Introduction: Dance Art and Science

An introduction to a symposium on dance art and science is presented, which focuses on the phenomenon American critic John Martin called "metakinesis" and its significance for the appreciation and evaluation of dance art. Martin proposed in 1939 that dance art "works" by "speaking" directly to the bodies of audiences. Martin's theory of metakinesis was that human movement is naturally imbued with affective content, and humans grasp the emotional state of others by means of an automatic process of muscular mirroring. On Martin's telling, metakinesis is the heart of dance as an autonomous and meaningful art form.