Multimodal communication through dance-music synchronization
Narrative embodiment in classical ballet
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21718846 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mohammad Talebi (0000-0001-9202-8753, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, corresponding author), Alan Cienki (0000-0003-2951-9722, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Vincent Meelberg (0000-0002-9021-543X, Radboud University Nijmegen) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-25 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-02 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Research in Dance Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1464-7893 • E-ISSN: 1470-1111 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14647893.2026.2682749 |
| OpenAlex | W7163211303 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 44 |
Narrative dance uses a repertoire of symbolic dance movements and mimetic and abstract expressive gestures accompanied by various musical elements for meaning generation. This study seeks to gain new insight into entrainment or sensorimotor synchronization between dance movements and musical rhythm for meaning generation in classical ballet solo dance through interviews with choreographers, ballet artistic directors, and senior teachers. The results reveal that entrainment can be seen as involving kinesemiotics (movement-based semiotic systems), metaphorical corporeal articulation (symbolic bodily expression), and expressive gestures for meaning generation and narrative embodiment. It also may arise from emotional induction and kinesthetic empathy (a process in which audiences experience dance through their own sense of movement), resulting from watching and listening to the synchronicity of dance movements and musical beats, where the audio-visual synchrony creates a multimodal rhythm. Each form and level of entrainment, in terms of its duration, sequence, the body parts involved, and the intensity of the beat synchronization, can have semiotic, metaphoric, and/or emotional impact, which may evoke kinesthetic empathy and lead to the emergence of specific meanings
Ballet · Dance · Dance education · Multimodality · Narrative · Story telling · Action Observation and Synchronization · Diversity and Impact of Dance · Theatre and Performance Studies
A Transactional Model of Communication
Hearing in Time
Analysing Musical Multimedia
Metaphors We Live By
Sensorimotor synchronization
Fuzzy sets
Towards semiotically driven empirical studies of ballet as a communicative form
Developing Kinesemiotics
Pointes and pulses
Is Dance a Language? Movement, Meaning and Communication
Towards a sensorimotor aesthetics of performing art
Conceptual Integration and Formal Expression
Kinesthesia, Empathy, and Related Pleasures
The Role of Metaphor in Dance
Non-Verbal Metaphor
| Highly cited | No |
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