Across history, geography, cultures and the lifespan, humans express themselves through dance. Recent advances in human neuroscience are enabling artists...

Dancing Brains and Thinking Bodies

Location:

The Great Hall, Level 5, Tower Building
2007 NSW
Australia

Venue:
Vivid Ideas Exchange - UTS, The Great Hall
Dancing Brains and Thinking Bodies
Dancing Brains and Thinking Bodies

Featuring

Emily S. Cross

Emily S. Cross

Emily holds Professorships in Human Neuroscience and Social Robotics in Australia and the UK, and directs the Social Brain in Action Laboratory (www.soba-lab.com). Her dance background has shaped her interest in action learning, neuroaesthetics, and robotics, and she firmly believes collaborations with performing artists greatly enhance our understanding of the human brain.

Bianca de Wit

Bianca de Wit

Bianca is passionate about transforming traditional educational and research settings by using portable neurogaming technology that measures the brain’s electrical activity. She has pioneered the integration of this technology into undergraduate cognitive neuroscience teaching, and uses the same technology to study brain processes underpinning our ability to read.

Karen Pearlman

Karen Pearlman

Karen Pearlman teaches Screen Practice and Production at Macquarie University. Her research into creative practice, cognition and feminist film histories investigates how creativity arises in complex systems and illuminates the significance of overlooked work of women in film history. Karen’s recent films have screened at over 50 festivals internationally and won 27 competitive awards.

Matt Cornell

M@ is an award-winning choreographer and composer, working to ask better questions by collaborating with inspiring artists, in diverse contexts, across Asia-Pacific. Matt’s career interrogates how we embody systems – social, cultural, political, or technological – and in turn how these systems embody us by forming communities and informing identities.

Access and Inclusion

  • Auslan Interpreted - Auslan interpreted events are for audiences who are Deaf and use Australian Sign Language (Auslan) as their primary means of communication. Experienced Auslan theatre interpreters stand to the side of the stage and translate what the speakers are saying or Auslan signing the text and dialogue live. Audiences requiring this service are seated in the section closest to the interpreter to ensure good sightlines.
  • Companion Card Acceptance - The Companion Card is for people with a significant permanent disability, who always need a companion to provide attendant care type support in order to participate at most available community venues and activities.
  • Hearing Loop - A hearing loop (sometimes called an audio induction loop) is a special type of sound system for use by people with hearing aids. The hearing loop provides a magnetic, wireless signal that is picked up by the hearing aid when it is set to 'T' (Telecoil) setting. Many venues have an induction hearing loop system. Check if your venue has this system.
  • Wheelchair Accessible - Access to the venue is suitable for wheelchairs (toilets, ramps/lifts etc.) and designated wheelchair spaces are available.

Event Details

Across history, geography, cultures and the lifespan, humans express themselves through dance. Recent advances in human neuroscience are enabling artists and scientists to work together to explore the biological foundations of how we learn to dance, and why it can bring us such intense pleasure.

Join us for a hybrid lecture/performance/participation event where you’ll be invited to join the presenters for an on-your-feet exploration of the why and how of dance. As well as seeking audience participation in dancing and learning new grooves, the team – including dancers, neuroscientists, and a professional screen producer – will call for volunteers to wear mobile brain imaging devices. Discover how different patterns of brain activity in dancers correspond to an observer’s experience of watching dance, in real time, and in engaging with what it means to move one’s body, in a room, with others.

Imagine this scenario… You walk into a room and put on a headband that can ‘read your mind’. A dancer invites you to dance, and you follow his body as he traces slow, fluid arcs through space to a percussive soundtrack infiltrated with the calls of native birds. As your brain coordinates your body to move, to imitate, to dance, the large screen over the stage comes alive with its own choreography of colourful traces reading out activity from your visual cortex and your motor cortex. Thanks to small recording electrodes, the size and shape of $2 coins, embedded in the headband, you brain activity can be broadcast onto the big screen, and we, as observers, get the first glimpse of what’s going on beneath your skull and between your ears as you learn new dance moves.

This feel-good and informative session will get your body moving and your brain firing on all cylinders.

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Access and Inclusion

  • Auslan Interpreted - Auslan interpreted events are for audiences who are Deaf and use Australian Sign Language (Auslan) as their primary means of communication. Experienced Auslan theatre interpreters stand to the side of the stage and translate what the speakers are saying or Auslan signing the text and dialogue live. Audiences requiring this service are seated in the section closest to the interpreter to ensure good sightlines.
  • Companion Card Acceptance - The Companion Card is for people with a significant permanent disability, who always need a companion to provide attendant care type support in order to participate at most available community venues and activities.
  • Hearing Loop - A hearing loop (sometimes called an audio induction loop) is a special type of sound system for use by people with hearing aids. The hearing loop provides a magnetic, wireless signal that is picked up by the hearing aid when it is set to 'T' (Telecoil) setting. Many venues have an induction hearing loop system. Check if your venue has this system.
  • Wheelchair Accessible - Access to the venue is suitable for wheelchairs (toilets, ramps/lifts etc.) and designated wheelchair spaces are available.

Sponsors

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