Performing Time: Synchrony and Temporal Flow in Music and Dance

Music and dance can alter our perception of time, involving synchronization, memory, and expectation. Performing Time explores this experience from the perspectives of performers and audiences, drawing from dance science, musicology, neuroscience, and psychology. It discusses tempo, pacing, coordination, the performer's experience, and audience temporal expectations. The book connects music and dance to psychological and neuroscientific theories and artistic aims, offering an overview and case studies. It is a valuable resource for students, researchers, educators, and artists.

Format: Hardback
Length: 432 pages
Publication date: 20 July 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Music and dance have a profound ability to alter our perception of time. Both art forms rely on synchronizing our attention and movements with sounds and other individuals, involving memory and anticipation, and resulting in experiences of flow and pleasure. Performing Time delves into the intricate relationship between time and dance/music, exploring perspectives from performers and audiences, and drawing upon the latest research in dance science, musicology, neuroscience, and psychology. It encompasses discussions on tempo and pacing, coordination and synchrony, the performer's subjective experience of time, audience temporal expectations, the impact of extreme slowness, and the interplay between individual and collective senses of time. At its core, the book aims to unravel how time and temporality in music and dance connect to contemporary psychological and neuroscientific theories, as well as the artistic goals of composers, choreographers, and performers. By consolidating new research on rhythm, time, and temporality in both music and dance within a single volume, the book offers comprehensive overviews on the state-of-the-art from renowned experts in various fields, including the psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of musical time, as well as embodied timing in dance. Additionally, numerous case studies are presented in shorter focus chapters, shedding light on our temporal experiences of music and dance and their implications for further scientific inquiry and artistic exploration. Performing Time serves as an invaluable resource for students, researchers, educators, artists, and anyone with an interest in how the performing arts construct and manipulate time in our minds and bodies. Certain chapters in this title are available under a [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International] license, allowing for open access and dissemination.

Dimension: 246 x 171 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192896254