Abstract

The neuroscience of dance is a vibrant, fast growing field which embodies the promise of a genuine and productive interdisciplinary rapprochement between neuroscience and art. The strength of this field lies in the way it ties the experience of dance to sensorimotor processes that underwrite our ordinary perceptual engagement with the environment. Motor simulation and mimicry enhance our capacity to interpret the goals, motives, and emotions of others. Recent studies demonstrate that these same processes enable us to recognize abstract dance movements as intentional actions with emotionally expressive and semantic content constitutive of their meaning. In what follows I examine this research with an eye to the potential contribution neuroscience can make to our understanding of dance as an artform.