Launch Speech

Today is a magnificent, a triumphal, day for Australian dance, and for dance research. I am deeply honoured to be invited to launch Thinking in Four Dimensions, as it is the culmination of two three-year research grants from the Australian Research Council: “Unspoken Knowledges”, which investigated the very nature of choreographic thinking, and “Conceiving Connections”, which looked at audience responses to contemporary dance. I am honoured, too, because of my respect for the quality of work and innovative thinking of Robin Grove, Kate Stevens and Shirley McKechnie.

These two projects were, to my mind, key to the “coming of age” of dance research in Australia. They directly confronted fundamental, yet enduring, misconceptions about research: that it should be about things able to be represented visually or verbally; about things which are uncontroversially measurable, and, if possible, repeatable and verifiable.

“Unspoken Knowledges” and “Conceiving Connections” went to the heart of expressive movement in contemporary dance. They plumbed new research depths and connections while at the same time laying the basis for new approaches to industry productivity and viability. These practical outcomes for the dance industry are important in an age when research is supported by governments not just for what we learn that is new, but also for how our society, our economy and our lives might gain benefit from such research.

The papers in Thinking in Four Dimensions—along with the long list of journal and conference papers, videos, and creative-arts awards achieved by the chief investigators and artists since 1999—all bear witness to the wisdom of funding such creative research.

Moreover, these projects show the importance of collaborative research that goes beyond what universities, colleges or individual researchers may themselves contribute. Back in 1999 “Unspoken Knowledges” could not have secured better industry partners than the Australian Dance Council and the Choreographic Centre (Canberra). Their collaboration with researchers at The University of Melbourne, the Victorian College of the Arts, and the Macarthur Auditory Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney was vital to the success of these projects.

Thinking in Four Dimensions has been brilliantly produced by Melbourne University Publishing, and I congratulate Amanda Finnis, the Commissioning Editor for Electronic Publishing, on both its hard-copy and e-copy forms. It is especially well illustrated, both with its still and its moving images. It is well documented; and I hope it will receive the promotion commensurate with its national and international significance.

This book is based on presentations given at a seminar here at the Victorian College of the Arts in October 2003. After Robin Grove’s Prologue considering the two traditions of classical ballet and contemporary dance, there are fourteen highly varied chapters, including:

• research approaches, such as Kate Stevens’ chapter on “The Creation, Performance and Appreciation of Contemporary Dance” [12]
• educational approaches, such as Mark Gordon’s “Growing Choreography” [9]
• approaches to the analysis of creative development, with “Show Me What You Just Did” by Robin Grove [3], and
• creative explorations, as with Sue Healey’s “Navigating Fine Lines” [5].

Then there are studies of observer responses by Renee Glass [8], and Ivar Hagendoorn’s study of dance perception and the brain [10]. These, and the many other chapters, study the creation and perception of contemporary dance from every perspective, and I express my admiration on the way that each author has contributed so collaboratively, but differently, to the 360-degree ambit of the book. By its end, we really do appreciate the multi-dimensions of such a work as Anna Smith’s award-winning Red Rain.

I do not want to give a personal critique of the chapters, but do want to focus on just a few passages, because of the brilliance and beauty of their insights. In the Introduction, by Shirley McKechnie and Robin Grove, there is a breath-taking summary exposition of the connection of our intellect, our senses, our bodies and our art:

. . . from infancy onwards we interpret the world not just intellectually, but through our senses, our physical intelligence. We gather understanding through facial expressions, tones of voice, the things we smell and taste and touch. Through such understandings, we move to imagining a whole world that might be: the region of speculation, possibility, forecasting, memory, and art. And since dance is one of the few arts made out of our own bodies (singing is another), and because it generally employs all the body, not just some specialised parts, it is well placed to act out our sense of ourselves as individuals and as social groupings: as gregarious yet lonely, as skilled yet vulnerable. In short, as that paradoxical phenomenon, embodied minds—which is to say, hungry, reflective, sexual, consciously mortal creatures. [p. 4]

Another passage that caught my eye was Kate Stevens’ lucid explanation of the difficulty of defining choreographic cognition:

. . . the majority of theories in cognitive psychology assume that human memory and cognition involve verbal and/or visual representation . . . In comparison, creativity in contemporary dance is movement-based and material evolves from experimentation and exploration in the medium itself . . . The source of an idea in a new work may be drawn from any modality—visual image or space; heard or felt rhythm, beat, texture; visual, auditory, muscular, or psychological tension; emotion; sound; word; concept . . . The idea is then expressed through movement, tension, and stillness. Second, most theories of cognition derive from studies of static items and objects such as words or pictures. Generating, performing, or observing contemporary dance defies this, too —movement-production and perception-processes being visual, spatial, temporal, and kinaesthetic. [pp. 157-8]

And, lastly, some words from Stephen Malloch’s inspiring chapter asking “Why Do We Like to Dance and Sing?”

Humans, of all ages, not just infants, need to have their impulses of sympathy attuned to by others. This is the basis of companionship. Humans need to share experiences and skills in order to make sense of them. They need to feel pride in accomplishment, and to experience the admiration of affectionate, generous companions. Dance and music are particular cultural substantiations of this need to share sympathetically with others. To share, we use gestures of voice and body, as well as language. [p. 26]

Why is such research as found in Thinking in Four Dimensions so important? The book affords many answers:

• because most people—most researchers—have difficulty in thinking even in three dimensions;
• because this is truly ground-breaking research. Creativity and cognition are not necessarily natural bed-fellows. These studies do rattle at the cage of preconceptions in psychology, in dance, and, more broadly, in the creative arts;
• because it lays—and has already laid—the basis to new approaches to creative work in dance, and, with that, creative new expectations of professional practice;
• because this research is integral to the ever-needed renewal and challenges required of all creative arts, and of the creative industries. Through it, the health and diversity of the dance industry is better assured.

The Australian Government is very interested this year in finding new ways of measuring the impact of research: impact on other researchers, impact upon education, upon professional practice and upon the broader community. This research of Grove, McKechnie and Stevens et al is so important because it scores highly on all these different forms of impact. Unlike much Humanities and natural Science research, which may have an effect mainly upon the research of other researchers, this research impacts very widely: upon dance learners, upon the profession, and, very importantly, through the entertainment potential of the works created, upon the broader community of dance-lovers.

It gives me great pleasure now to declare launched Thinking in Four Dimensions: Creativity and Cognition in Contemporary Dance.