There is a growing body of knowledge about movement behavior (as it is variously called--kinesics, nonverbal communciation, expressive movement, body language, etc.). Increasingly anthropologists, psychologists, researchers in child development, etc. are attending to body movement. One could argue that although this is still a relatively underdeveloped area of research and that studies we have now will probably be rendered quite obsolete in five years, there is enough of a picture of what can be done and may be discovered to talk about it as a field in its own right. Further, one could argue that the preliminary research techinques and findings of movement research may, even at this point, be useful and relevant to research in dance. As an introduction to the topic a survey of some of the most important behavioral studies of body movement will be presented, followed by a discussion of a dance film and then implications of a practical, methodological, empirical, and theoretical nature that may be of interest to dance researchers.

For purposes of discussion, this survey is divided into three parts according to those studies which deal with (1) movement and expression of emotions, (2) movement style (from individual to cultural), and (3) movement in interaction.

It seems that the most common assumption about body movement is that it reveals inner emotions or attitudes. Darwin first made this idea the subject of serious scientific study in 1872 when he published The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

Human rights scrutiny processes in some Australian parliaments require consideration of whether rights-limiting legislation is reasonable, justifiable, and proportionate. The Queensland Human Rights commissioner has raised concerns of this becoming a “perfunctory ‘tick and flick’ exercise” in which decision-makers perform the “dance steps to [rights] derogation”—a concern emulated by others. Taking this notion of “tick and flick” and “dance steps” literally, this article explores movement and form in the composition of parliamentary human rights scrutiny reports. Drawing from Marie Jacob and Anna Macdonald's notion of legal documents as material, somatic, and metaphorical forms, this article analyzes the choreographic and calligraphic forms in these reports. Through exploring the forms themselves alongside interview data about parliamentary human rights scrutiny practices, this article speculates on whether form has bearing on the process of parliamentary human rights scrutiny, and how form shapes the substance of both the reports and human rights themselves.

This article examines the development of theatricality in modern dance by comparing two dances: Mary Wigman's Totenmal (1930) and Hanya Holm's Trend (1937). By looking at the interplay between group and solo choreography, lighting design and themes, this paper will show how Holm combined the skills she learned codirecting Totenmal at the Dancers’ Congress in Munich to her work with American dance artists at the Bennington School of the Dance to create her first important work. It will examine why Trend was successful as a collaborative project, as well as show how it diverged ideologically from Wigman's work in the 1930s.

In writing this paper, we—Jill Crosby and Ann Dils—render into text six years of sporadic dialogues. Through our explanation and examination of the 1994 movement analysis and description project that began our exchanges and discussion of subsequent readings, we hope to explore important aspects of dance studies research. Our use and understanding of Laban-based movement analysis as a tool for understanding movement as it is felt and observed, awareness of concepts of dialogue and the dialogical process as potential frameworks, critical lenses, and theoretical bases for dance studies research, and adaptation of the interpretive paradigm to suit dance research are especially important to this exploration. Little of our text is written in dialogue form (Crosby:, Dils:); rather, we hope, by drawing examples from our project, Crosby's dissertation, and the works of other researchers, to capture the bubbling-up of understanding that stems from the cooperative and confrontational exchanges of dance studies research.

Over a three-month period in 1994, we conducted a movement analysis and description project as part of Crosby's work for her doctoral dissertation, “Will the Real Jazz Dance Please Stand Up? A Critical Examination of the Roots and Essence of Jazz Dance with Implications for Education.” Crosby investigated the aesthetic shapings of jazz expression inclusive of its West African roots from a cross-disciplinary perspective, using ethnographic methods as tools for understanding artistic form (Crosby 1995). An arts educator and dancer, Crosby wanted to establish a pool of descriptive and potentially inherent characteristics for music-based jazz dance. These characteristics would comprise a personal definition for the form and provide Crosby with a point of departure for a discussion of jazz as a movement tradition.

Although expressive aspects of a culture are generally believed to be related to the values and sentiments which prevade that culture, few studies to demonstrate the relationship have been carried out on nonverbal, more accurately non-vocal, aspects of culture. This paper is a result of my attempt to view traditional Eskimo dance as an expression of Eskimo values, sentiments, and cultural foci.

Eskimo values and cultural foci are described as I perceived them during eight months of ethnological field research (1973–74) among a group of coastal Eskimos in southwestern Alaska. I cannot vouch for the universality of these values in Eskimo groups throughout the arctic, but my impression from the literature is that they are widely held. The dances I describe, however, are not universal, as dance varies from one region to another and even from village to village within some regions (Theresa Tomczak, personal communication 1972). The community I am reporting on is Tununak, on Nelson Island, Alaska.

In eighteenth century Philadelphia the evolution of cultivated society closely followed-or rather kept step with-developments among the English elite. Colonists considered Bath, England to be “the centre of refined Colonial Society”, and those who could afford the time and expense visited there in order to attend plays, participate in assemblies, and absorb the latest trends in fashion and culture. Following the British model, one important attainment of any colonial gentleman or lady was grace of physical manner, evidenced in good part by skill in dancing. These manners and skills could best be appreciated in assemblies of polite society, assemblies where refined conversation, dancing, card-playing, and supping frequently provided the forum for social mingling.

Philadelphia was among the first of American cities to formalize such gatherings when, in 1749, a group of gentlemen who led the city's political, professional and mercantile life joined together in establishing the Philadelphia Assembly, sometimes also called the Dancing Assembly. As early as 1753 the fame and gentility of this assembly had spread to England, for Walter Ewer, Jr. wrote from London to his cousin William Sword in Philadelphia to ask if the latter had ever attended the city's Assembly, which Ewer wrote was reported to be “a fine one”. Another source recalled that “the dancing assembly among the gentry had high vogue, partaking, before the Revolution, of the aristocratic feelings of a monarchial government”.

This is a preliminary study of Alaskan Eskimo dance, the first findings of a three-year comprehensive survey of Alaskan Eskimo and Indian musical systems, funded by the National Science Foundation. The study is primarily synchronic; limited diachronic comparison may be made by consulting a recent study of nineteenth century Alaskan Eskimo dance (Johnston 1974a: 17–26). The populations investigated are the Inupiaq-speakers of Northwest Alaska, numbering about. 11,000, the Central Yupik-speakers of Southwest Alaska, numbering about 17,000, and the Siberian Yupik-speakers of St. Lawrence Island (Alaska), numbering about 1,000. A prime finding is that stylistic differences in Alaskan Eskimo dance coincide approximately with Alaskan Eskimo language (not dialect) areas, with the exception of St. Lawrence Island Eskimo dance, which follows Northwest Alaskan tendencies. The study presents both emic and etic information concerning dance elements, symbolism, functions, and accoutrements.

Alaska Eskimo music has a relatively homogeneous style centering around use of the shallow frame-drum, unison singing, glottal pulsation, pentatonism (but with the additional use of microtones), asymmetrical rhythm, and sectionalized repetition. Intentionally rhythmic, patterned sequences of nonverbal body movement and gesture form an integral part of this musical system, for each complete dance routine (particularly of the sayuun category) is permanently associated with a specific melody, drum rhythm, and set of meaningful songwords. More significantly (from the anthropological point of view), each song-dance pairing is associated with and re-enacts either some recent, significant, true event in cultural history (such as a heroic or comic whaling incident), or a story involving a legendary figure or culture hero. Each song-dance pairing is associated with a specific Eskimo dancer, the latter usually being the creator. If the original creator of the dance is deceased, then the dance is associated with the present-day owner, usually the namesake, partner, or offspring of the creator.

In 1954, when I was dancing in Harriette Ann Gray's company, Doris Humphrey (with whom Harriette had danced in the 1930s) invited us to see a run-through of the reconstruction of With My Red Fires she had staged with Juilliard students. Karen Kanner was an astounding six-foot-tall Matriarch. I remember sitting in a cramped studio of International House feeling not as if I were watching dance, but as if I were surrounded by forces on the verge of slipping out of control. The following year, Day on Earth was presented on one of the mixed bills Bethsabée de Rothschild sponsored at the ANTA theater. I think I remember (could it have happened?) Day on Earth and Cave of the Heart back to back! José Limón, Letitia Ide, and Ruth Currier performed; I thought it was the best modern dance I had ever seen (although I hadn't seen much and vastly preferred doing to watching).

Humphrey's Dawn in New York in 1956 galvanized me into auditioning for Juilliard Dance Theater—then a semi-professional company under Doris's direction, open to anyone. Accepted, I took Doris's composition course—her last, it would turn out. I had studied Modern Forms with Louis Horst, but I had also been taught to think of composing a dance in terms of locating a great emotional eruption within and running with it. Harriette Ann Gray had shown me the impulsive, ecstatic side of Humphrey-Weidman dancing and its potential for communicating feeling. Doris's guidelines for composing dances were refreshingly objective. I later came to see a slight rigidity in her viewpoint; much 1960s vanguardism would have fallen beyond her pale. At the time, I found it liberating.

Where is the point from which we say “I see”? We begin with our eyes (“all eyes,” we say), and we watch. We become spectators, those who watch, and who are defined by that act alone. The act is old, but each perception is new, and each is individual: “I see,” I say, not someone else. Do others see indeed? What do they see? Turn to your left, to your right; enquire, and arguments abound. Believe your eyes, we say: I do, of course, but do I believe yours? There's the rub — and I rub my eyes; the problem vexes. No spectacle provides its spectators with an identical experience. I close my eyes; the spectacle dissolves, yet a vision persists: persistence of vision, we say. Yet how can I see what someone else has seen, if the eyes that saw are gone, if the spectacle they saw is gone? Your eyes, his eyes, those eyes long dead and gone — can I believe them? How does the vision persist?