The empathy and the structuring sharing modes of movement sequences in the improvisation of contemporary dance

Dance, an activity endowed with intentional expressivity and intrinsic affectivity, has been the target of neuroscientific research since the last decade of the 20th century. We can make several inferences about the cognitive and motor aspects in dance based on this research. The main goal of the present study is to raise questions about how communication takes place among dancers during dance improvisation. This work is based on a systematic review of the literature. In this paper we approach the cognition and motivity in dance improvisation from the embodied cognition theory. This theory involves several concepts, including motor cognition, situated cognition and social cognition. It can also be inferred that mirror neurons constitute the neurobiological basis of perception and action processes present in these cognitive modes. It is suggested that this type of neural mechanism is also related to empathy, a procedure which enables a person to understand the intentions and emotions of another person without verbal language. We suggest the idea of empathic choreography for temporary structuring of movements which take place in contemporary dance improvisation. When dancers improvise, they understand each other’s motor intentions and emotions. Thus, the dancers share decision making and build an ephemeral movement structure that characterises dance improvisation.