Kinesemiotics: Modelling How Choreographed Movement Means in Space

Kinesemiotics is an interdisciplinary field that explores how movement-based communication, like dance, uses a codified language shared by a community of users. It employs the genre of ballet to understand and analyze key concepts such as space as a semiotic dimension and motivated movement. Supported by automated movement recognition tools, kinesemiotics argues that ballets capacity to extend beyond sequences of physical movements to become a meaning-making practice.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 102 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This groundbreaking work introduces the interdisciplinary field of research known as kinesemiotics, offering a novel and adaptable model for understanding forms of movement-based communication, such as dance, that utilize a codified language shared by a community of users. It begins with a theoretical overview and review of existing literature on the primary approaches to movement-based communication, particularly dance, which form the foundation of kinesemiotics as a field of study. It reaffirms previous work that established dance as a form of embodied communication, as it encompasses a wide range of semiotic styles and forms shared by communities of speakers. In collaboration with the English National Ballet, Maiorani employs the genre of ballet as a means through which to understand and analyze some of the key concepts of kinesemiotics, mainly that of space as a semiotic dimension and motivated movement, or movement with meaning. Supported by automated movement recognition tools from the fields of bio-robotics engineering and computer science, Maiorani argues for ballet's capacity, when movements are projected into meaningful space, to extend beyond sequences of physical movements to become a meaning-making practice.

Kinesemiotics advances interdisciplinary research in the fields of social semiotics, media and communication, multimodality, linguistics, and performance studies and will be of particular interest to students and scholars in these areas.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367641009