A fundamental study on synchronous dance movements between two dancers in face-to-face

This study uses a motion capture system and focuses on up-down dance movements in order to investigate how dancers communicate and interact with each other. In two different experiments, we asked if there were differences in the synchronization of timing, knee height and knee angle, as well as in the correlation of velocities between dance partners (1) when they danced face-to-face versus face-to-back, and (2) when one dancer maintained a constant rhythm as opposed to a variable rhythm. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that timing differences were smaller when a synchronous task was performed face-to-face, and that the cross-correlations of velocities were higher as compared to when the task was performed face-to-back. In both face-to-face and face-to-back conditions, knee height and angle were nearly identical in the two dancers in the synchronous task, whereas the angular variability was found to be smaller in the face-to-face condition. The results of Experiment 2 showed that timing differences were smaller and cross-correlations were higher in the synchronous, variable rhythm condition than in the asynchronous task, whereas knee height and angles did not differ in the synchronous task. This indicated that timing differences decreased when the dancers could see each other, and that they were able to synchronize with each other regardless of changes in rhythm.