Temporal relationship between dancer’s body movements and music beats in classical ballet

Abstract

Musicality is one of the most essential aspects of dance performance: Dancers control their bodies to the music, and audiences appreciate dances beautifully harmonized with music. The present study explores the physical reality of the dance musicality from the perspective of synchronization between music beats and body movements. Specifically, we investigated the temporal relationship between dancer’s body movements and metronome beats when a dancer performed four basic classical ballet movements (i.e., changement, passé, jeté, and tendu) to the metronome. We measured body movements of 10 ballet dancers using an optical motion capture system and force plates, and analyzed what movement reference points of dancer’s body motion (e.g., movement endpoints and ground reaction force peaks) occurred on or close to the beat and offbeat. Specific reference points coincided with the beat timing common to most dancers, but the different reference points were synchronized with the beat depending on the movements. These reference points were consistent with those reported in previous studies of the temporal relationship between music and body movements. Therefore, the present result suggests that humans have a set of common movement features that can serve as reference points for music-motion synchronization, and dancers select appropriate ones according to the target movements.