arm movement, vertical direction, sagittal direction, force, velocity, and directness.
The subjects also rated the movements according to 12 emotional categories.
The dances were collected from six professional female dancers who were asked to best convey joy, sadness and anger. The videos lasted 5 seconds and the dancers were asked to use their entire bodies, but not any facial expressions.
The clips were rated by participants over 33 factors including (5-point scale):
speedy–slow, accent–smooth, rhythmic–monotonous, strong–weak, heavy– light, large–narrow, big–small, open–closed, up–down, lateral–vertical, rounded–linear, regular–rregular, sudden–constant, balanced–unbalanced, steady–unsteady, usual–unusual, positive–negative, happy–unhappy, lonely–not lonely, sharp–dull, energetic–depleted, flowing–jerky, complex–simple, dynamic–static, sharp–flat, tense–relaxed, accelerated– decelerated, discontinuous–continuous, unequal–equal, pointed–rounded, symmetric– asymmetric, extended–flexed, and high–low.
Movement was evaluated on 26 actions (5-point scale):
head-turn up, head-bend down, arms-flex, arms extend, arms-rise, arms-drop, legs-flex, legs-extend, legs-rise, legs-drop, body-lean sideways, body-bend forward, body-bend backward, walk, run, roll, jump, turn, slip, go down, return, go forward, go diagonally forward, sidle, go backward, and go diagonally backward.
These were rated for frequency and velocity where a higher rating indicated more frequent or faster movements.
The results showed that participants could easily identify the emotions the dancers intended to create by their bodies alone – be it joy, sadness or anger.
Joy was created by expansion, stability, turning and jumping and low body closing. The biggest ratings of joy came from body expansiveness, where the limbs take up more space. Jumping tended to produce the greatest ratings for joy. This is consistent with other studies showing that joy is a state of high-activity such as skipping, jumping, turning. In other words, people express joy by a high use of space which requires high energy overall.
Sadness was produced by dancers with low values of dynamics, expansion, stability, and frequency and velocity of upward movements as well as body closing. Thus, sadness represents the opposite pattern to joy. In sadness the body uses less energy and takes up less space. Lack of arm movements displaying sadness were particularly pronounced. Sadness is represented by low energy but high amounts of bending and stretching.
Anger was linked to dynamic, body closing, stability, but not turning or jumping or expansion. Anger included more forceful and fast arm gestures. In other words a high velocity and acceleration of the limbs were prominent in displaying anger. Since not using space was a key component of displaying anger, the dancers resorted to more forceful movements of the arms to make up for the lack of overall space used.
Overall, high dynamics and low expansion lead to greater portrayal of anger and sadness but not joy.
Drawing Conclusions
The current study illustrates factors about body language which we intuitively already understand about nonverbal communication.
Joy, sadness and anger are easily conveyed by the body, however, these are difficult to measure as they are dynamically created. While facial expressions can be frozen in time, bodily expressions are in a constant state of flux, and it is this flux that makes them difficult to study when compared to static faces.
While bodies can convey meaning in a static fashion, the sum effect is much greater through a moving body.
Dance is a craft that easily and accurately conveys emotion, and one in which we all participate in some form or other in our daily lives. High expansion, bouncing, jumping covey joy whereas anger is expressed through low use of space but with high arm amplitude. Sadness is conveyed by bowing and low energy.
Image Credit: Paul Stein
Resources
Nao, Misako Sawada and Motonobu Ishii. Development of the Movements Impressions Emotions Model: Evaluation of Movements and Impressions Related to the Perception of Emotions in Dance. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2019. 37:107-121.
DOI 10.1007/s10919-013-0148-y