Stimuli for initiation: a comparison of dance and (sign) language

Abstract

This work considers a claim by a theater-dance troupe regarding a distinction in initiation points for dance and language, where the claim contrasted physicality to abstraction. The starting point here is that the troupe is expressing an awareness of a distinction they experience and, thus, that deserves ferreting out. Three interpretations of this claim within an embodied cognitive science are examined and discounted in turn. In fact, choreographers/dancers and language users alike exhibit concern with the issue of initiation of activity in that they consciously play with varying stimuli for initiation of activity to artistic effect. This is demonstrated here through a discussion of the dance film Exquisite Corps and the renga form of poetry looking at sign language instantiations. Thus, the initial theater-dance troupe’s claim cannot find purchase in an examination grounded in embodied cognitive science. If there is, in fact, a fundamental difference between the experience of initiating dancing and initiating language use it lies elsewhere, perhaps in areas of cognition yet to be explored.