Exploring Audience Behaviour During Contemporary Dance Performances

Theodorou, Lida; Healey, Patrick G. T.; Smeraldi, Fabrizio

doi:10.1145/2948910.2948928

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…A growing number of studies in dance research use motion sensing technologies but primarily to examine dance movements (Camurri et al, 2003; Calvo-Merino et al, 2004; Leman and Naveda, 2010). In contrast to this very little research has focused on audiences (for exceptions see e.g., Healey et al 2009; Stevens et al 2009; Vincs et al 2010; Gardair et al 2011; Jola et al 2011b; Latulipe et al 2011; Mann et al 2013; Katevas et al 2015; Theodorou et al 2016; Vicary et al 2017). There are many possible ways to measure audience engagement in the performing arts.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A variety of quantitative measures of audience engagement have been tried, which can be divided into overt responses that are expressed through visible human actions, movements or expressions and covert responses, that are manifest in biochemical and electrical changes of the human body. Overt measurements include facial expressions (Katevas et al, 2015; Theodorou et al, 2016), body movement (Healey et al, 2009; Gardair et al, 2011; Theodorou et al, 2016; Vicary et al, 2017), eye movements (Stevens et al, 2009) and continuous self-rated measurements (McAdams et al, 2004; Vincs et al, 2010; Vicary et al, 2017) while some examples of covert responses that have been used are brain activity (Calvo-Merino et al, 2004; Jola et al, 2011b), galvanic skin response (GSR) (Latulipe et al, 2011; Wang et al, 2014), heart rate variability (Shoda et al, 2016; Vicary et al, 2017). To the extent that these covert responses are “invisible” to performers they cannot form the basis of an ongoing performer-audience feedback loop.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research (Theodorou et al, 2016; Theodorou and Healey, 2017) has shown that body fidgeting and self touching gestures (STGs) are relatively frequent in audiences and also potentially detectable by performers. Fidgeting is commonly defined as a general indication of boredom, irritation, and lack of attentional engagement.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous work on live dance audiences has revealed a relatively rich repertoire of different audience body movements: scratching, adjusting hair, adjusting glasses, supporting the chin and drinking amongst others (Theodorou et al, 2016). These movements are not obviously connected with the movements of dancers but are nonetheless at least partially visible to them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engaging With Contemporary Dance: What Can Body Movements Tell us About Audience Responses?

2019

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In live performances seated audiences have restricted opportunities for response. Some responses are obvious, such as applause and cheering, but there are also many apparently incidental movements including posture shifts, fixing hair, scratching and adjusting glasses. Do these movements provide clues to people's level of engagement with a performance? Our basic hypothesis is that audience responses are part of a bi-directional system of audience-performer communication. This communication is part of what distinguishes live from recorded performance and underpins live performers' moment-to-moment sense of how well a performance is going. Here we investigate the range of visible real-time movements of audiences in four live contemporary dance performances. Video recordings of performers and audiences were analyzed using computer vision techniques for extracting face, hand and body movement data. The meaning of audience movements were analyzed by comparing clips of the audience at moments of maximum and minimum movement to expert and novice judges. The results show that audience clips with the lowest overall movement are judged as displaying the highest engagement. In addition, we found that while there is no systematic relationship between audience and dancers movement, hands seem to play an especially significant role since they move significantly more compared to the rest of the body. We draw on these findings to argue that collective stillness is an especially salient signal of audience engagement.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engaging With Contemporary Dance: What Can Body Movements Tell us About Audience Responses?

2019

Self Cite

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“…Recently, research on audiences of live performances has gained interest (Egermann et al, 2011; Burland and Pitts, 2014; Danielsen and Helseth, 2016; Bradby, 2017; Brown and Knox, 2017), in part because audiences provide an ecologically valid setting for examining group dynamics. Audience experience has been examined with a variety of techniques including real-time subjective responses (McAdams, 2004; Stevens et al, 2009, 2014; Egermann et al, 2013), social networking (Deller, 2011), video analysis (Chan et al, 2013; Silverberg et al, 2013; Stevens et al, 2014; Leante, 2016; Theodorou et al, 2016) and physiological measurement (Fancourt and Williamon, 2016; Bernardi et al, 2017). It is important to understand effects of the concert setting because attendance may increase health: attending a musical performance was found to reduce stress hormones in audience members (Fancourt and Williamon, 2016) and a 10-year longitudinal study suggested that engagement in cultural events, including concerts, may protect against age-related cognitive decline (Fancourt and Steptoe, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Live Music Moves Us: Head Movement Differences in Audiences to Live Versus Recorded Music

et al. 2019

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A live music concert is a pleasurable social event that is among the most visceral and memorable forms of musical engagement. But what inspires listeners to attend concerts, sometimes at great expense, when they could listen to recordings at home? An iconic aspect of popular concerts is engaging with other audience members through moving to the music. Head movements, in particular, reflect emotion and have social consequences when experienced with others. Previous studies have explored the affiliative social engagement experienced among people moving together to music. But live concerts have other features that might also be important, such as that during a live performance the music unfolds in a unique and not predetermined way, potentially increasing anticipation and feelings of involvement for the audience. Being in the same space as the musicians might also be exciting. Here we controlled for simply being in an audience to examine whether factors inherent to live performance contribute to the concert experience. We used motion capture to compare head movement responses at a live album release concert featuring Canadian rock star Ian Fletcher Thornley, and at a concert without the performers where the same songs were played from the recorded album. We also examined effects of a prior connection with the performers by comparing fans and neutral-listeners, while controlling for familiarity with the songs, as the album had not yet been released. Head movements were faster during the live concert than the album-playback concert. Self-reported fans moved faster and exhibited greater levels of rhythmic entrainment than neutral-listeners. These results indicate that live music engages listeners to a greater extent than pre-recorded music and that a pre-existing admiration for the performers also leads to higher engagement.

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“It’s Like Being on Stage”: Staging an Improvisational Haptic-Installed Contemporary Dance Performance

Li,

Shen,

Kamiyama

et al. 2024

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Exploring Audience Behaviour During Contemporary Dance Performances

Cited by 10 publications

References 5 publications

Engaging With Contemporary Dance: What Can Body Movements Tell us About Audience Responses?

Engaging With Contemporary Dance: What Can Body Movements Tell us About Audience Responses?

How Live Music Moves Us: Head Movement Differences in Audiences to Live Versus Recorded Music

“It’s Like Being on Stage”: Staging an Improvisational Haptic-Installed Contemporary Dance Performance

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