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Translating from Pitch to Plié: Music Theory for Dance Scholars

and Close Movement Analysis for Music Scholars
Article in Dance Chronicle · May 2013

DOI: 10.1080/01472526.2013.792714
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Translating from Pitch to Plié: Music

Theory for Dance Scholars and Close
Movement Analysis for Music Scholars
Juliet McMains & Ben Thomas
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for Dance Scholars and Close Movement Analysis for Music Scholars, Dance Chronicle, 36:2, 196-217,
DOI: 10.1080/01472526.2013.792714
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Translating from Pitch to Plié: Music Theory

for Dance Scholars and Close Movement
Analysis for Music Scholars
JULIET MCMAINS and BEN THOMAS

Downloaded by [University of Washington Libraries] at 21:23 04 August 2013
A major impediment to greater integration of music and dance

scholarship is the lack of common terminology. This paper aims
to give music and dance scholars some tools of analysis for ex-
ploring how each of these related arts interacts with the other.
After presenting analogies between terminology in music theory
and movement analysis, the authors demonstrate how these tools
can be applied in choreomusical analysis. We discuss two broad
categories of choreomusical relationships: amplification and emer-
gence, whose effects can be analyzed, we propose, through three
strategies: conformance, isolated dissonance, and reorchestration.
[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the
publisher’s online edition of Dance Chronicle for the following free
supplemental resources: Three video excerpts from Shen Wei’s
choreography (2003) to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, performed
by Shen Wei Dance Arts at the Park Avenue Armory in New York
in 2011.]
In overlapping succession, dancers spiral up from the floor like sprouting

vines, their bodies hanging momentarily from suspended fingertips before
winding back to the floor, the momentum of the fall propelling a new upward
ascent. One by one, dancers break free from this unrelenting cycle and run
to form a column stage right. Accompanying this movement are barrages of
sound, built on chordal tremolos that have the energy of tightly coiled springs
ready to burst. Musical lines ascend and descend rapidly and sometimes
spiral in on themselves as they fall. The music continues to build as the
dancers leave the space, creating momentary tension, which is immediately
resolved as a dancer slides across center stage, coinciding with the beginning
of the next musical movement. Watching even this brief thirty-second dance-
music interaction in Shen Wei’s interpretation of Igor Stravinky’s The Rite of
196
Translating from Pitch to Plié 197
Spring reveals how music and dance mirror, complement, and contest one
another in powerful ways.*
The impact of MacArthur “genius” Shen Wei’s choreographic interpre-
tation depends upon the complex ways in which his dancers engage with
Stravinsky’s masterwork, considered by many to be the Promethean work
of modern music. The experience of listening to the music may be altered
by the viewer’s kinesthesic responses to the dance. For example, in casual
conversations with musicians who are intimately familiar with The Rite of
Spring, several have declared that witnessing this dance performance has
altered their aural experience of the music.
While music and dance are often integrally linked, the disparate lan-
guages of the two disciplines rarely facilitate analysis of their interaction.

Music theory, which addresses the fundamental elements of music and
the formal analysis of the structures of music composition, has its roots
in Greece over two thousand years ago. An analogous pursuit in dance
scholarship—movement analysis†—has only been in development for about
one hundred years, its founding often being attributed to Rudolf Laban.1
Few systems of training for artists and/or scholars require individuals to
study both music theory and movement analysis, resulting in infrequent dia-
logue between the two. Many dancers are at least familiar with the language
and structure of music as a result of the frequent use of music and partner-
ing with musicians in most dance traditions. Even so, few dancers or dance
scholars regularly approach analysis of musical structures with the same rigor
or specificity that they use to analyze choreographic structures. For their part,
musicians can spend years in a conservatory or entire professional careers
without any significant interaction with dance.
In order to facilitate communication between the two arts, we began
with a dialogue between one dancer and one musician, both of whom have
had more than the customary experience in each other’s art form. Juliet
McMains has trained in multiple Western concert dance forms, but spent her
professional career performing and teaching social dance forms and their
theatrical expressions, including ballroom, salsa, and tango. Her scholarship
on these subjects has required intensive academic and practical study of
Latin music. She often incorporates the study of music into the courses
*
Descriptions and analysis of Shen Wei’s Rite of Spring are based on a DVD generously
loaned to us by Shen Wei Dance Arts. The DVD captures a live performance of the work in
New York at LaGuardia Concert Hall during the Lincoln Center Festival in July 2003. One of
us saw the company perform the piece live at Meany Hall in Seattle in January 2007.
†
The term “dance theory” usually refers to theories about the social, cultural, political,
and economic production and consumption of dance, which in the field of music would be
the domain of musicologists, music historians, or ethnomusicologists, not music theorists. This
disparity in the basic terminology used to describe the subdisciplines within music and dance
scholarship is one of the fundamental stumbling blocks to communication and cooperation
between the two disciplines.
198 Dance Chronicle
she teaches in dance practice and theory at the University of Washington.

Ben Thomas is a composer and percussionist specializing in Latin American
music and jazz. Not only has he performed as a leader and sideman for
ensembles playing for tango, salsa, and swing dancers, but also he is an
avid salsa and tango dancer himself. In addition, he worked for years as a
dance accompanist at the University of Michigan and has composed works
for several choreographers. He currently teaches music theory, history, and
performance at Highline Community College and Cornish College of the Arts.
Our initial conversations about the lack of dialogue and common lan-
guage between the disciplines of music and dance evolved into a more
focused effort to educate music scholars about the language of dance and,
likewise, to help dance scholars acquire tools to discuss music with more
specificity and depth. The result of our endeavors, this paper is divided
into two parts: first, we present a model that draws upon knowledge in
one discipline in order to build skills to analyze analogous structures in the
other. Second, we illustrate how scholars can apply this model to analyze
the interactions between music and dance. An analysis of specific exam-
ples demonstrates how the analytical tools implicit in the model can be put
to use to reveal different kinds of interactions, including (a) amplification
or illustration of ideas presented in one medium in the other medium and
(b) emergence of new ideas through the interaction of music and dance. We
created these tools to examine the effect of music-dance relationships for per-
formers and audiences, not to inform the creation of music or dance. These
theories could be expanded and reconceptualized to make them applicable
to the experiences of performing and creating in music-dance collaborations.
Such a project, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Furthermore,
although these tools might also be useful in comparing the intentions of an
artist to the choreomusical effects s/he produces, we have chosen to focus
on the results of the creative process, rather than on the artist’s intent.
There is, in fact, a fledgling body of literature on choreomusical analysis,
a term proposed by musicologist Paul Hodgins in 1991, that has since been
adopted by dance scholars such as Stephanie Jordan and Inger Damsholt.2
Long before popularization of the term, however, intellectuals have discussed
and debated the nature of choreomusical relationships. For example, in 1919
the Swiss music educator Émile Jacques-Dalcroze devised a chart of elements
common to music and plastique animée (moving plastic) a term he devised
to describe music visualization through movement.3 While Dalcroze’s work
was concerned with a direct translation of music into movement, other artists
have been equally committed to separating dance from the music to which
it is performed.
In perhaps the most famous of all music-dance collaborations in Western
concert art— that between John Cage and Merce Cunningham—each worked
independently to compose music or dance that would come together for the
first time on opening night, highlighting the independence of the two art
forms.* Even though Cage and Cunningham were not necessarily attempting
to disconnect dance and music, but were instead searching for new relation-
ships that might emerge through their chance alignment, many people have
since interpreted their strategy as one that aimed to sever the interdepen-
dence of music and dance.4 In the words of historian Richard Kostelanetz,
“From Cunningham/Cage collaborations have come the currently popular
customs of keeping apart those elements that might normally be expected to
coincide, or of simultaneously offering materials that otherwise have nothing
to do with one another. Their great, much imitated idea was presentational
noncongruence.”5
In fact, this dualism of similarity versus difference turns out to be not
only the key issue that divides artists in how they approach choreomusi-
cal relationships, but also the focus around which theories of choreomusical
analysis have centered. For example, musicologist Nicholas Cook develops a
theory about how music relates to other media, such as film, television com-
mercials, and dance, through applying tests of similarity and difference, re-
sulting in categories he calls “coherence,” “complementation,” and “contest.”6
Likewise, dance scholar Inger Damsholt suggests that dance relates to music
on a scale between the two extremes of music visualization and counter-
point, which she also calls “opposition.”7 “Unity or Independence?” was the
opening question in the call for papers for a recent conference on music and
dance held at McGill University.8
Such binaries are, of course, false dichotomies. Music and dance work
in unity and independence. They relate to each other through coherence
and contestation, mimicry and counterpoint, similarity and difference. Just
as great music or dance is produced through informed manipulation of ten-
sion and release, meaningful music-dance relationships are created through
conscious manipulation of alignment and opposition of the two arts. In
order to advance the field of choreomusical analysis, scholars need tools
to analyze how and when musical and dance structures converge and di-
verge. Our assertion reiterates similar arguments made by other scholars,
such as Barbara White, who encourages us “to look past the binary fallacy
of whether the elements are coordinated to observing where it is that they
inevitably meet—whether the point of contact falls at the level of gesture,
texture, rhythm, phrasing, formal design, register, contour, melody, or har-
mony, and so on—and to consider more fully what happens in that fleeting
moment where music and movement reflect each other.”9
Dance and music concerts privilege different senses, with audience
members experiencing music as primarily auditory and dance as primar-
ily visual. Of course, both also invoke other sensory experiences, especially
*
The Cage/Cunningham collaborative process has been well documented. See, for exam-
ple, Richard Kostelanetz, John Cage (ex)plain(ed) (New York: Schirmer, 1996), 29–30.
200 Dance Chronicle
kinesthetic empathy—the body’s response to watching someone else per-

form a familiar movement.10 We recognize that musicians use movement to
create sound, and dancers make noise when they move, but these secondary
effects are rarely fundamental to the artistic intent. We also acknowledge that
this broad generalization does not by any means characterize all forms of
music and dance. Many percussive dance forms, like tap and flamenco, or
movement-centered music forms, such as taiko drumming and marching
band, integrate movement and sound so completely that to watch without
listening or to hear without watching would cause irreparable damage to
the intended experience. Even in those forms in which music and dance
are inexorably tied, a temporary separation of the aural and visual aspects
for the purpose of analysis may be useful. Thus, throughout this paper, we
discuss music and dance as if they were distinct entities—one aural and one
visual—even though we recognize that such a dichotomy does not capture
the richness of artistic practice.
To begin, we have developed a chart illustrating possible (but by no
means exhaustive) points of analogy between music and dance that could
be starting points for examining their relationships. Building on the connec-
tions outlined in the chart, we present a series of tools that can be applied
to reveal the specific ways in which music and dance interact. Although we
are not the first scholars to devise such a chart (indeed, we are indebted
to similar undertakings by Dalcroze and Hodgins), our model for choreo-
musical analysis is unique for two reasons. First, although several scholars
have attempted to establish connections between the languages of music
and dance, they begin with music terminology, thus privileging music as
primary.11 In an effort to provide an alternative perspective, our chart of
analogies goes two ways, from music to dance and from dance to music.
Our hope is that by creating a two-way model that allows either music or
dance to be the starting point, we can help to bring the two into greater di-
alogue. Second, previous choreomusical analyses have focused on Western
concert dance and music.12 Our work expands the scope of choreomusi-
cal analysis by encompassing non-Western and popular music and dance
genres.
As we delve into the analogies, we would like to stress that we are
not proposing a one-to-one correspondence between structures, terms, or
concepts in music and dance. We are merely laying out examples of some
analogies that the music or dance scholar might begin with, adding to, sub-
tracting from, and editing this chart as may be useful for a specific choreo-
musical project. In Table 1, we present a mapping from musical vocabulary
to dance terminology. Although terminology used in music theory is com-
monly agreed upon and shared by most music scholars, terminology used
for movement analysis is not universally accepted, so the terms we use may
be unfamiliar to even some dancers. We are drawing primarily on the lan-
guage of Laban Movement Analysis,13 augmented by terminology proposed
TABLE 1 Dance Analysis for Music Scholars: Points of Analogy, Music-to-Dance Terminology
Music Dance
Rhythm: organization of sound in time Rhythm: organization of movement in time

• Pulse/Beat • Beat
• Meter • Meter
• Rhythm • Rhythm
Nonmetric music Nonmetric dance
Pitch Vocabulary and syntax

• What pitches are used • What moves are used (vocabulary)
• How pitches are connected to each other • How moves are connected (syntax)
both vertically and horizontally
Timbre (sound color): distinguishing quality Movement quality: distinguishing quality of

of a sound other than pitch or volume a movement other than vocabulary
• Often described with adjectives associated • Often described with adjectives: e.g.,
with other senses: e.g., narrow vs. full, delicate, aggressive, playful, fluid
gloomy vs. clear, delicate vs. harsh • Laban’s effort scale (see Table 2)
Density Size, frequency, and amount of movement

• Horizontal • Successional density
• Vertical • Simultaneous density
Register Use of space

• High/low • High/low or near/far
Range of motion
Use of weight
Dynamics Size of gesture

• Changes in volume Proximity to audience
Phrasing Phrasing
• Articulation: legato/staccato • Articulation: successional/sequential
• Accents or how various accents (dynamic, • Accents or how movement is phrased
tonal, agogic) are produced in terms of size, space, speed
Texture Relations among dancers’ movements

• Monophonic • All dancers in unison (or solo dancer)
• Homophonic • Soloist supported by a corps de ballet
• Polyphonic • Different parts of equal importance
• Heterophonic • Minor variations on a common theme
by Susan Foster in her seminal work Reading Dancing.* Although Foster’s

analytic system was developed specifically for application to contemporary
Western concert dance, we demonstrate through our analysis of multiple
*
Susan Leigh Foster, Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American
Dance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). Similar systems of movement analysis
proposed by other scholars often draw on related concepts, although the terminology may
vary. See, for example, Janet Adshead, ed., Dance Analysis: Theory and Practice (London:
Dance Books, 1988); Irmgard Bartenieff, et al., “The Potential of Movement Analysis as a
Research Tool: A Preliminary Analysis,” Dance Research Journal, vol. 16, no. 1 (1984): 3–26;
Valerie Preston-Dunlop and Ana Sanchez-Colberg, Dance and the Performative: A Choreolog-
ical Perspective, Laban and Beyond (London: Verve, 2002).
202 Dance Chronicle
non-Western and social dance forms that her terminology can be extended
into additional contexts.
TRANSLATING FROM MUSIC TO DANCE
Rhythm: For many people, rhythm is the easiest and most important attribute
through which the interaction between music and dance can be examined, in
large part because dancers and musicians conceive of and describe rhythm in
similar ways.* For many forms of music and dance, a regular pulse, organized
into measures, is the primary method of ordering events in time. Both musi-
cians and dancers put specific rhythmic events into a metric framework, for
example, grouping actions into duples or triples. Even though dancers and
musicians may sometimes use metric containers of different sizes to count
the same rhythms—such as dancers counting 4/4 music in eight-beat units
and musicians counting the same phrase in four-beat units—both are con-
ceiving of time in complementary terms. Much choreomusical scholarship to
date has focused on rhythm because it offers such a clear point of translation
across the mediums. For example, Stephanie Jordan remarks, “In terms of
the formal aspects of my methodology, I have stressed rhythm as the main
component for the comparison of music and dance, even though rhythm
directly informs, and is informed by, other components such as harmony in
music and spatial factors in dance.”14
Pitch: In analysis of music, examination of pitch (the frequency of a
note) is central, encompassing which pitches are used and how these pitches
relate to one another. Pitch relationships can be vertical, as when multiple
notes are played simultaneously (in a chord or a harmonic interval), or hor-
izontal, as when pitches change across time (in a melodic line). In other
words, analyses are often concerned with what harmonic and melodic struc-
tures are used and how these structures progress over time. At first glance, it
might seem that an analogous point of entry might be to look at what moves,
or vocabulary, are used in dance. This analogy is, however, often unsatis-
fying. Most musical forms use a limited number of fixed pitches (twelve in
Western music) that are perceived to occur in predictable relationships. For
example, a note played at a frequency of 440Hz and one played at 880Hz
are perceived as the same note an octave apart. In contrast, most dance
genres have hundreds, if not thousands, of possible moves without univer-
sally recognized relationships to one another. Thus, the kinds of structural
analysis done by music theorists on melodies and harmonies do not trans-
late easily to dance. However, we might consider a recognizable movement
*
See the discussion of Laban’s development of eukinetics as an analog to the study
of rhythm and dynamics in music in Preston-Dunlop and Sanchez-Colberg, Dance and the
Performative, 92–101.
motif, or sequence of moves, that recurs throughout the dance as analogous

to a melody. Furthermore, the analysis of relationships between chords or
pitches can be likened to the examination of dance syntax—rules and affini-
ties that guide how dance moves are ordered.* Syntax can refer not only
to the ultimate order of moves in a dance, but also to the guiding princi-
ples that determine that order (such as repetition, retrograde, canon, chance
procedures, improvisation in dialogue with a musician, etc.).
Timbre: If timbre describes sound quality, we can find analogies in
dance by looking at movement quality, or how a movement is performed.
Both musicians and dancers might use adjectives to describe the quality
of sound (e.g., sharp, dark, clear) or movement (e.g., delicate, fluid, fre-
netic). In addition, both dance and music scholars have developed special-
ized theoretical systems and concomitant terminology that may be used to
describe movement quality or timbre respectively, such as Rudolf Laban’s
effort/shape,15 which we will discuss in greater detail shortly, and Anne
Caclin’s multidimensional approach to timbre.16
Density: Musical density, which describes how much information is
packed into a given space, can be considered for a given time span (horizon-
tal density) or for a single point in time (vertical density). Similar distinctions
can be made when looking at dance. If one dancer is doing a lot of move-
ments at once or if many dancers are doing different movements at the same
time, we might compare this simultaneity of movement to vertical density. If
there is a lot of movement activity (in size, variety, and/or frequency) over
an extended period of time, we might compare this to horizontal density.
Register: The register of an instrument—how high or low pitches are
played on a given instrument or in a family of instruments—could corre-
spond to the use of space in dance. For example, use of high notes in music
could correspond to use of high space or near space (keeping limbs close to
bodies) in dance. As for each of the categories we are outlining, several com-
parisons are possible. Register might be analogous, as well, to the dancers’
range of motion or their characteristic use of weight (strong or light).
Dynamics: Although the word “dynamics” is commonly used to refer
to a variety of parameters in dance, in music it almost exclusively refers to
changes in volume. Changes of intensity are fundamental to the performance
of many forms of music and dance. Music without changes in volume often
seems flat and unengaging. An analogous parameter in dance might be the
size of gesture: a small movement might appear to be quiet and a large
one loud. Such effects could be produced either through how far a dancer
extends her limbs within her personal kinesphere,† or it could be achieved
*
Use of the term “syntax” to describe rules and principles that guide the ordering of dance
vocabulary was proposed by Susan Foster in Reading Dancing, 92–97.
†
The concept of personal kinesphere, “the circumference of which can be reached by
normally extended limbs without changing one’s stance,” was developed by Rudolf Laban,
204 Dance Chronicle
through proximity to audience. For example, action downstage—in other

words, near the audience—appears larger than activity upstage.*
Phrasing: Phrasing refers to the way musical events are divided and
grouped. Two important factors that determine how we experience the
grouping of events are articulation and accent. Articulation refers to the con-
nectedness of individual events, which in music covers a continuum from
staccato (short and detached) to legato (smooth and connected). Likewise,
in dance, movement can be conveyed as a series of detached (sequential)
moves or as a connected (successional) phrase. Accents, in both mediums,
refer to anchor points around which we organize our experience of a phrase.
In music, accents are usually created through one or any combination of three
strategies: changes in volume (dynamic accent), changes in pitch (tonal ac-

cent), or manipulation of duration (agogic accent). Similarly, in dance an
accent could be created through changes in size of movement, changes in
use of space (e.g., height), and/or alterations in speed (such as changes in
timing of weight shifts or prolongation of gestures).
Texture: Texture in music refers to how voices interact with and support
one another. Monophonic texture designates a single line, played by one or
more instruments. Homophonic texture describes a melody supported by
chords. Polyphonic texture indicates that multiple lines of equal interest
happen simultaneously. Heterophonic texture often refers to a single line
being played with intentional variation, as when one or more players or
voices ornament the line. We could similarly look at how dancers’ phrases
are perceived in relation to one another by audience members. If there is a
single dancer, or if all dancers are moving in unison, this would be similar to
a monophonic texture. If there is a soloist supported by a corps of dancers
doing less complex movement, as is often seen in ballet, this would be
analogous to homophony. If all dancers are dancing different parts without
a focus on any particular dancer, we might call this polyphony. Finally, if
some dancers are performing minor variations on a common theme, or if
they are performing slightly out of synchronization, we might compare this
to heterophony.
Modern Educational Dance, 2nd ed., rev. Lisa Ullmann (New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
1978), 85.
*
This is actually the inference most commonly made by dancers performing in a sound-
painting choir when they interpret a conductor’s directive to make changes in volume. Helen
Julia Minors, “Music-Movement Dialogues: Exploring Live Composition,” paper presented at
Dance and Music: Moving Dialogues, conference, McGill University, February 16–19, 2011.
Developed by Walter Thompson in the 1980s, sound painting enables a conductor, through
the use of hand gestures, to shape an improvisation with a group of artists (musicians, dancers,
and/or actors). See http://www.soundpainting.com. December 11, 2012 (accessed March 31,
2013).
TRANSLATING FROM DANCE TO MUSIC
Now that we have explored some of the possible translations from music to
dance, we will explicate Table 2, which concerns translations from dance to
music.
TABLE 2 Music Analysis for Dance Scholars: Points of Analogy, Dance-to-Music Terminology
Dance Music
Frame: separates the dance from and situates it in Frame: separates and situates the
the environment: e.g., stage, lighting, music in the environment
costumes, music, sets, cost, program, title,
beginning and ending
Vocabulary: e.g., battement, plié, moonwalk, boleo, Vocabulary: e.g., blues scale, plagal
vacunao, time step cadence, dominant 7th chord,
flam, tumbao
Syntax: guides organization of vocabulary Syntax

• Formal structure: conventions of the form • Formal structure: e.g., sonata,
• Choreographic tools and grammar: e.g., twelve-bar blues, raga
mimicking of musical structure, narrative, • Musical procedures and grammar:
improvisation, chance operations, response to e.g., chance operations, serialism,
a partner musician follows dancer
Space Musical space

• Near, mid, far (personal kinesphere) • Register
• Levels (high/low) • Dynamics
• Depth of space (near/far) • Horizontal density
Shape Musical shape

• Pathways through space • Chordal voicings
• Body shapes • Shape of melodic line
Body Instrumentation
• Which bodies: e.g., race, sex, etc. • Which instruments
• Body parts • Register or part of a composite
• Shapes: e.g., curved, linear, angular, instrument
symmetrical, asymmetrical • Musical shape: e.g., smooth,
angular
Effort Timbre
• Space (direct/indirect) • Focused vs. unfocused sound
• Time (quick/sustained) • Quick/sustained
• Weight (light/strong) • Volume (soft/loud) or pitch
• Flow (bound/free) (high/low)
• Register and rhythm
Phrasing Phrasing
• Accents: impulsive, emphatic, swing, vibration • Accents: location within phrase
Rhythm See Table 1

206 Dance Chronicle
Frame: The same way the frame of a painting delineates the artwork
from that which surrounds it, the frame of a dance is everything that separates
the dance from and situates it in the environment. Elements of frame include
the stage space, lighting, costumes, sets, ticket price, and program notes.17
In music, these same elements separate music from and situate it in its
environment.*
Vocabulary: The moves that make up a dance can be referred to as its
vocabulary. Examples of dance vocabulary include battement and plié from
ballet, moonwalk from American popular dance, boleo from tango, vacunao
from rumba guaguancó, and time step from tap. In music, we could look for
combinations of sounds that take on the characteristic of being an identifiable
gesture, such as blues scale, plagal cadence, dominant 7th chord, flam, and
tumbao.†
Syntax: Similar to grammatical syntax, which guides the organization of
words in language, dance syntax guides the organization of dance vocabu-
lary. Syntax includes both the formal structure of a particular dance genre
(e.g., b-boying begins with uprocking, proceeds into footwork, continues
with power moves, and ends with a freeze) and specific choreographic tools
and grammar available to each dancer or choreographer. Examples of syn-
tactical strategies employed in dance include: mimicking musical structure,
following a narrative, improvising, using chance operations, and responding
to a partner. Similarly, we might think of syntax in music as including both
formal structures that guide order and/or proportion, such as sonata, twelve-
bar blues, and raga, and grammatical structures such as serialism or aleatoric
procedures.
Space: Use of space in dance is often considered in two broad categories:
personal space and general space. Personal space is the space one can
reach around one’s body extending in all directions. We often talk about
characteristic use of personal space as near, mid-range, or far. In addition,
some dancers or styles of dance may have a predilection for using particular
levels in space, such as b-boys who tend to use low space more often than
high space. Dancers interact with general space in a variety of ways. For
example, choreography might use downstage (near to the audience) more
than upstage or stage right more than stage left. Because there is not a one-
to-one correspondence between these categories in dance and music, there
are always several possible points of analogy. For example, some analogous
*
For a discussion of how music is situated in its environment and how this compares to
other art forms, such as painting, drama, and literature, see chapter 1 of Edward T. Cone’s
Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1968).
†
A blues scale is a common collection of pitches often heard in blues, jazz, and rock.
A plagal cadence is a movement from the subdominant to tonic. A dominant 7th chord is a
chord with a strong tendency to resolve toward the tonic. A flam is a gesture used in many
drumming styles. A tumbao is a pattern from Afro-Cuban music.
uses of space in music might include register (how high or low a pitch is),
dynamics (how loud or soft the sound is), or level of horizontal density (how
much sound is packed into a given interval of time).
Shape: The category of space often bleeds into the category of shape
when considering the pathways dancers use as they move through space.
A particular genre of dance might use spatial patterns that are more
circular than linear (e.g., capoeira versus carnival samba). In addition,
movement can be analyzed based on characteristic use of body shapes:
curved, linear, angular, symmetrical, and so forth. Musicians discuss the
shapes of musical lines in similar terms. For example, a line with wide
intervals and drastic changes of direction in pitch can be described as
angular.
Bodies: When analyzing bodies in dance, we might first consider who
is dancing. Is their age, gender, race, or size significant? For example, the
casting of men as swans, a role usually played by women, is central to the
conceit of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. In music, it might be relevant to
ask the same questions about musicians. For example, women do not hit the
drum in most Native American drumming traditions. Therefore, the gender of
a Native American drummer, and whether it conforms to or violates expected
codes of gender, might be a significant analytical point. Likewise, size can
be relevant when watching someone like six-foot-six Cuban piano virtuoso
Chucho Valdez, whose fingers float from one end of the keyboard to the
other with unflappable ease. His imposing size diminishes the power differ-
ential between musician and instrument, giving his playing an unmatched
elegance. More often, however, the age, size, or gender of the musician is
not relevant to the conception of the music. In such cases, a more useful
equivalent to the bodies of the dancers might be the instruments chosen for
the composition.
In analyzing dance, examining body parts that initiate movement or that
the choreography foregrounds can also be useful. For example, Isadora Dun-
can’s characteristic movement from the solar plexus contrasts with Martha
Graham’s use of the pelvis.18 While movement of the bodies of musicians
may be a factor in the experience of listening to some music—especially
forms, like taiko drumming, in which choreography is considered in the
composition of sound—more often the musicians’ movement does not enter
into the conception of a work in a significant way. For example, although
watching thirty violinists coordinate movement of their bows in unison might
be a powerful experience for the audience, the effect of their movement is
probably not considered in the development of a symphony. This is espe-
cially true with modern work, as more people are likely to experience it
through recordings and radio, where the bodies of the musicians are not
visible. Thus, it might be more productive to compare the choice of body
parts featured in a dance to the choice of instruments used and also to the
characteristic use of register of each instrument.
208 Dance Chronicle
Effort: One of the most important theorists in movement analysis, Rudolf

Laban, whose theories we have drawn on heavily throughout this paper,
developed a system for analyzing movement quality, which may be con-
ceived as a series of relative values on an effort scale. He divided effort
into four categories, and movement can be thought of as existing on a
continuum between two poles in each category. For example, a dancer’s
relationship to space can vary from direct to indirect. In relationship to time,
a dancer’s movement can range from very quick to very sustained. A dancer
can move with varying degrees of strength or lightness in the use of weight.
Flow, which refers to the degree of freedom in movement, can be bound or
free.*
The directness or indirectness of movement can be compared to how

focused or unfocused a tone is. Sound can be quick or sustained. And the
dancer’s use of weight has a clear analog in musical dynamics. Flow is
more complicated, relying on a combination of several musical parameters,
including register, regularity of beat, and note placement in reference to the
beat. For example, use of high register combined with unyielding conformity
to the beat may feel bound and constrained.
Phrasing: Locating an accent within a phrase is often important in struc-
turing dance. For example, a phrase beginning with an accent produces
an effect different from one ending with an accent. Think of the difference
between casting a fishing rod, where the action begins with a sudden im-
pulse that slowly dissipates, versus striking a nail with a hammer, where the
movement reaches its climax upon impact. In dance, a phrase that begins
with an accent is often called impulsive, whereas a phrase that ends with
an accent is called impactful or emphatic. A phrase with an accent in the
middle is a swing. A phrase with a continuously pulsing accent might be
called vibratory.† Although musicians do not use such terminology, recog-
nizing which of these patterns characterizes the placement of accents can
be helpful for comparing different pieces or genres of music. For example,
in classical Western music, most glissandi end with an accent. However, the
glissandi known as arrastres in tango music are usually accented at the onset
of the musical gesture.19
*
Laban’s effort theories have been further developed by many scholars, notably Irmgard
Bartenieff. See Irmgard Bartenieff et al., “The Potential of Movement Analysis as a Research
Tool: A Preliminary Analysis,” Dance Research Journal, vol. 16, no. 1 (1984): 3–26; Irmgard
Bartenieff, Martha Davis, and Forrestine Paulay, Four Adaptations of Effort Theory in Research
and Teaching (New York: Dance Notation Bureau, 1973).
†
These terms for rhythmical phrasing have been developed and used by scholars ex-
tending the work of Laban. See, for example, Jane Winearls, Modern Dance: The Jooss-Leeder
Method (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958), 78.
APPLICATION AND ANALYSIS
Now, to demonstrate how these tools can be applied in choreomusical anal-

ysis, we discuss two broad kinds of choreomusical relationships, which we
describe as amplification and emergence. Our examples will draw on both
intrinsic and extrinsic relationships, a distinction developed by musician Paul
Hodgins. Intrinsic refers to formal and structural connections between music
and dance. For example, when changes in volume are linked to changes in
the size of physical gestures, an intrinsic choreomusical relationship results.
Extrinsic relationships are dependent on cultural referents that, in the words
of Hodgins, “admit the presence of an implied third partner to the chore-
omusical marriage.”20 For example, if a wedding march is played while a

man and a woman are walking across the stage, the audience immediately
associates the external wedding narrative with the performance. Our analy-
sis includes examples of both intrinsic and extrinsic relationships, sometimes
occurring simultaneously.
We developed these applied choreomusical theories through analyzing
the work of specific artists with whom we were already familiar through
our experience as artist-scholars. We discussed artists, most of whom one
or both of us had seen perform live, with a predilection for developing
interesting choreomusical relationships. Because this kind of analysis cannot
easily be done on live performance, we sought out videotaped examples of
their works and studied similarities and differences in how they manipulated
music and dance. The examples for this paper were selected to illustrate how
these tools could be applied in a wide range of genres. We do not mean to
imply that the phenomena we articulate will be found in every instance of
music-dance interaction, but we hope to highlight how our techniques can
be used to explain and evaluate specific relationships between music and
dance when they do occur. We do not draw out relationships among our
examples or offer thorough sociohistorical context, although we do include
references for further reading in each form.
Amplification
Amplification* can occur in one of three ways: (a) dance can amplify or
illustrate an idea presented in the music; (b) music can amplify or illustrate an
idea presented in the dance; (c) dance and music can amplify each other with
neither medium taking a primary or secondary role. In any of these cases,
*
The term amplification is also used by Nicholas Cook to explain a common relationship
between music and other media such as film, opera, and commercials when music is used
“to enhance the meaning that is already present in a given medium through the conformance
with it.” Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998), 112.
210 Dance Chronicle
a musical idea can highlight choreography or vice versa in several different

ways, of which we will concentrate on three: isolated conformance, isolated
opposition, and reorchestration. We developed these terms to describe the
various ways in which movement and sound can affect how the other is
experienced through amplification. Below we define each term as we offer
examples illustrating its use.
DANCE AMPLIFYING AN ASPECT OF THE MUSIC

In our first example, Magna Gopal and Shaka Brown improvise salsa to “Bi-
longo” by Ismael Rivera/Fania All-Stars (http://youtu.be/rJjGScJCsLs). Gopal
and Brown are touring professional dancers who teach and perform at salsa
congresses—international gatherings featuring workshops, performances,
and social salsa dancing. This clip captures their social dancing at the 2007
Atlanta Salsa Congress. Improvising to a well-known song by the Fania All-
Stars,* the pair demonstrates the effect we call isolated conformance. We use
this term to refer to dance that mimics the music very closely for an isolated
period of time, preceded and followed by dancing that may be aligned with
the music on some points but does not attempt such a direct physicalization
of it. We believe that this selective alignment of music and dance is much
more powerful than continuous conformance, which often seems simplistic
or naive. In this example, we see Gopal and Brown matching their foot-
work to the rhythm of the music, stopping and starting in direct correlation
with sounds and silences. In addition, the dancers highlight the polyphonic
texture of the music by each executing different steps that are of equal im-
portance. The sequential articulation of their footsteps highlights the staccato
articulation in the music. Even the way they accentuate those steps, putting
the accent at the end of a sequence of spins, mirrors the phrasing in the
music. Also note the way in which Gopal’s body ripple moves up and then
down her spine corresponding to rising and lowering pitch in the music.
The fact that this dance is improvised and we are watching lightning-fast
decisions inspired by the recorded music makes the isolated conformance
even more striking.
Dance can also amplify aspects of the music in concert dance, such as
in Shen Wei’s choreography to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, performed by
*
For a history of salsa music, see César Miguel Rondón, The Book of Salsa: A Chronicle
of Urban Music from the Caribbean to New York City, trans. Frances R. Aparicio with Jackie
White (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); for a history of salsa dancing, see
Juliet McMains, Spinning Salsa into Mambo: Caribbean Dance in Global Commerce (Oxford
University Press, forthcoming).
Shen Wei Dance Arts* to a four-hand prepared-piano rendition of Stravinsky’s

score played by Fazil Say overdubbing himself. Here we illustrate an example
of the effect we call isolated opposition, which is the inverse of isolated
conformance. That is to say, a period of radical disjuncture between the
music and dance is framed by passages of greater alignment. Throughout
much of this piece, choreographic choices mimic features of the music. At the
end of the movement “Procession of the Oldest and Wisest One,” the density
in the music is matched by density of movement, with the unpredictable
whirling of the dancers reflecting the chaotic nature of the music. Isolated
opposition begins as the dancers continue their frantic movement while the
music becomes almost silent for the “The Kiss of the Earth.” Music and
dance realign as the dancers calmly file into a perfectly spaced double line
facing the audience in a moment of stillness and order that corresponds to
the momentary lull in the music. However, as the music bursts into one of
the most tense and frenetic sections (“The Dancing Out of the Earth”), full
of dissonant chords, unpredictable rhythmic patterns, and intense volume,
the dancers remain motionless, except for minute twitching of random body
parts. This isolated moment of extreme disjuncture between music and dance
heightens the tension produced by their opposition, making their previous
and subsequent alignment much more powerful than it would have been
had it not been disrupted by the opposition.
In the next two examples, we see an effect that we call reorchestration.
The actions of the dancers cause the audience to hear the music differ-
ently than they would without seeing the dance, bringing certain instru-
ments that would otherwise be experienced as background to the forefront
of the aural experience. We can see this clearly in the following example
of Enrique and Guillermo de Fazio performing a choreographed milonga
(a style closely related to tango†) to “Reliquias Porteñas” by Francisco Ca-
naro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-mkR-KoPts). Known as Los Her-
manos Macana, these Argentine brothers teach and perform together at tango
festivals worldwide. Although two men dancing together may seem unusual
and representative of contemporary gender flexibility, the two brothers feel
that they represent the early history of tango, when men danced together for
practice.21 When this piece is experienced aurally, without visual cues, the vi-
olins are in the forefront of the listener’s perception. Forty-four seconds into
this choreographed performance, the violins become denser than the other
instruments. Listening to this same section, while watching the dancers make
sharp staccato movements aligned with the rhythm of the piano, however,
brings the piano into the foreground of the auditory experience.
*
For more on Shen Wei Dance Arts, see Ellen V. P. Gerdes, “Shen Wei Dance Arts:
Chinese Philosophy in Body Calligraphy,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 33, no. 2 (2010): 231–50.
†
For more on Argentine tango and milonga, see Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: The Art
History of Love (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005).
212 Dance Chronicle
A similar effect can be seen in this example of Homer and Cristina

Ladas improvising tango to “Such Great Heights” by Iron and Wine (http:
//www.youtube.com/watch?v = j0Sq9H7FDzE). An American couple, the
two tour extensively to perform and teach Argentine tango. In this example of
an improvised performance at the end of one of their 2008 workshops, their
movements are generally aligned with the most prominent musical element,
the voice of Sam Beam. For a brief moment, one minute and twenty-nine
seconds into the piece, the dancers align their moves with the guitar, their
swiveling rotation mimicking the guitar’s rocking motive from A to F to
A. This correspondence brings the listener’s attention to an instrument that
would otherwise be background accompaniment.
MUSIC AMPLIFYING AN ASPECT OF THE DANCE

Although less common than dance amplifying music, examples of music
illustrating dance are also plentiful, and are especially prominent in im-
provised dance/music of Africa and the African Diaspora. We turn for an
example to Los Muñequitos de Matanzas improvising rumba columbia*
(http://youtu.be/kTZOhFKysB8). In this performance of an Afro-Cuban folk-
loric style of rumba, the quinto player (who is seated on the viewer’s far left)
illustrates the dancer’s moves with his drumming. The dancer imitates jump-
ing rope, boxing, dribbling a basketball, and shooting a gun. Within a few
beats of each new activity, the quinto player has improvised a rhythmic pat-
tern that underscores the dancer’s pantomime. Part of what makes this so
effective is that the dancer has chosen activities that are both rhythmically
regular and have an aural component.
MUSIC AND DANCE AMPLIFYING EACH OTHER

In other cases, neither dance nor music is the primary art; instead, each am-
plifies ideas in the other in an equal partnership. For example, when Gene
Kelly dances the iconic number to the title song from the movie musical
classic Singin’ in the Rain, the movement and music work together to com-
municate a questioning mood as Kelly closes his umbrella at the start of
the song. Several musical elements—the rising line to the incomplete half
cadence, decreasing volume, and lack of a definite ending—all suggest a
question, an idea that is equally communicated by Kelly’s shrugging shoul-
ders. Neither the music nor the dance is primary in this case; each equally
amplifies the idea presented in the other art. The equality of the two medi-
ums in this instance is the result of a collaborative process between the
*
For more on Cuban rumba, see Yvonne Daniel, Rumba: Dance and Social Change in
Contemporary Cuba (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
choreographic and musical teams. In his book Singin’ in the Rain, film the-
orist Peter Wollen suggests that the number was developed in a tag-team
fashion. Kelly created the dance based on the composition by Arthur Freed
and Nacio Herb Brown, but arranger Roger Edens set the final version of the
score to highlight Kelly’s choreography.22
Our final example of amplification is La Preuve par 4 performing chore-
ography by Marvin Gofin to music by soFLY (http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=d9TnMUlIBKQ). In this performance, presented at the 2010 inter-
national street dance competition Juste Debut in Paris, hip-hop dance steps
are executed to dubstep music. While the music and dance are complemen-
tary, they do not always mimic each other. In isolated instances, however,
they do conform to a high degree, such as when, fifty-eight seconds into

the performance, the diagonal slide performed by a dancer aligns with the
sliding descending pitch in the music. As in the previous example, the ef-
fect of this combined reciprocal amplification intensifies the visual and aural
impact.
Emergence
Beyond mere amplification or illustration of an idea already present in either
dance or music (or both), choreomusical relationships can produce new
meaning that does not exist in either medium alone. It is only through
their interaction that the meaning comes into being. We call this kind of
relationship emergence, a term used by Nicholas Cook to describe similar
intermedia interactions (for example, between music and film), “the effect of
which was not a mixing or averaging of the individual properties of the two
media, but something qualitatively different.”23
For an example of emergence, we turn again to the title number from
Singin’ in the Rain. A few seconds before Kelly revels under a drainpipe
pouring water onto his head, music and movement work together to refer-
ence a carousel. The choice of instrumentation, the glockenspiel and high
woodwinds, reminiscent of the sounds associated with merry-go-rounds,
combined with the circular spatial pathway in which Kelly travels, come
together to turn this dance-music moment into an image of a carousel. In
addition, his galloping around the umbrella further evokes the image of re-
volving horses. If we look at the dance or listen to the music alone, the
carousel is not present. It is the combination of the two that enables the
emergence of new meaning.
Our second example of emergence involves the collaboration be-
tween classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Memphis street dancer Lil Buck. In
a unique rendition of The Dying Swan, the meaning of the piece as a
whole emerges through the interaction of musician and dancer (http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9jghLeYufQ). The effect of this collaboration,
performed at a Los Angeles benefit for arts in schools organized by Damian
214 Dance Chronicle
Woetzel, is a statement about bringing “high” and “low” art together in such a
way that the history and value of both are respected as equal partners.24 This
message emerges through the interaction of the musician and the dancer—it
does not exist in either the music or dance alone. Each artist is clearly
adjusting and molding his performance to align with that of the other, yet
neither one is compromising the essential qualities of his own medium. Each
is using vocabulary from his art form, even while making accommodations
toward the other. Yo-Yo Ma times his phrasing to match that of Lil Buck,
and Lil Buck alludes to classical ballet, the high art with which the music
is associated, in his dance. These gestures of accommodation, however, do
not compromise the integrity of each independent style. For example, when
Lil Buck inserts a ballet step, like an attitude turn, into his performance, he
does so with bent knees, flexed feet, and stylistic characteristics of Memphis
jookin’, not classical ballet.
Applied Choreomusical Analysis

To conclude, we would like to demonstrate how these different kinds of
interactions between music and dance can work together in a single work
of art to produce meaning, or in this case, magic. We apply the above tools
to an additional excerpt from Rite of Spring choreographed by Shen Wei.
Trained in Chinese Opera and a founding member of China’s first modern
dance company (Guangdong), Shen moved in 1995 to New York, where he
formed his own dance company, Shen Wei Dance Arts, in 2000.25 Shen often
explores Eastern themes and aesthetics through the lens of his experiences in
the West. He is recognized by both the United States and China as one of the
world’s most significant living choreographers, winning a MacArthur “genius”
award in 2007, and being invited to choreograph the opening ceremony in
the 2008 Beijing summer Olympics.
Shen’s process is never the same for any two projects, but he is always
conscious of how he chooses to interact with a musical composition. The
artist described his philosophy in an interview with Dance Channel TV:
I can make a piece exactly like the score. Or, once you know the music,
then put the score away. . . . I might just play another way to add on
top of the score, make the score even more complicated. Or maybe
more interesting. Or maybe different in a way with movement. And that
brought to music another level. Otherwise, you know, we’re just kind of
repeating the music sometimes. This way, I really don’t want to do for
my work.26
In this interview, Shen explained that, although he can make a dance

that directly mimics the musical score, such an approach is less interesting
to him than one that places new layers of complexity on top of the score,
something that he can best do when he is intimately familiar with the original
composition. As we will demonstrate, Shen’s approach to Stravinsky’s score

is one in which his deep knowledge of the musical structure inspired chore-
ography that interacts with the score through sophisticated, unexpected, and
innovative choreomusical partnerings.
Throughout this piece, the dance vocabulary and syntax rely on a con-
ceit similar to the one employed by Stravinsky in the music: juxtaposition
of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The dance vocabulary consists of walk-
ing (often considered the most ordinary of human movements) alternating
with decidedly unpedestrian movement that is outside the range of what
we expect dance to look like. Likewise, Stravinsky used folklike melodies
combined with brutal rhythmic devices atypical of what audiences expect to
encounter in folk music. Not only do dance and music parallel each other
structurally in this way, but the choreography is also in dialogue with the
phantom of the absent orchestra. The four-hand arrangement of The Rite
of Spring played by Fazil Say removes the timbral variations that were so
important to Stravinsky’s original orchestration. In Shen’s choreography, the
role of variation in sound quality is transferred to the dancers. Viewers famil-
iar with the original score may notice that they do not miss the variation in
timbre because the choreography reinstates the attribute of changing quality,
replacing changing sound quality with changing movement quality.*
We would like to focus, however, on the ways in which amplification
works in a specific section of the dance. As the first movement of the piece
concludes and transitions into “The Augurs of Spring: Dances of the Young
Girls,” dancers slowly walk in a style reminiscent of Beijing Opera (bent
knees, elbows pulled backward at the side of the body, feet rolling from
heel to toe). They travel in seemingly random spatial pathways, accompa-
nied by a sweet and lulling folk melody. When the music changes to a
staccato, rhythmically driving figure that stops and starts, the dancers speed
up. The unfolding mystery in the music produced through the loss of a tonal
center is complemented by the urgency and directness of dancers walking
with, paradoxically, no apparent destination. The dancers sink to the floor
as the rhythmically driving figure gains momentum. Suddenly, a loud series
of static dissonances bursts forth as a constant rhythmic pulse is disrupted by
*
Daniela Perazzo Domm notes a similar phenomenon in her analysis of Jonathan Burrows
and Matteo Fargion’s choreography Both Sitting Duet. Choreographed to Morton Feldman’s
composition For John Cage but performed in silence, the piece transposes sound into move-
ment. Domm writes, “The variations of rhythm, emphasis and colour of the ‘disappeared’
musical accompaniment are recreated in the dance through the exploration of the various
combinations of movements of different types, qualities, and intensities and by the interplay
of simultaneous, alternate, and overlapping modes of gestural execution by the two artists.”
“Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion’s Both Sitting Duet (2002): A Discursive Choreomusi-
cal Collaboration,” in Decentering Dancing Texts: The Challenge of Interpreting Dancing, ed.
Janet Lansdale (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 238.
216 Dance Chronicle
a series of powerful unpredictable accents (played by the brass in the orig-

inal version). The choreography amplifies the tension in the music through
strategic use of alignment with, and resistance to, the rhythm. Individual
dancers move suddenly, usually in correlation with rhythmic accents in the
music. The viewer is surprised not only by which dancer moves, but also
by what kind of movement s/he performs, where s/he moves in space, and
which body part initiates the movement.
Both the music and movement are so erratic and dense that, when a
single dancer returns to the walking motif during a brief reprieve from the
chaotic rhythm, the audience can breathe a sigh of relief. This momentary
release in tension only amplifies its subsequent return. Throughout this sec-
tion, there is striking alignment between music and dance, but we never
know which dancer will pick up the musical motif or how it will be inter-
preted. When the pianist plays a series of descending figures, a single dancer
slides backward, as if she were climbing down a ladder. She stops suddenly
and another dancer picks up a new musical gesture of ripped ascending
figures in a series of vertical jumps with odd angular shapes of the lower
legs, finishing in a seated position that seems impossible to achieve landing
from his airborne shape.
Within this one brief excerpt, we can see multiple examples of ampli-
fication. Through alignment of Shen’s choreographic and Stravinsky’s origi-
nal compositional choices, and also brief moments of incongruity (isolated
dissonance), music and dance amplify the tensions present in each other.
Although in this example there are no instances of reorchestration or emer-
gence of ideas not already present in the composition or choreography, such
relationships could co-exist with amplification.
We hope these tools offer the reader a means with which to approach
analysis of music-dance interactions and recognize how structural parallels
and contrasts between music and dance can affect the experience of audi-
ences. While our goal at the outset of this project was to better understand
the language and conceptual tools used in each other’s discipline, an un-
expected outcome of the process was that each of us was forced to think
more deeply and specifically about the use of analytical concepts in our own
discipline. We believe that bringing together rigorous analysis of music and
dance in the ways we have outlined can provide a deeper understanding of
music, dance, and the significance of their interaction.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
An earlier version of this paper was presented at “Moving Music/Sounding

Dance: Intersections, Disconnections, and Alignments between Dance and
Music,” a joint conference of the Congress on Research in Dance and the
Society for Ethnomusicology, Philadelphia, November 19, 2011. The authors
wish to thank the participants for their thoughtful feedback.
NOTES
1. Karen K. Bradley, Rudolf Laban (New York: Routledge, 2008); Jean Newlove & John Dalby,
Laban for All (New York: Routledge, 2004).
2. Paul Hodgins, “Making Sense of the Dance-Music Partnership: A Paradigm for Choreomusical
Analysis,” International Guild of Musicians in Dance Journal, vol. 1 (1991): 38; Stephanie Jordan, Moving
Music: Dialogues with Music in Twentieth-Century Ballet (London: Dance Books, 2000); Inger Damsholt,
“Mark Morris, Mickey Mouse, and Choreomusical Polemic,” The Opera Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 1 (2007):
4–21.
3. Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Rhythm, Music and Education, trans. Harold F. Rubinstein (New York:
G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1921), 261–62.
4. Barbara White, “‘As if They Didn’t Hear the Music,’ Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love Mickey Mouse,” The Opera Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 69.
5. Richard Kostelanetz, John Cage (ex)plain(ed) (New York: Schirmer, 1996), 30.
6. Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), ix.
7. Damsholt, “Mark Morris.”
8. Dance and Music: Moving Dialogues, Conference, McGill University, Montreal, February 16–19,
2011.
9. White, “Mickey Mouse,” 73.
10. Susan Leigh Foster, Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance (London and New
York: Routledge, 2011).
11. Jaques-Dalcroze, Rhythm, Music and Education, 261–62; Paul Hodgins, Relationships Between
Score and Choreography in Twentieth-Century Dance: Music, Movement and Metaphor (Lewiston, U.K.:
The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992); Katherine Teck, Ear Training for the Body: A Dancer’s Guide to Music
(Pennington, N.J.: Princeton Book Company, 1994); Jordan, Moving Music.
12. Hodgins, Relationships; Jordan, Moving Music; Damsholt, “Mark Morris.”
13. Rudolf Laban, The Mastery of Movement, 4th ed. rev. and enl. by Lisa Ullmann (Alton, U.K.:
Dance Books, 2011); Rudolf Laban and F. C. Lawrence, Effort (London: MacDonald and Evans, 1947);
Irmgard Bartenieff with Dori Lewis, Body Movement: Coping with the Environment (New York: Gordon
and Breach Science Publishers, 1980); Irmgard Bartenieff, Martha Davis, and Forrestine Paulay, Four
Adaptations of Effort Theory in Research and Teaching (New York: Dance Notation Bureau, 1973).
14. Stephanie Jordan, “Choreomusical Conversations: Facing a Double Challenge,” Dance Research
Journal, vol. 43, no. 1 (2011): 52.
15. Laban, The Mastery of Movement.
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Translating from Pitch to Plié: Music Theory for Dance Scholars

Article in Dance Chronicle · May 2013

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Translating from Pitch to Plié: Music

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01472526.2013.792714

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Translating from Pitch to Plié: Music Theory

JULIET MCMAINS and BEN THOMAS

A major impediment to greater integration of music and dance

In overlapping succession, dancers spiral up from the floor like sprouting

guages of the two disciplines rarely facilitate analysis of their interaction.

she teaches in dance practice and theory at the University of Washington.

kinesthetic empathy—the body’s response to watching someone else per-

Rhythm: organization of sound in time Rhythm: organization of movement in time

Pitch Vocabulary and syntax

Timbre (sound color): distinguishing quality Movement quality: distinguishing quality of

Density Size, frequency, and amount of movement

Register Use of space

Dynamics Size of gesture

Texture Relations among dancers’ movements

by Susan Foster in her seminal work Reading Dancing.* Although Foster’s

TRANSLATING FROM MUSIC TO DANCE

motif, or sequence of moves, that recurs throughout the dance as analogous

through proximity to audience. For example, action downstage—in other

strategies: changes in volume (dynamic accent), changes in pitch (tonal ac-

TRANSLATING FROM DANCE TO MUSIC

Syntax: guides organization of vocabulary Syntax

Space Musical space

Shape Musical shape

Rhythm See Table 1

Effort: One of the most important theorists in movement analysis, Rudolf

The directness or indirectness of movement can be compared to how

APPLICATION AND ANALYSIS

Now, to demonstrate how these tools can be applied in choreomusical anal-

omusical marriage.”20 For example, if a wedding march is played while a

a musical idea can highlight choreography or vice versa in several different

DANCE AMPLIFYING AN ASPECT OF THE MUSIC

Shen Wei Dance Arts* to a four-hand prepared-piano rendition of Stravinsky’s

A similar effect can be seen in this example of Homer and Cristina

MUSIC AMPLIFYING AN ASPECT OF THE DANCE

MUSIC AND DANCE AMPLIFYING EACH OTHER

they do conform to a high degree, such as when, fifty-eight seconds into

Applied Choreomusical Analysis

In this interview, Shen explained that, although he can make a dance

composition. As we will demonstrate, Shen’s approach to Stravinsky’s score

a series of powerful unpredictable accents (played by the brass in the orig-

An earlier version of this paper was presented at “Moving Music/Sounding

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