Physical Research: The Mathematical Potential of Dancers' Professional Practices

• In Event: 64.059 - Embodying STEM: Dance as a Means to Access Science, Math, and Technology

Abstract

There has been growing attention to the body’s role in learning and teaching mathematics (Kremling et al., 2018), including how mathematical concepts are grounded in embodied metaphor (e.g., Núñez, Edwards & Matos, 2006), how mathematical activity engages the acting body (e.g., Gerofsky, 2010, 2016; Author & Colleague, 2012), how we might design learning environments that invite productive embodied experiences (e.g., Abrahamson & Lindgren, 2014; Sinclair, De Frietas & Ferrara, 2013), and how rich mathematics exists in ensemble performances (Colleague & Author, 2018; Author & Colleagues, 2014; Ma, 2016). In addition, Kirsh’s (2011; 2012; 2010; 2009) work studying the creative practices of a professional choreographer and dancers has emphasized the importance of dancers fully and/or partially enacting movements in order to see opportunities for change that they would not otherwise understand. We bring these worlds together to begin to describe the design potential for mathematics thinking and learning through ensemble dance performance.

This presentation draws on two projects. The first was a series of video-elicited interviews in which quartets of participants were asked to reenact movements from a performance in the 2016 Rio Olympic opening ceremony with a similar 7’ x 7’ Mylar square prop. The second was an ethnographic study that involved observing the professional practices of the dancers who participated in the first study during their rehearsals. We focused our observations on their self named practice, physical research. Video records from both studies were analyzed iteratively using interaction analysis, (Jordan & Henderson, 1995), which allowed us to focus on the multi-modal interactional achievements made between these dancers.

Our analysis centers around two episodes: (1) the dancers reenacting a triangular fold with the Mylar, and (2) the artistic director of the dance company co-structuring an improvisational game to research with the dancers. We start with the triangle episode, as it highlights the dancers use of repetition to engage in a practice they refer to as physical research. The quartet iteratively refined their triangle folding performance, using observable constraints from the video record to collectively explore possible ways to reproduce the fold as an ensemble, ultimately resulting in a complex performance that folded the Mylar into a scalene right triangle.

This qualitatively distinct process of ensemble mathematical exploration as observed in the dancers during the first project led us to further explore the practice of physical research in these dancers’ professional context. The second episode we draw on shows the rigor of a physical based inquiry process, highlighting the complex and dialectic work involved in just framing a structured task for fruitful physical research.

This analysis has furthered our understanding of the mathematical potential in the creation and enactment of ensemble dance performances. A deeper understanding of the rich practices of professional dancers shows how their ability to refine coordinated movements as an ensemble affords pathways into rigorous mathematical inquiry through an iterative process of collectively working within a dynamic set of constraints.

Authors

• Lauren Vogelstein

• Rogers P. Hall, Vanderbilt University

• Corey Brady, Vanderbilt University