Magdalena Chowaniec

NO FAKE
REFLECTIONS ON BODILY EMPATHY

Master Thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts

Institute of Dance Arts

At the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversitaet in Linz

First Reader
Dr. Nicole Haitzinger
Tanzwissenschaft / Dance Studies
Paris-Lodron Universität Salzburg

Second Reader
Univ. Prof. Mag. Rose Breuss
Institute of Dance Arts
Anton Brueckner Privatuniversitaet Linz

April 2010
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

EMPATHY IN THEORY 8
Some popular concepts 8
I. Social psychology – border between ‘self’ and ‘other’. 9
I. From individual to social – the origins of empathy meet politics. 10
I. Mirrored emotion – neural and cognitive basis of empathy. 12

Terms of empathy and other significant notions 14

Mystery of mirror neurons and its implications 16

I. Imitation 18
I. Empathy and theatre. Lack of empathy. 18
I. Speech, language, gesture. 19
I. Intuitive unison. 20
I. Group – Individuum.
Mirror neurons and question of free will. 21

CONCLUSION 22

EMPATHY IN ART 25
INTRODUCTION 25

The role of fiction

I. Keith Oatley and imaginary worlds or how to get ‘infected’ with
empathy while reading. 27
I. What happens to us in theatre? 29
I. Theatre as an example of group movement 30
I. Actor’s training as empathic practice. 31
I. Empathy and the origins of art. 32
I. Empathy may come with time – Jerome Bel’s ‘Show must go on’ as an example
of empathic exercise. 34

CONCLUSION 37

DANCING EMPATHY
PROLOGUE or why ‘dancing empathy’ 38

PART ONE
Empathy came with the music. Body in the EGM setting.
I. Entrée. 42
I. Active/Passive in subjectivity. 43
I. Empathy and embodiment. 45
Illusionary or/and real 46
What happens to ‘initial’ body? 47

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 a) Temporary victory of the sound. 47
a) Where the body takes over. 49

I. The power of listening. Schumann experiment. 51

Affective touch of music 52
Problem of the perfect unison 54
Empathic unison seen through the eyes of Tom Pauwels and Gerald Kurdian
a) Master of empathic embodiment and his practice – Tom Pauwels 55
a) Renaissance Man – Gerald Kurdian 58
a) Feel the music 60

CONCLUSION TO PART ONE 63

PART TWO
INTRODUCTION 64

‘Empathy Project Vol. I’ as an attempt of empathic practice. 65

I. Beyond the limits of empathy 66
II. Strategy 68
II. Empathic embodiment of the drug addicted as a part of ontology of ‘self’ in the
choreographic context. 73

CONCLUSION TO PART TWO 74

Interview with Jennifer Lacey 75

Interview with Martin Nachbar 78

FINAL CONCLUSION 82

Bibliography 85

3
 INTRODUCTION

To cross another border

To look for and find reasons
for dancing empathy

The interest in empathy our days is a definitive sign of a human good nature and it seems
like a light in a tunnel of 21st century. The nature of this phenomenon has been discussed for
over 200 years by various theorists, their opinions were oscillating between the
cognitive/intellectual and instinctive/emotional aspects of it. But what empathy really is?
Concerning the great variety of areas, fields and disciplines in which the word keeps on
appearing, it proves its multidimensional and capacious nature, we can surely compare it to
something very global and general but precious, like oxygen. Already here empathy could be
pictured with a help of chemistry, as a 3D structure, a spatial model of an atom or DNA with
loads of reaching limps, endless rows of numbers and constantly new opening spaces.
Empathy is been always there, in us human beings. It helped us to communicate and to
create individual relations towards the outside world, towards the other units, towards bigger
entities. It made us form couples, groups, formations, societies; it gave us a chance of
communication based on understanding. Although term as such appeared already in the middle
of the 18th century, word empathy still today in 21st century remains to many a mysterious,
unclear figure, rarely being associated with the aspects of power, politics and global changes.

English word empathy is derived from the Greek word ‘ π’ ( empatheia), "physical
affection, passion, partiality" which comes from (en), "in, at" + π (pathos), "feeling”. The term
was adapted by Theodore Lipps to create the German word Einfühlung (‘feeling into’) from
which the English term is then more directly derived.1 The most popular descriptions talk about
‘the ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand her emotions
and feelings’, but there are as many concepts of empathy as many are the fields empathy starts

4
to be examined in. This phenomena based on human capacities to reflect and mirror the outside
world in one’s own inside and thus to be constantly stimulated, brings up a strong feeling of
transformation and change that contribute to the worldwide development. Pictures that we us
human beings receive, are being sent back to the world, since ages it stays unclear though
whether we mirror the world (like in Merleau – Ponty) or the world is a huge mirror of all the
gathered individuals, still the movement continues.
The responsivity to the experiences of another has been researched and its significance
examined in medicine, psychology, neurology, philosophy, psychotherapy among others. In
every single case, empathy has been looked at from another perspective, and questioned on a
different level staying until today, a phenomenon escaping a single description, belonging to
many worlds sharing various ways of understanding it. Looking at the different theories and
concepts developed over the years, we can see a clear, dominating in many of them partition
between the emotional and cognitive empathy (distinction drawn by a.o. Smith in 1759 and
Spencer in 1870). The beginnings of 20th century brought big research efforts focusing on the
emotional side of empathy (McDougall, 1908; Lipps, 1926) to later on bring an emphasis on
the more cognitive aspects of the phenomenon (Mead, 1934; Piaget, 1932). From 70s on, we
observe a tendency to integrate these two research traditions, claiming that cognitive and
affective aspects of empathy interwine creating ‘an interdependent system in which each
influences the other’.2

There is not a one main description of empathy, but it always stays associated with our
human positive, ethical skill. This capacity that invisibly creates the common understanding
and helps solving the conflicts is today appreciated in psychology and therapy, in neuroscience,
in mediation, art of successful communication, in business as well as it is reflected in
philosophy, aesthetical studies, cultural studies, in field of socio – politics and finally in art. To
see how empathy has been crossing the borders and spreading onto so various areas, one needs
to have a brief look onto its basic concepts and ways it’s been used. From there on, we can
observe how this phenomena like a constant river, has found its ways to enter different fields or
maybe rather has become visible there where it has had been underestimated.
1 Wikipedia
2 Mark H. Davis A Multidimensional Approach to Individual Differences in Empathy

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 Along a long research I have pursued, I came across many different opinions and
explanations. Some treated empathy on a very intellectual level, others dealing with its
emotional aspects kept focus on brain functions, the ones that talked of empathy in physicality,
mostly referred to neuroscience and motor functions of the body. My personal interest in
empathy appeared as a pure physical curiosity and it was through my body that I found interest
in it. As far as the major part of existing materials and documents devoted to empathy,
describe and discuss mostly the psychological, neurological, esthetical layers of it, body seems
to serve rather as a container for the happening within processes. It is either presented as ‘inner
space’ for emotional inter human relations on empathic level, giving to our senses like sight or
hearing a role of a receiving/giving mediator, or it is described as a ‘performer’ of planned by
our nervous system actions, with the brain as a command center (in theory of mirror neurons).
Physicality of the body in those writings is restricted to a vocabulary of daily
movements/actions, mimic/gesture responses to the outside, it is perceived as a visualization of
the inner emotional states, as an extension of empathic thought but not as the empathic act in
itself. Body in empathic studies, mostly reduced to a function of a ‘tent’ for human ‘self’ or to a
network of neurons seems not to have a life on its own; never being the first, primary level of
empathic exploration.

Thus I realized my point of view onto empathy, seen as a choreographic act, hasn’t been
described yet. My proposal is based on experience and it puts the body in the front line and
presents it as an entity on its own as well as a part of a group. It questions its role and position
in emphatic processes, and shows it as a complex, multi structural being. Referring to various
concepts of empathy rather than to a variety of contexts in performance art and dance, social
and dancing body is being restudied, the observations here happen on the unknown, new area
of overleap. This terra incognita, where many different approaches towards the body and body
– outside/inside relation can be distinguished, where the cognitive, motor, sensorial, emotional
components appear interwining with each other, puts phenomena of empathy in the new light,
simultaneously bringing up the arguments to reframe as well the body.

In this paper, my aim is to open a new interdisciplinary field to discuss empathy. It will
show the polemics with different approaches to empathy and question the arguments used to

6
clear its origins. It will show how the observation of social movement caused by empathy, may
bring more understanding onto the choreographic/improvisational work and thus suggest
origins of dance in empathy as well as, how the artistic practice focusing on empathy, can
widen ideas about movements happening globally. In the new context, shaped by a direction
my explorations took, body and empathy stay in the inter – relation, constantly influencing
each other, wondering between the physical, sensorial, emotional experiences; sometimes
making empathy a physical act and turning the body into emotional being. Thus the format and
characteristics of physical body and immaterial phenomena the empathy is, are being
questioned and the relativity of the constant associated often with the form, comes into play.
Body becomes here a producer, receiver as well as a transformable product of the
empathic processes that stays in a dialogue with the outside but also with itself and its own
sensorial, emotional, physical responses, becoming self generating. This above mentioned
aspect, brings thus some contra arguments concerning two general statements referring to
empathy: 1) empathy is an unconscious, ‘out of control’ act; 2) empathy is always directed
towards the outside and/or another being we are able to recognize, read the emotions of. A new
partition onto a close, directed to inside and distant, heading towards outside empathy, shows
how the physical and emotional distance are inter dependent, and how different paths and
shapes empathy takes when watched through the physical body, confronted with various
outside and inner factors. We are going to travel between the individual and collective,
bringing the focus onto details, looking for a condensed empathy ‘soup stock’.

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 EMPATHY IN THEORY

In the first part I will describe the way I learned about empathy from the written sources,
to give a glimpse onto a process I went through. From the moment I first time used word
empathy (during the research on Embodied Generative Music in Graz) until a moment I write
these words, my research goes on and will surely continue after the last word finds its place on
a page. It has been a long travel - from the unspoken and inexplicable to black on white. It has
been difficult concerning a translation process of the sensations and hard to describe emotions,
into a written form, imprinting liquidity of empathy onto a piece of paper and not letting it sink.
In order to look for possibilities of comparison and further polemics between my own
perception of empathy and the other concepts, I went far out of the art field and reached for
books and articles presenting older and brand new perspectives from various disciplines, like:
cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, primatology (the study of primates), to finally
find many fundamental issues that helped me to shape my own picture of empathy in my
esthetical experience and to see pure choreography in it.

Some popular concepts

Empathy is one of those human impulses that defy easy explanation. It gets entangled
with sympathy or compassion or commiseration; it submerges into altruism. Broadly we think
of empathy as the ability to feel for another person, to imagine ourselves in the same situation,
enduring those same experiences and emotions. Empathy makes us cry at sad movies and
rescue strangers in distress. It helps us forge connections with people whose lives seem utterly
alien.
We can agree that since empathy involves understanding of emotional states of other
people, the way it is described has a lot to do with the way emotions are being characterized. If
for example emotions are being mainly presented by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily

8
feelings of the other, will be the most important. On the other hand, if emotions are represented
by beliefs and desires, to grasp these beliefs and desires will be more specific for empathy. In
that point almost all theoreticians share a similar opinion, as well as they underline a distinction
between imagining being another person and simply recognizing their emotion. What makes all
the approaches differ in a bigger or smaller degree one from another, are many various factors
coming along with one’s professional/personal background and discipline one is active in.
Phenomena of empathy which is being discussed, and brought into daylight in order to improve
the awareness, has divided researchers into many camps. In available studies as one type of
existing division, we will find theoreticians that look for the answers to a mystery empathy on:
a) emotional basis; b) cognitive basis; c) neural basis. Below I present main issues common to
all of the concepts, but since they put emphasis on different aspects, we meet various ways of
understanding and looking at empathy.

I. Social psychology – border between ‘self’ and ‘other’

As empathy deals with personal imaginative capacities in order to achieve a certain sort
of ‘transposition’, a question about a border between one’s own feelings and the feelings of
another, appears. In social psychology, a distinction between imagining oneself and imagining
the other, as well as the motivational and emotional consequences of these perspectives, have
been researched by Daniel Batson. A number of these studies conducted by Batson
documented that focusing on another’s feelings may evoke stronger empathic concern, while
explicitly putting oneself into the shoes of the target (imagine self) induces both empathic
concern as well as personal distress. Most of his research has examined the motives for pro -
social and antisocial behavior; the research has focused on vicarious emotions (such as
empathy) and personal values (such as religion) as sources of these motives.
In one such study, Batson investigated the affective consequences of different
perspective-taking instructions when participants listened to a story about a young college
student struggling with her life after the death of her parents. This study demonstrated that
different instructions had distinct effects on how participants perceived character’s situation.
The listeners showed much bigger personal distress and discomfort in case when they imagined

9
being a character then the ones focusing on character’s feelings (imagine other) or the ones
who took a detached, objective point of view. Listeners who were in any way involved in the
story, showed much higher empathic concern. Batson with his study showed that we are not
always able to empathize and thus behave pro - socially, in case of observing someone
suffering or in pain. Fear of sharing these uncomfortable emotions leave us often cold and
unresponsive.
Batson’s research on pro - social motivation has attempted to answer the altruism
question: When we help others, is our ultimate goal to benefit them, or is it always, somehow,
to benefit ourselves? He has looked at empathy as a possible source of altruistic motivation and
have found strong support. At present, Batson is exploring psychological implications of the
empathy-altruism relationship, as well as moving beyond the egoism-altruism debate to
consider other forms of pro - social motivation, such as collectivism and principlism (moral
motivation).

II. From individual to social – the origins of empathy meet politics

Frans B. M. de Waal, Dutch primatologist, professor of primate behavior, looks for the
origins of empathy, which he says is essential to human society. He assumes that our morality
depends on empathy, suggesting that following the golden rule without capacity to trade the
places with the other, would not be possible. Thus he claims, this capacity was already there,
before the golden rule (in other words ‘ethics’) got invented. This fact, de Waal projects onto
the far past and as a primatologist researching on animals, mainly apes, he proves that ‘the
building blocks of morality, clearly predates humanity’3. The contributions of de Waal to
primatology started with “Chimpanzee Politics” (1982), which offered the first description of
primate behavior explicitly in terms of planned social strategies, thus introducing Machiavelli
to primatology. In his writings, de Waal has never shied away from attributing emotions and
intentions to his primates, and as such his work inspired the field of primate cognition that,
three decades later, flourishes around themes of cooperation, altruism, and fairness.
According to de Waal, empathy makes us reach out to the others, first just emotionally but
3 Frans de Waal “The Evolution of Empathy”, Greater Good, Fall/Winter 2005/06

10
later in life also by understanding their situation4. This capacity likely evolved because it
served our ancestors’ survival in two ways. First, like every mammal, we need to be sensitive
to the needs of our offspring. Second, our species depend on cooperation, which means that
we do better if we are surrounded by healthy, capable group mates. Taking care of them is just
a matter of enlightened self – interest. Recent studies more and more prove, existence of
empathy in other species – household pets would react with distress seeing children or other
family members in worry, a female chimpanzee would embrace her male partner after he has
been defeated in fight. Especially apes seem to show a lot of empathic concern towards other
apes. In 1964 Jules Masserman reported that rhesus monkeys refused to pull a chain that
delivered food to themselves if doing so gave a shock to the companion. Some of them refused
to take food for 12 days, almost starving themselves to death.
De Waal: ‘The evolution of empathy runs from shared emotions and intentions between
individuals to a greater self/other distinction – that is an “ unblurring” of the lines between
individuals. (…) This process culminates in a cognitive appraisal of the other’s behavior and
situation – we adopt the other’s perspective.’5
De Waal points out that empathy is the one weapon in the human repertoire that can rid
us of the curse of xenophobia; because of its emotional load, it can widen a definition of one’s
group and f.ex. it can change the idea about our enemy in the times of conflict..6 Empathy is
fragile, though as among our close animals relatives, it is switched on by the events within their
community and just as easily switched off with regards to outsiders or members of other
species. This applies to a human race too – even if we are largely cooperative within our
communities, we become almost a different animal in our treatment of strangers. De Waal
postulates that we underestimate empathy as our primate heritage and in current political
thinking, we forget to embrace our human nature with all its good and bad aspects. This leads
to global conflicts and problem of transcending tribal differences, continues. De Waal
contributes into the worldwide peace making putting bigger hope into emotions which he says
‘(…) defy ideology. In principle empathy can override every rule about how to treat others (…)
We rely more on what we feel than what we think when solving moral dilemmas.’7
4 In this theory, intuitive and cognitive, perspective - taking aspect come together
5 Frans de Waal The Evolution of Empathy, Greater Good, Fall/Winter 2005/06
6 Waal talks about Israeli Minister of Justice who in 2004 caused uproar for sympathizing with the enemy
7 Frans de Waal “The Evolution of Empathy”

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 III. Mirrored emotion – neural and cognitive basis of empathy

Another person who contributed tremendously to the research on empathy is Jean Decety
from the University of Chicago, a headmaster of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience
Laboratory. In his early studies, Decety combined behavioral, physiological and functional
neuroimaging measures to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in
mental simulation of action, also known as Mental Practice of Action or motor imagery, a
technique used by athletes to rehearse and improve their performance. A series of experiments
demonstrated that mental simulation can activate heart and respiration control mechanisms
almost to the same extent as actual behavior. Imagining an action or actually performing that
action will activate similar neural circuits, and these circuits are also activated when one
observes, imitates or imagines actions performed by other individuals. Results of this research
contribute to the common coding theory between perception and action put forward by Roger
Sperry and more recently by German psychologist Wolfgang Prinz. The main assumption of
this theory is that actions are coded in terms of the perceivable effects they should generate
(our bodies know in advance, before the action happens, how the pathway and result will look
like). Performing a movement leaves behind a bidirectional association between the motor
pattern it has generated by and the sensory effects that it produces. Such an association can then
be used backwards to retrieve a movement by anticipating its effects (anticipation of the
movement will play an important role in this paper).
Later on, Decety as a neuroscientist studied physiology of empathy and examined its
neurological basis. To Decety empathy resembles a sort of minor constellation: ‘clusters of
encephalic stars glowing in the cosmos of an otherwise dark brain.’8 As main method of his
studies, Decety used brain imaging and projected pictures of emotional and physical suffering.
Pain is a window through which one can obtain a detailed view of the cognitive and
neurophysiological mechanism underlying empathy. The studies show the activation of the
same neural areas in our brains that are responsible for own pain and pain of the other still our
brain is able to distinguish the difference (a person watching the pictures isn’t actually in pain
and that’s important). Decety says that empathy starts as an involuntary act (I will question
8 Lydlalyle Gibson “Mirrored emotion”, University of Chicago Magazine, April ’06, Volume 98,
Issue 4

12
this issue further on in the work) of sharing emotion of the others: baby hearing other baby
crying will start crying, while watching people laughing we smile unwillingly, it is wired into
our brains. But he says as well that empathy is something we got to practice and learn:
‘Besides sharing affect, you must have the mental flexibility to put yourself into the shoes of
others. ‘9
As next, Decety emphasizes emotional control – ability to distinguish self from other. He
says that people who tend to lose themselves in other’s people pain, are not able to react
properly and to provide any help, while people who direct their empathy toward the other keep
their head cool and call emergency. In simple words, that means that if one puts himself in the
same kind of distress that he witnesses, he won’t be able to come up with a good solution,
suffering distress himself. Just when having capacity to separate from the other, one can assist
and formulate an appropriate action. Current research includes examining of dysfunction of
empathy in children and adolescent, looking for the reasons of social cognitive disorders like
f.ex. antisocial personality disorder and conduct disorder. Studies aim in helping understanding
children who lack empathy and are often deficient in experiencing empathic concern, sympathy
or guilt as well as in discovering the reasons of psychopathic behaviors.

Theory of mirror neurons is quite a fresh concept, explaining everything in reference

to the neurological basis of empathy. The one, who very strongly contributed to this theory and
is as well a co- discoverer of mirror neurons, is Vittorio Gallese from the University of Parma.
In the mid 1990, him and other Italian neuroscientists experimenting on the brain of the
macaque monkey, reported the discovery of the class of pre – motor neurons (located in the
frontal lobes of our brain), that were activated not only in a brain of a monkey performing an
action but as well in monkey or human witnessing this action. Like a mirror image, the same
set of neurons is activated in an observer, as in the individuals actually engaged in an action or
an expression of some emotion or behavior. Gallese emphasizes that these inherent mirroring
properties help explain the mechanisms of social, kinesthetic and emotional cognition or
understanding. So to say according to Gallese, empathy takes place because of the mirror
mechanisms, not because of intellect or reasoning.
I devoted a separate chapter to describe mirror neurons and their function specifically,
9 Lydlalyle Gibson “Mirrored emotion”, University of Chicago Magazine, April ’06, Volume 98, Issue 4

13
as they caused a lot of ambivalent thoughts. Since the moment their existence and
responsibility for the intuitive communication has become proved, many explorers in the field
of cognitive science, neuroscience, psychotherapy and further on in field of esthetics,
dance/movement therapy and kinesthetic empathy, started to refer to the theory of mirror
neurons, assuming all our feelings and emotions are the product of our brain. Mirror neurons
seem to explain everything and nothing as they put into question, power of our intellect and
consciousness. To me, theory of mirror neurons became especially problematic while referring
to my dance experience, where issues like esthetics, pleasure, consciousness, perception,
manipulation, decision and choice play a big role.

Terms of empathy and other significant notions10

Emotional contagion
The creation of a matching emotional state in one individual, the subject as a result of
perceiving the state in another individual, the object. Sometimes, as in very young children, the
distinction is lost between the subject and object – both are affected to a degree precluding
appropriate helping responses.

Empathy
The subject has a similar emotional state to the object as a result of perceiving object’s
situation. Empathy preserves the distinction between self and other. The subject’s emotional
state is partially focused on the other, often resulting in kind of helping behavior.

Sympathy
The subject feels ‘sorry for’ the object as a result of perceiving its distress. This can be arrived
at without a matching emotional response. Authors from before the 1950s often use the word
‘sympathy’ for what is currently referred to as ‘empathy’.

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Cognitive empathy
Apart from being emotionally affected, the subject cognitively understands the object’s
predicament and situation. This implies perspective – taking and attribution. Cognitive empathy
may be limited to the brainiest animals, such as humans, apes, dolphins and elephants.

Proprioception (Kinesthesia)
Is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body. Apart from the six
exteroceptive senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing and balance) by which we perceive the
outside world and interoceptive senses, by which we perceive pain and the internal movement
of the organs, proprioception is third sensory modality, that indicates whether body moves with
required effort, and how are the body parts located in relation to each other.
Kinesthesia is another term for proprioception, still it puts more emphasis onto movement.
Kinesthesia is a key component in muscle memory and hand – eye coordination.

Affective
Refers to the experience of feeling or emotion.

Cognition
Is the scientific term for ‘the process of thought’ to knowing.

Theory Of Mind (TOM)

A possibility to develop the intuitive and trustful attitude towards the feelings and ideas of the
others, assuming they are different from one’s own.

10 Greater Good, Fall / Winter 2005 -06

15
Mystery of mirror neurons and its implications

A mirror neuron is a neuron that gets activated both when an animal acts and when the
animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus the neuron ‘mirrors’ the behavior
of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.11 Since Gallese and his colleagues
discovered existence of mirror neurons in macaque monkey, it is considered to be a very
important happening in the field of neuroscience. Although arguments whether human beings
owe the same constellation of neurons, and whether they really play a significant role in act of
imitation and in the process of learning (thus as well in empathy), stays until now an
ambiguous question.
After having a profound look onto many various explorations concerning empathy and
have finally got acquainted with theory of mirror neurons, I remember a feeling of amazement
as well as of big disappointment. Because how can it be possible I thought, that suddenly all the
efforts born from the philosophical, ethical, psychological, sociological, esthetic and artistic
encounters, efforts that tried to look for what empathy on almost metaphysical levels, got
awarded with an answer constructed on the flesh and bone? Empathy I considered human in
sense of ‘willing’ and manipulative phenomenon, in theory of mirror neurons becomes
flattened and actually looses all its mystery – it gets reasonable. Still, studying this particular
approach helped me to arrive into a mode, where I could see more of an anatomical and
functional body and to start distinguishing processes happening both, on a social and artistic
level. The plane that is being explored in theory of mirror neurons is an arena of mainly
physical actions that are common as well for the choreographic work. In this point my idea of
physical empathy widened, to simultaneously expose the differences between a neuroscientific
and esthetical, dancer’s experience. Below I describe the whole bodily - based process,
referring to a book by Joachim Bauer.
Joachim Bauer in his book “Warum ich fuehle was du fuehlst. Intuitive Kommunikation
und das Geheimnis der Spigelneurone” explores and explains the phenomena of mirror
neurons, presenting many common examples from gestures through full body actions to wider
social, political movements.
11 Wikipedia

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According to Bauer, mirror neurons are the basis in recognition of body language and they
create a system of intuitive meanings. Thus they are responsible for:
- emotional contagion – reproducing bodily shapes and reactions like f.ex. what happens to a
crowd watching a box fight or a soccer game
- joint attention – a similar/even type of attention arising between the discussing
- intuition – intuitive sensing – predicting the moves of the others like f.ex. when walking
through the crowds on the street without being hurt
- exchange, resonance system – exchanging, registering, answering to emotions

Mirror neurons are the reason why we do not need much information in order to
recognize the feelings, emotions of the others, they create a system which works independently
from our analytical thinking and sometimes even against it. They are fundamental for
common understanding and its physical dimension. Bauer assumes that lack of response,
resonance like f.ex. avoiding eye contact, no response to greeting gestures, lack of reaction
heavily influences our psychological as well physical health.
Theory of mirror neurons shaped up by discovering of neurobiological resonance within
monkeys. These explorations proved that mirror neurons would fire not only in case of doing -
observing the same action, but even when just fragmentary information is being produced.
That means that we will deal with the same neuro reactions in doer and observer when:
- observer watches an action
- observer hears a sound of an action
- observer imitates an action
- observer imagines an action
All these processes are told to happen unwillingly and spontaneously thus being fundamental to
intuitive thinking and capability to predict, as the mirror neurons get active also when just a
part of activity is visible. Bauer says that they activate in us very unconscious sensations, in
opposition to the conscious process of developing a feeling towards the actions of another. In
emergency, mirror neurons help us to estimate intuitively the development of a situation. As
each situation is not linear and simple, as well as we carry different experiences in ourselves, it
causes various interpretations and reactions from our side. The intuition can fail because of our
prejudices and interpretation schemas. Fear, stress and tension reduce the signal rate of mirror

17
neurons. As soon the fear and pressure comes in play, we loose ability to co – feel,
empathize, to understand the other, and notice fine sensations. It also takes away the ability to
learn.

I. Imitation

Bauer suggests that mirror neurons get activated just when we observe a real person
(biological being) doing something known to us already. Without the activity of mirror
neurons, we are not able to imitate a presented action. As the learning processes in childhood
and youth, go through imitation and observation, we have to take care that these can have a
big influence onto our behavior. Children very often want to immediately perform an action
they think of, as grown ups we select activities we want to perform, we won’t do everything
we think of.
A few days after birth, babies start to imitate certain face expressions (without mirror
neurons it would be impossible) – it is a base for development of the relation between a baby
and a parent (similar is in the case of people freshly in love). Without a proper ‘relationship
offer’, mirror neurons won’t develop properly. And the relationships can influence the genetic
material and our physical body (in case of blind people for example, optic/visual stimulation is
not happening, thus the imitation process of face expressions must be learned in later phases
through another middles). Bringing up a baby in emotionless and rational ways ruins its further
possibilities to create any kind of emotional connection with other people. Early play with
mirroring imitations creates a base for the emotional intelligence.

II. Empathy and theatre. Lack of empathy

As I mentioned above, to create this chapter, I mostly used a book by Joachim Bauer and
was very happy to find there a lot of examples, assuming my feeling about a creative side to
empathy; here something about theatre.

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In normal cases, children develop empathy between the 2nd and 3rd year of life. Short after the
einfuehlungsvermoegen, appears the intellectual notice that other people not necessarily need to
see/feel exactly the same as oneself.
According to Bauer, the ability to be empathic depends on the systems of mirror neurons,
responsible for the compassion, and whether they are developed and brought into play. It can
happen though, that already existing ability to empathize can get destroyed through the
violence, brutality and extreme experiences of emotionlessness. To develop these skills, child
needs to be confronted with sympathy and compassion on the side of his parents while games
are the field for his practice. Game is not important only for kids. Adults as well need a place to
try things out, to confront their ideas, thoughts and opinions, to fail. Such a forum is like a
theatre. Below a definition of theatre by Elisabeth Kinderlen I like very much.

‘Theater is always there to try out the concepts for life, it is a space of possibilities, a try
out field. Everything can happen here, also the failures.’ 12

The system of mirror neurons is the basic equipment we posses. In the moment of our birth, it
is though in a very undefined and raw form thus empathy is not in born (innate). If the
possibilities of mirroring in others are not available in the first years of life, it has its severe
effects for the future – lack of self - esteem, problems in relationships, problems at work. Just
being mirrored in his surrounding, child can recognize who he is.

III. Speech, language, gesture

Another interesting aspect that evoked a lot of reflections, that one will find in the part
‘Dancing Empathy’, was brought by the aspect of origins of the speech drawn by Bauer.
Inevitably we need to admit there is a grand dependence between the movement and language,
language being created basing on the motor systems of the brain. That in simple words means
that the language and, what comes along, our gestures, are prolongation of our active thoughts.
12 Elisabeth Kinderlen and Dany Cohn Bendit “Ein Vor – Gespreach”

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 Bauer writes that not just an observation of an action makes mirror neurons active, but
also just a sound of an action or a talk about it, description can lead to resonance. Language
serves us to awake the mirror pictures of our ideas in the others, looking for understanding. He
describes language as thinking at loud as it carries pure dynamic potential – it touches us,
moves us, changes us, it can replace an actual action. With time, language would replace the
gestures in a process of development. What’s interesting that, because language plays such a
significant role in creating of the common understanding and common codes, the following
gestures need to fit the language. If they don’t, the understanding is broken like f.ex. reaching
for an object hanging above your head when it is “under” written on it. A very similar situation
while improvising to the music happens to your body, it immediately reacts to the ‘sound
symbols’ and when it cannot react naturally, it suffers.

IV. Intuitive unison.

In Bauer’s book, unison as a word is used in connection to imitation. Still, I found an

example of a ‘love couple’ an interesting parallel with unison in dance experience.
Imitation as first learning process becomes with time more and more limited by
constraining mechanisms. Still imitation accompanies us through life. In case of sympathy, we
tend to unconsciously copy body postures, moves, the way of speech of another. Love is a
special case, as a form of neurological and psychological resonance it is mainly constructed on
mirroring, reflections and joint attention. People in love perform an intuitive unison reflecting
each other’s body postures, face expressions (smiling, laughing), they cross legs together, touch
their hair, lean forward. Bauer says “flirting is largely a matter of timing” - same as in
choreography, when the flirt between the performer and spectator takes place. The mystery of
love after Bauer, lies in the effortless and spontaneous act of joining the other, like co – feeling
of joy, sadness, happiness, everything.

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 V. Group – Individuum
Mirror neurons and question of free will

Topic of possibilities of manipulation of empathy and active empathy use is to me quite

an issue, thus I was very curious what Joachim Bauer had to say in this topic. The picture of
mirror neurons – empathy providers he presented, did not leave in my opinion much space for
personal choice as everything looked pretty pre – programmed and impossible to be
questioned. Still, he came up with the very ‘down to the point’ observations, giving an idea of
an ancient, primal social choreography based on emotions.

“Among the masses the ideas, feelings, fears,irritations, believes are being transferred
with the power of microbes. It happens as well in the world of animals gathered in flocks.
(..) The fear of weird behavior of one sheep will be soon transported onto the whole flock.
The transmission of feelings explains sudden panic situations.”13
Gustave LeBon (1841 – 1931)

The majority opinions and moods spread like an infection. The ones who do not want
to/are not able to follow the trends, main interests, currents and opinions, find themselves very
quickly outside of the common understanding area (f.ex.outsiders). The wish to belong, to like
things the others like lies in our primal need to find mirroring, reflections and resonance in
order to stay in within the social identity. The mirroring phenomena, because it seems
independent from us and seen as a neurological issue, creates fundaments for the mass
movements including the possibilities of manipulation on the economical and political level. In
big human masses, activated resonance phenomena can develop a huge destructive potential
(f.ex. nationalism, dictatorships).
The mirroring phenomena paradox according to Bauer: the ability of resonance in human
beings is fundamental for the human race but at the same time it does lead to the mass
movement that can destroy human race. His very ethical point of view says ‘it is as important
to have an ability for the resonance as well as the ability to resist the resonance’ thus staying
in balance between the social resonance and individual identity.
13 Gustav Le Bon “The Crowd: A Study of The Popular Mind”, 1895 Paris

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 What is a role of free will then? How can we use this program that makes us choose out
of many different solutions and possible options? Bauer distinguishes three important
components that influence our choice: a) biological and emotional situation of one’s own body
(f.ex. hunger, tiredness as well as emotional sensitivity), b) big desire to stay close and
connected with people we love/feel for, sometimes stronger than our own survival wish (heroic
situations like saving a drowning child), c) questions of social fitting, belonging, general
approval. Thus mirror neurons offer us the networks of nervous cells that are busy with
planning of the actions and they leave to each individual, a space to choose whether the actions
should be fulfilled or whether they should stay as thoughts.

CONCLUSION

After the lecture of Joachim Bauer’s work and coming across the theory of mirror
neurons, I felt strangely confused but enlightened. From the beginning I decided to discover
whether I could anyhow connect perceptual sensations, esthetical terms and rather
philosophical thoughts treating on empathy with the neurological, anatomic, muscular aspects
of the body. Thus my idea was to confront the scientific with artistic, to find out if one really
needs to say ‘no’ to one dimension in order to enter another. Does one need to accept our
organic body and decisions it makes as neurological that means unconscious on one hand, or
cognitive on another? Do we need to talk about a passive body or thinking/brainy body? Or is
there still a different, maybe many different planes where with full appreciation and regard
towards the body and sensations it receives, feelings it produces named by neurological terms,
we can observe/feel our actions and relations with our inside and outside world on another
level? One such a place I found when observing myself as the dancing, performing,
improvising body in relation to empathy.
The field of my research that focused mainly on attempts to translate unknown feelings
lacking semiotic names and expressions has narrowed down after the research on mirror
neurons and neuroscientific approaches to empathy. I started to see the borders of the land, my
sensations have moved on. Difficulty in talking about empathy stays the same though, I lack

22
words describing it, feel a need to move between various disciplines and concepts in order to
create a full according to me, picture - to create a new land.
Mirror neurons brought new, quite rational suggestions for appearance of empathy one
will have hard time to reject. It is obvious we are organic invention, neurological/muscular
construction dependent on purely biological mechanisms. With help of these mechanisms we
build our relation towards ourselves, the other, society and surrounding us world. I am not sure
though whether as an artist, I am able to reduce or maybe better to say, agree upon strictly
neurological, intuitive and uncontrollable approach towards the art. I truly believe in the power
of inspiration and in moments of forgetting that lead to artistic creation but it is very difficult to
decide what’s the first impulse towards this moment – a conscious input coming from outside
resulting in emotion and activation or inner mechanisms being activated unconsciously
resulting in creative act with emotional value coming afterwards.
Reading and researching various publications, I was not able to say why in some of the
concepts and way they were described I have found more of a feeling I could share as a dancer,
much less recognition I have found in others. Was it because of certain terminologies I came
across that I could use thinking of my own dance experience? May be, anyhow the way I got
interested in those texts made me look for the reasons why were these texts appealing to me at
all. So I flipped through many essays representing neuroscientific approaches towards the body
and empathy, and I call them essays because of huge esthetical and philosophical in fact
potential they carry. As well as I found a few publications and opinions written by the people
who are active in field of dance and performance - movement therapists or even dancers
themselves, whose words and language I couldn’t bare as they stayed very dry, explanatory
scientific texts that according to me, conveyed no emotion although often both referred to the
same sources.
Conclusion I came up with was that one is not able to free oneself from empathizing
with the researched sources also when written. I realized I was very often much more appealed
by the content of a text when I could empathize with it as a dancer/mover/artist, text that in
itself contained not just recognized by me terms and names (cognitive aspect of empathy), but
as well a text which would convey a hidden rhythm and volume in the art it was written that
unconsciously, intuitively reminded my of a dance and spatial arrangements.

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 Thus it is possible to write scientific texts on art of dance as well as full of emotion and
sensitivity texts treating on scientific topics, but to me a clear statement concerning my point of
view onto empathy coming from my reading experience is that intuition brought by dancing
texts is followed by the understanding, but there is much less of intuitive side appearing along
the imposed cognitive reasoning. Thus I believe firstly in the experience followed by the
analysis, not the contrary. Secondary, a text that brings to me an intuitive dance experience in
its form, type of vocabulary and rhythm, not as much through its reasonable explanatory
content and thus it evokes empathy, must be a clear proof to my idea of a strong, inevitable
connection between the empathy and dance.

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 EMPATHY IN ART

Art is the nearest thing to life

it is a mode of amplifying experience and
extending our contact with our fellow men
beyond the bounds of our personal lot.
George Elliot

INTRODUCTION

With this chapter I open the ‘in between space’, a field that lies on the way to the target.
It can be seen as a development of a very strong and concrete beginning of the piece that is a
clear continuation of the same theme, but it gradually introduces different figures and
characters. As far as the part ‘Empathy in theory’ referred mainly to concepts of empathy
coming more from the field of human studies and neuroscience and explained more of the
social phenomena, this part will consider texts, books and publications dealing with terms and
concepts that found their direct use in the field of art, performance art among others. This
chapter will introduce some words that seem to be common for many various genres, the words
like embodiment, engagement, perception, fiction, imagination; terms that bring to our mind
more associations with an artistic experience per se.
It was again not easy to find people examining empathy in the artistic field, even less of
signs of empathy I have found in the area of dance or performance. As well in this case, terms
and disciplines get mixed making it hard and destabilizing – where lies the ‘artistic’ and where
the border to it?
Works I decided to confront myself with come from various areas of interest and are
unfortunately never written by dance artists themselves. Thus I explored what is the place of
empathy in literary fiction, in film, in sports, in the experience of a painter, in dance
photography, in the musical gestures a.o. I wandered through the ideas of embodiment rooted

25
in cultural studies and human sciences, philosophical writings, I learned about the culture of
symbols and signs, looked into the musical analysis to pick up further some bricks for my own
construction. Word empathy often does not appear per se thus one needs a full raw of
associations on his side in order to find his way of building up own theory. Still in this work
what I am interested in, is an attempt to move away from a hypothetical theory and to look for
the possibilities to prove my ideas. Untitled “ No fake. Reflections of bodily empathy”, this
work describing mainly practical research process wills to contribute to the dance, performance
practice as well to another disciplines where physical side to empathy can find its use. The
process I describe below and later on in the subsection treating on my own experience shall
continue, continuously leaving its marks on the bodies and minds, bridging theory and practice,
looking for new connections between both.
In the first part of this chapter, I need to present briefly a few publications dealing more
or less directly with issue of empathy framed by rather artistic experiences (still described by
specialists, no amateurs I include myself into). I decided to introduce these texts because as I
wrote before, they exist on the ‘in between’ field and because they carry further on the idea of
empathy that moves gradually from a social body to finally conquer a dancing body. I mean a
‘social body’ here as a body belonging to a group of common human references with a
‘dancing body’ being of course still a part of; it is hard to say, how much of a ‘dancing body’ a
‘social body’ carries inside.
In this chapter for the first time I will also deal with a question about the relation of
empathy and art and their mutual influences on each other. I try to come up with some
arguments that let me claim one can look for the origins of art in empathy. Travel that empathy
makes here in this paper is a conscious directed movement flow I opted for – approaching from
outside (context of the social subjective reality) towards the inside (in this case meaning the
context of the artistic practice and theatre). It draws a line melting life with theatre thus
sustaining its mobile character.
I need to talk about the role and function of empathy in different arts, and to share
existing already ideas in order to create a ground of ‘common understanding’ that will allow us
for much more detailed and explicit exploration my further explications are based on.

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The role of fiction

I. Keith Oatley and imaginary worlds or how to get ‘infected’ with empathy while
reading

First I propose to have a look at the work of Keith Oatley who’s the director of the
Cognitive Science Program at the University of Toronto and as a psychologist and a novelist,
he examines the role of fiction in our lives. In his articles published in a.o. ‘Greater Good’ and
in his online blog ‘On fiction’14, Oatley connects his psychological research on emotions and
fiction with his writing skills and interests in imaginary narrative worlds.
Oatley’s mission in the 21st century is the dissemination of literature worldwide. We
could say today it seems more and more of a utopian idea and I believe, that was exactly the
reason why I felt an immediate connection with it - just to get re - assured it is worth to be
idealistic. If one fights for the art and its place in society and endeavors to gather proper
arguments for himself and the others, he will find a big support in Oatley’s writings.
‘Books, movies and plays are far more than just the entertainment’, says Oatley as he explains
how fictional works nurture empathy and enhance our social and emotional lives - ‘they train
us in the art of being human’.15
While watching a movie or reading a book we engage emotionally even if our bodies we
perceive as passive. We join ourselves to a character’s trajectory through the story world we
see things from their point of view. Besides these factual arguments, Oatley makes a step
further in saying that ‘our propensity to identify with characters is actually a remarkable
demonstration of our ability to empathize with others.’16 How come? Usually reading a book or
watching a film, except for enjoying its qualities like construction of characters and credibility,
we tend to refer to the outside, to realities we know – it is a big part of our engagement in
fiction. For Oakley this is a fundamental issue – a lecture of a book stops being a solitary act
helping us forming connections with those around us in the real world. A story is a
partnership – the author writes it and the reader or audience member brings it alive. As far as
reading of historical novels will tell us about what has happen, fiction can tell us what can hap -
14 www.onfiction.ca
15, 16 Keith Oatley “A Feeling for Fiction”, Greater Good, Fall/Winter 2005 - 06

27
- pen and it opens the gates to the new imaginary worlds. Oatley claims that because of our
strong involvement into lives of fictional characters, we may even go with them into the
fictional and after our return to reality, we may apply the feelings and reaction we’ve learned
onto our surrounding. I am not that keen on this part of his theory (I find it a bit too unrealistic),
but what I want to point out is the way Oatley speaks about the process of emotional practice.
Looking at the inner sphere of the emotional tournaments through his writings, I couldn’t
avoid drawing a parallel to the muscular, bodily training that I want to present here. According
to Oatley the emotions and feelings that arise in us while reading despite eliciting out of the
fictional source, are nothing else but our own emotions. This inner stimulation and expansion
he often mentions become a field of the inner psychological practice on a micro scale, a sort of
a map model of the individual somatic movements. Thus the mapping that happens inside
increases the possibility of the eventual transposition onto our reality. Oatley puts it like this:
‘(…) Along with the basic process of empathic identification, we can start to extend ourselves
into situations we have never experienced, feel for people very different from ourselves, and
begin to understand such people in ways we may have never thought possible17.’
It is sure that in real life, we are used to watch the others in a very different way to
watching ourselves, we often lack compassion toward the other, we get affected directly and
these affects are followed by the direct reactions. Oatley argues we are still able to empathize
with strangers because the fictional world offers us safety. We do get involved in the
character’s emotions as if they were happening to someone we are closely involved, but not
directly to us. We feel what they feel but in a safe space and in this place we can practice
empathy – refine our human capacities of emotional understanding. The place Oakley talks
about seems to relate quite much with a concept of theatre by Elisabeth Kinderlen I mentioned
in the part about mirror neurons - a place for practice where in safety we can explore our
curiosity failing, succeeding, with impunity ‘stretching’ our human nature. Thus theatre will be
our next station.

17 This quote became a sort of a leading thought in the research on the physicality of drug addicts, I and two
other performers have pursued. It will be described in detail in the section describing ‘Empathy Project. Vol I’

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 II. What happens to us in theatre?

Spreading and ‘promoting’ of empathy through the literary fiction and a person of Keith
Oatley brought me much further into a direction that slowly started to remind me of a path I
already knew. To be clearer – empathy made its way into a theatre and articles that were up to
come, have confirmed once more my presumptions concerning the presence of empathy in art
and thus the role of art in our lives. Below I present some arguments that helped me to
understand with which kind of empathy one deals in the different artistic contexts.
Already in the suggestions drawn by Oatley, the word ‘theatre’ seems unavoidable, as it is
a fictional creation. Experience we go through while reading fiction or in this case, watching a
theatre play is based on the human capacities of recognition and adaptation. We empathize
with the characters because we are able to recognize the emotions and feelings that actors
perform and thus we can adapt to them, make them belong to us. Actors on the stage present
symbolic meanings coded in our common memory of emotional states and behaviors, differing
one from another in regard to the culture and individual preferences.18 In this way we can find
ourselves in the imaginative world we see.
I will claim that what happens to us while watching a theatre performance is the
recognition of emotion and the understanding of it on one side (cognitive empathy) as well as
the immediate instinctive reaction to character’s performed feelings like f.ex. a sudden burst
into tears (affective empathy). Considering empathy, theatre might be a very effective way of
learning as it enhances our imaginative capacities in a playful way. A practical application of
this idea can be found in Forum Theatre, a kind of interactive drama developed by Augusto
Boal.
Originally, the purpose of Forum Theatre was to make audiences aware of relations
between oppressors and the oppressed ones as well as the possibilities of avoiding their
unsavoury consequences. The scenario of a play in this kind of theatre typically brings the
victims to an unhappy ending caused by the oppressors. The play is performed twice in one
session: once in the usual way, and then, during the second performance, spectators are invited
by a facilitator called Joker, to participate. When someone feels that he or she could turn the se-
18 By individual preferences I mean the ability to empathize as such, established mainly in our childhood as
well as cultural, ethnical, generational, gender differences as well as disorders

29
- quence of events in a positive direction, they are encouraged by the Joker to come to the
stage and play the role of one of the characters. It is through the active involvement of
improvising in an imaginary situation that the participants may be able to change their
attitudes and beliefs. Their practicing of alternative courses of action that would resolve the
problem of oppression may add to the effect of Forum Theatre. In addition to the active mental
effort of placing oneself in the position of someone else, participants have the bodily
experience of actually being in situations unfamiliar to them. Right now the methods of Forum
Theatre are used worldwide by many theatre companies as well as by individual directors.19

III . Theatre as an example of group movement

Empathy in theatre experience is shared between the actors and onlookers, it evolves in
the ‘in between’ space of the common truth and common meaning. Without words and
discussions, members of the audience create ‘one emotional body’ that escapes a rational
explanation. It is a fact, we are all different human beings carrying various emotional
experiences, being less or more sensitive, compassionate or rather cold, still we are able to
achieve one emotional state as a group – ‘a group emotion20’. Common memory I mentioned
before, where the symbols and schemas of emotions are coded helps us in recognition and
acknowledging of signs, but theatre situation is a very complex one as it represents a place
where we are confronted with many multidirectional factors. Theatre as a place of meeting of
different individuals represents as well a social group situation and it gathers people with the
same aim. Thus apart from our empathic involvement deriving from the artistic experience, we
as spectators find ourselves under the overwhelming power of group phenomena. This group
situation may influence our individual emotional state, leading to such moments when even if
we do not find a joke funny, we will laugh with the others – that’s the emotional contagion.
Many researchers claim that emotional contagion equals somehow intuitive, affective
empathy as it works on the unconscious level. Based on the unaware reproduction of facial
expressions and mimics, and on ‘non – verbal’ communication, it leads to the effects like sprea-
19 Frank Hakemulder “Forum Theatre”, Online Magazine on the Psychology of Fiction
20 Like f.ex.in theory of rasas – esthetic emotions shared between the performer and audience members ,
different from the emotions we experience internally

30
- ding of one emotional state (the same point of view we can figure out following theory of
mirror neurons). As in theatre it may just briefly put us of the track, in social life it can result
in more serious and even destructive situations. Emotional contagion is said to lie at the cause
of the mass movements (beginning with sudden panics to all possible ‘-isms’) and here I will
make clear what is its correspondence to empathy. I shall argue that empathy as such contains a
big cognitive aspect and there cannot be empathy without the reasoning and ethics, moral rules
where the reality becomes ambiguous. Erich Fromm says the difference lies in autonomy and
abilities of moral reasoning - characteristic elements of empathy that allow us to resist
emotional contagion. 21

Thus I used an example of theatre to show how much of social bodies we are even in the
art context and to suggest that theatre may be a place where because of its fictional façade, a
good group movement can be practiced on the peaceful ground. Overcoming all the divisions
seen as implications of the individual as well as the dangerous attempts of unification, theatre
remains a place of asylum and its socio – political role in propagating of the pacific thought
shall not be denied. On another side, we must not underestimate the power theatre is in hold of
and, of how it can be used in society for the authoritarian purposes exactly with help of the
same weapon – its ‘derealitisation’.

IV Actor’s training as empathic practice

Phenomena of empathy present in a theatre experience lead Thalia Goldstein to a question

whether the actors themselves might have taken a particular interest in empathy, theory of mind
and the goings – on of the social world. In 2009, Goldstein has started her research on the
psychological development and training of actors. In one of her studies, she interviewed 11
professional actors who had acted on Broadway and 10 patent lawyers about such matters as
their involvement of pretend play in childhood, and their attunement to other’s emotions.
Actors were distinguished from lawyers in recalling higher involvement in fictional worlds and
pretend play in their childhood. Goldstein says that:
21 Wikipedia

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‘Reading, understanding, and then creating part on stage, in a film or TV show requires a deep
analysis of the inner life of that character. (…) actors must develop a good “theory of mind”
so that they can grasp the inner workings of the character they must portray. Thus it is likely
that training in acting leads to advanced levels of theory of mind.’22
In this way, Goldstein steps away from the conventional theatre of symbols that opt for rather
‘universal’ ways of interpretation (I do not believe in universal interpretation) and common
understanding and she researches towards the ‘individual’.

V. Empathy and the origins of art

Referring to the concept of empathy suggested by Oatley and to the Goldstein’s research,
I want to use the opportunity to make clear that the theatre our days offers a very complex
emotional experience as well to the actors/performing as to the onlookers. I will also show
how the cognitive and intuitive sides of empathy contribute to the problematic question about
the origins of art and how difficult it is to decide ‘which came first the chicken or the egg?’
Contemporary theatre today is a hybrid and experimental form where the way of acting
often reminds of performing (by ‘performing’ I mean incorporating rater than representing),
where music, movement, visual and fine arts come together thus the audience is confronted
with not a one historical meaning, but with hundreds of associations, metaphorical meanings,
abstract signs and symbols with spoken language deprived from the literal meaning, with
power of music and moving picture, with….. Seems crazy, but we manage to tackle a great
deal of new codes and schemas that get imprinted on our expanding memory. In 21st century,
we got used to the complex pictures and meaning they carry thus what we deal with are new
symbols of emotions and new references. How then these new signs and pictures we are fed
with relate to our emotional system that in a big percent is a construct of the innate and primal
emotions distinguished already in primitive creatures? Introducing of the new methodologies,
strategies, new formats and technologies in the art field, often cause suspicious reactions and
evoke in the audience attempt of the intellectual interpretation rather than emotional
involvement. This happens when the meanings of the presented symbols are not clear to us and
22 Thalia Goldstein “Psychological perspectives on acting” (2009)

32
when they do not fit imprinted in us representations and schemas of emotions. ‘Without a
heart, a sign for love’, we are not able to see the love struggle, we are emotionally confused,
but as Oakley says - ‘it is up to fiction to create the new worlds’23 and it (fiction) becomes our
teacher.
Art similarly to fiction offers us the possibility to enter many more situations than a
lifetime could contain. Being confronted with ‘unknown’ and questionable, apart from
undertaking the intellectual efforts to understand (because from nature, we do not like to be
confused), we are often surprised by our emotional reactions towards an artistic act. At times
we discover new to us emotional states that we couldn’t even name, other times we are
astonished about the actual look of the artistic objective that caused in us an emotional storm.
Artistic experience forces us to undertake mental enactments - whether empathizing with the
actors, performers or film makers and painters through their works, we discover aspects of
ourselves and as such it is a perfectly good outcome for the emotions we experience. Gradually
we expand the field of our emotional activity. Thus was art there first to teach us how to feel?

Following the original hypothesis put up by Bill Benzon who is a great contributor to
‘On Fiction’ (online magazine created by K. Oatley), we could agree that art is our invention
and it starts where we lack words. Benzon thinks art, including music, is adaptive and that it
has an important function of reducing anxieties that are hard to express to others24. His theory is
a version of a general idea of Romantics that art functions to explore and thus help to assimilate
and understand emotions. Thus we could say that our instinct, urge and intuition lead us to
creation of a product that then, becomes understandable to us. But if the artistic product is
understood that means it must refer to something we can recall with our emotional or cognitive
memory. I do not think that artistic outcome must be definitely understandable on a cognitive
level but it is more than probable that it will carry an embodied emotion in no matter which
form. Making art we long for our outcomes to be mirroring an aspect of ourselves, we need to
be able to recognize ourselves in them, intuitively or with full awareness – art is a product of
empathic process. Art lets us recall our memories and practicing art like f.ex. participation in a
common dance experience can reveal the forgotten truths about the simplicity and pleasure in
empathic act of being together.
23 K. Oatley “A Feeling for Fiction”
24 Bill Benzon in On Fiction online magazine

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 VI. Empathy may come with time - Jerome Bel’s ‘Show must go on’ as
an example of empathic exercise

Next to our innate ability to empathize, many outside factors influence this capacity
during our life. I talked about how we are capable of starting to feel empathy for the ‘unknown’
on the intuitive and cognitive level. As far as intuitive side of empathy depends on our rather
innate mechanisms and it is being formed by emotional happenings in our lives, the cognitive
side has a lot to do with passing of time because it corresponds with understanding. I want to
give here an example referring to a period of conceptual movement in performance art and
dance that was both loved and hated by many.
Let us take the ‘Show must go on’ – a masterpiece created by Jerome Bel in 2001.
Watching it today it is hard not to like it or to feel at least sympathy for the bunch of people in
street clothes being manipulated by a Dj – master of ceremony. Why did this piece that is
actually ‘nothing else’ but a play list mixing iconic ballads, pop tracks and remarkable hits
accompanying the simple actions performed originally by Jerome’s friends, won our hearts?
Who does not remember the singular pictures from this show that belong to the history of
performance and dance with the show as such being already a classic? Famous ‘Titanic’
moment, a long tension before finally busting a move midway through Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’,
a crazy loop during ‘I Like To Move It’, embrace to aching Nick Cave’s ‘Into My Arms’ cause
our days ‘Ohs…’ and ‘Awwwww’s almost all over the world. But was it always like this?
Looking back, we might be surprised to read first reviews of the work and reports describing
audience’s reaction in Bel’s home country, France.

I have made a detailed online research where I flipped through many different reviews
of that work beginning with 2001 up to now written by dance critics and audience members.
The results show clearly how the opinions got more and more enthusiastic with the time as well
as how perceptions were changing according to different cultures and ethnicities.

In 2010 we read the ‘Show must go on’ is profound, jaunty, witty, entertaining, it shows
us how music and dance can bring us together, it is ultimate in artistic democracy. Bel is
described as a highly philosophical artist, he is extraordinary and the coolest.25 Still I have as

34
well found the comments coming especially form the Canadian community where many people
complained about the high prices of the tickets and wanted their money back as the piece was a
cheesy interpretation of cheesy songs. In general today the percent of people who defend the
show and find it great, beautiful, loving, democratic and human as well as they are able to see it
as a metaphor of theatre situation and of society, exceeds tremendously those ones complaining
about it. Going back to 2005 we will find still very careful critics and more of negative
opinions or the ones where we can clearly see the fight in between the individual wish to join
this dilettantish, amateurish performance on one hand, and the rational approach to the work on
the other. Bel talks about an Israeli woman who came onto stage and kicked one of the dancers
or how at the premiere of the work in 2001, people started booming, entered the stage and
demanded their money back. The reviews in 2001 were full of reserve, coldness and they
definitely lacked positive expressions, still some were able to recognize the power of the ‘Show
must go on’ already back then.

I decided to present this example because of two levels of empathic involvement I can
talk about here. First one is purely connected to the show as such, to its genius and simple idea
of playing with cliches and formal literal meanings that contributed to its final success. What
Bel has proposed in the ‘Show must go on’ apart from the establishment of his ordinary and non
– virtuosic art that years ago offended many dance lovers, was a smart game based on the
human ability of recognition and identification of emotions, a play between the social dance
and music. As a member of the audience you remember the personal moments you thought you
had forgotten, you travel through your life with the musical hits realizing you actually often
hate them, but in the moment you cannot escape the overwhelming sensation of togetherness
and social, cultural belonging stronger than your personal taste. The power of emotion and
imagination, capacity of recollection of memories made this piece to a highly empathic
exercise and delicacy.
So it is now, so it was for some already in 2001 but many got convinced with the time.
Where does this conviction come from? I will argue here that empathy may arise with time.
The songs Bel used in his piece haven’t belonged to the collective memory of the whole huma-
25 Reviews I found online by :Alison Croggon, Melbourne Festival 2007; Jennifer Duning for New York
Times, 2005;Janet Smith, Dance Reviews, Vancouver, 2010; Montakar Suvanatap, The Nation, 2007;Salle Ludger
– Duvernay, criticaldance.com, 2001

35
- nity. They were particular for the European, American, white culture as well as to some
generations. If you did not know the songs you might have thought similarly to one spectator
from Singapore who was pretty angry about Bel’s provocative ideas and could not empathize
with the revealing pictures as he didn’t know many songs and lacked associations.
Today the audience coming to watch the ‘Show must go on’ comes to see a classic and it
obviously learned to appreciate its qualities. What happened is that piece itself started to be
seen as a symbol. It became universal (although to me it always was) with the time. Before, in
2001 it was still received as a part of artistic reality which it visibly wished to oppose, it existed
rooted into the same world as the world of its spectators who used to receive ‘serious art’.
Empathy demands detachment and that is what has happened. ‘Show must go on’ is our days
detached from our artistic reality, it sustained its power as a product of someone who strongly
influenced the course of art making based on ordinary life, non – virtuosic abilities, untrained
bodies and irony, and it won because of the human universal truths it carries. Conceptual art
taken for innovative, stopped being innovative and joined the bank of the collective codes thus
Jerome Bel’s work being referential became itself a reference necessary for our empathic
involvement.

Many works in art, in performance art as well share the same destiny – from
controversial, suspect, average to outstanding, immortal, superb. Their authors managed to find
strong points for our emotional attachment arising from the plot, dramaturgy, used references,
expressiveness, use of music etc. Some performances seem ‘out of date’ today despite their
huge popularity years ago. Based on the formal fundaments they reached the limits of our
empathy not passing the test of time. Others will remain. They will last withstanding all the
upcoming esthetical trends until we do not enter a new stadium of evolutional development that
will bring some changes to our somatic system.

36
CONCLUSION

This chapter was devoted to the place and role empathy plays in art. I endeavored to
present a few of the artistic disciplines described from the empathic perspective and I hope I
came up with enough arguments to make clear how the participation in artistic practice can
train our emotions and thus our bodies. I mentioned among others a situation of spectatorship
and empathic understanding created as a common truth arising from the overleap of various
attentions – between the ‘on stage’ attention and spectators’ engagement. Further on I was
interested whether in any sense we could look at empathy as a motor for artistic creation and
what its relation to the origins of art could be. It arose from the intuitive sensation of the
inescapable closeness of those two and left me without any doubts. The correlation of empathy
and art seems innate as the ancient necessity to create art is. Same way as we watch fine art
trying to look at it with the eyes of the painter so we can almost see him in the movement of the
brush, we look for the mirrors for our thoughts, feelings and ideas embodied in all the other
works of art. Making art, we look for ourselves.

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 DANCING EMPATHY

PROLOGUE OR WHY ‘DANCING EMPATHY’?

After a long trip, we finally reached the target. Rich in all the fundamental
knowledge, I can eventually open a chapter where my suggestions towards empathic
processes in dance, will hopefully meet with your understanding and interest. In previous
parts I endeavored to watch empathy with emphasis on its dynamic potential and to
consider its significance in creating the movement. Thus we could observe how when
looking at empathy, we are able to distinguish and associate the moves it inevitably
brings along. From the little micro shifts in our organisms through communication
processes with others to the big social group constellations, empathy makes us into
dancers of its own company. It sets choreography of our intentions and emotions to reach
bodily actions, steps and movements.
Whether we have dealt with the unconscious physical reactions in the social context
or with the act of reception in art (literature, spectacle), we could agree on the
partnership empathy brought along. In this part I will talk of ‘empathic’ setting and of
situations evolving strictly around a dance experience and physical experience of
performance. I will bring the focus on the body, reflect the question of embodiment,
unison and intention as well as I try to explore the limits of empathy in the physical
sense.
Dancing Empathy is a term borrowed from Deniz Peters27 whom I had a chance to
meet in the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at the University of Music
and Performing Arts (KUG) in Graz. Peters worked there a.o. as a collaborator during the
research on Embodied Generative Music (EGM)28 I took part in, and he contributed to the
research with his input coming from the field of art, philosophy and science. We both
have met in 2008 in the setting of the research where for the first time I came across the
interdisciplinary approach to music. It was because of Peters that this highly
technological and scientific arrangement became much more than just an episode in my

38
life as we managed to establish an inspiring dialogue that continues until today. Half a
year later in Vienna, I was dancing in the production “Paradise Lost – Exit Eden” by
Rose Breuss and Deniz Peters and me, we have coincidentally met again in another
empathic setting - me on a stage, him in the audience. It was there when we decided to
work on topic of physical empathy in the future, for me that was the moment I decided as
well to write about it.

The expression ‘dancing empathy’ appeared in the early sessions of the research I
pursued in Graz, at that time I had a mere idea about empathy in general. Today in 2010
with two years of a personal empathy research behind me, hours of theoretical and
practical work, one own production – a performance entitled ‘Empathy Project Vol. I’,
still I feel like I am about to begin.
Title expression as such brings along many different possibilities of interpretation,
it contains a question, an answer to the constant paradox – Who dances whom? Is it
empathy that dances, or empathy that is being danced? It sounds exactly the way it is –
subjective. This question reminds of the one about the origins of art. Here again although
escaping wider context and focusing on the body, we are left without a clear answer. Is
this phenomenological approach escapable? Empathy, this human belonging turned my
body inside out and made my brain into emotional being. Below I present some places
and circumstances as well as the methods showing how and where I have looked for
salvation.

27 Deniz Peters studied music and holds also a doctor in philosophy. In the IEM in Graz he was
together with Gerhard Eckel responsible for the research on EGM. He is an author of many publications in
which he explores the idea of embodiment, ‘leib’, bodily expression in music as well as haptic and audible
phenomena
28 EGM – Embodied Generative Music was a research project directed at understanding the
relationship between bodily and musical expression via artistic and scholarly research conceived by
Gerhard Eckel and Deniz Peters. More at www.embodiedgenerativemusic.com

39
 As first I will share my reflections arose around the research on EGM and around
the ‘body – music’ connection. This would not be possible without the great contributions
by Deniz Peters who shaped and cultivated constantly my interest and curiosity; Gerald
Kurdian29 whose impressive knowledge in area of music, philosophy of music and art as
well as his practical experience as a singer and musician, helped me a great deal in
drawing connections between the world of music and dance; Tom Pauwels30 whom I
admire as a dancing musician and who was very open to share with me his experiences
and took time to reflect upon empathy.
Second part is devoted to my research on physicality of drug addicts, me and two
other performers have pursued as a part of the process of creation preceding the
performance of ‘Empathy Project Vol. I’. It contains also two interviews with two
contemporary dance makers and performers I was interested to talk to concerning
empathic issue - Jennifer Lacey31 and Martin Nachbar32. I chose Jennifer because of her
long practice in authentic movement and in pedagogical work, Martin because of his
interest in memories and reconstructions.
This chapter is divided in two parts according to two different experiences I went
through. It took some time until I figured out which kind of process should be applied
here, to make finally a very simple but the most appropriate choice. Thus in the first part
I gathered all the reflections about the correlation of the bodily empathy and music, in the

29 Gerald Kurdian is a performer, songwriter and radio artist living in Paris. He studied fine arts in
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts de Paris-Cergy before taking part in the EX.E.R.CE 07 contemporary
dance program directed by Mathilde Monnier and Xavier LeRoy at the Centre Choreographique Nationale
de Montpellier. He also directed several radio projects exploring sound performativity and contemporary
arts critique (Divergence fm, Radio RGB, Betonsalon, La Vitrine).
30 Tom Pauwels is active in the performance of new music both on classical and on electric. He
performs mainly within the context of ensembles such as Ictus, Plus-Minus and Elastic 3. In the course of
his career he became more and more involved in different aspects of concert organisation (concer t
dramaturgy, text introductions, communication). As a performer he works with performance artist David
Helbich and choreographers Xavier Leroy and Maud Le Pladec.
31 Jennifer Lacey is an American choreographer and dancer living in Paris. She works questioning the
form and content of the performances, loading them with poetic meanings. Since a long time she
collaborates with a fine artist Nadia Lauro and with a performer Antonija Livingstone. Since 15 years she
teaches composition, improvisation and techniques focusing on the body/movement perception.
32 Martin Nachbar is a German dancer and choreographer living in Berlin. Since 2000 he has been
working on the reconstruction of Affectos Humanos of German choreographer Dore Hoyer. In 2008 he
created a performance with his father. Empathy plays a big role in his approach to the work of
reconstruction and memorizing.

40
second we are confronted with bodily empathy when the music is not present. It became
obvious to me that the music, sound, noise and any kind of audible influence change
entirely bodily perception thus it transforms as well the empathic dimension of the
embodied experience. The power of sound being both dominant and inspiring, irresistible
but nourishing plays a very important role in the physical process watched from empathic
perspective or even more than that – I risk and say – music brings empathy alive.

41
 PART ONE

Empathy came with the music. Body in the EGM setting

I. Entrée

Space setting during the research on Embodied Generative Music (EGM) was the
big unknown, especially to someone who’s not that acquainted with technology and multi
- medial innovations. The aim of the research was to observe the interactions in the
musical and bodily expressions that instantly correlate with each other. The
acknowledgement of empathy wasn’t the first observation that was made during the
research but word ‘empathy’ has come up quite soon becoming probably the most
accurate in describing the evolving experience.
Imagine you enter a space alike to any kind of a studio, you are surrounded by the
loudspeakers and many little infrared cameras above your head. As a dancer, you wear
parts of the special costume equipped with little spherical reflectors cameras react to.
Computer remembers all the coordinates of the sensors thus what appears, is a little
‘point’ model of your body visible on the computer’s monitor. Cameras would track your
movements thus the model would be a perfect mirroring of you moving in space. Room is
empty but just to your eyes in fact it is filled with sound.

In EGM project dancer places himself in the space where a certain music material
is spread, ‘hang’ as a new invisible dimension. There are several ‘scenarios’ available. To
mention some we have had an excerpt of Schwitters’ sound poetry The real disuda of the
nightmare, scenarios based on a singular sound, one with a delay of sound, ‘spherical’
formations, constellations creating perforations, thick groups of sounds, shapes, forms,
lines, crossings, tubes - so to say - sounds become almost visually geometrical. Some of
them have much more of the fixed spatial arrangement (f.ex. a thick cluster of sounds on

42
the right side of the room, many gaps on the left; or thick above, ‘porous’ below), some
are more shape oriented (f.ex. sounds running along the edges of the round spheres, tubes
or spirals), the others are correlated with the movement itself and not that dependent on a
space (intra – body – distance f.ex. accelerating, with delay). A body in this space has a
power to make these scenarios/sounds appear in the loudspeakers. Just by entering the
space, the moving body is put straight into a strange dialogue with the music.

Firstly entering the space with no expectations and no previous knowledge

concerning the method, you start improvising as usual to gradually notice you are a part
of a duet and there is no further possibility to ignore your partner, here - the music. Each
musical scenario is a new land to be explored.
You move insecure slowly checking your ‘territory’, arms typically stretched in
front of you, upper body leaning backwards – like in the darkness when you intuitively
wish to protect your head. You try to stay minimal and you act carefully to suddenly
‘fall’ into a noisy whole. Instinctively you start to escape but on the way you ‘bump’ into
a piece of metal. Fantasy? No, it could be a real experience in EGM setting.
Very soon I was able to observe an enormous complexity of those settings.
Although we are conscious of the sounds existing around us ‘hanging’ in the air, we are
the ones who got the impression of actually making them happen, so as a dancer you
become a musician in very simple words. Still the situation we are talking about, escapes
this easy explanation as your movements are constantly stimulated, influenced by the
sounds you hear. Again we do not know who actually has the creative power in this
setting. A moving body in such circumstances very quickly looses its freedom and there
is no way that one stays in hold of his decisions.

II . Active / Passive in subjectivity

I need to talk about the active and passive as two very important adjectives
describing the formal, outer aspect of the movement experience in EGM but as we will
see, these words will appear concerning many other factors related to the research. Jaana
Parviainen who explored the findings of this aesthetic lab applying phenomenological

43
approach used similar words - she said that ‘dancers build bodily knowledge both on the
sonic environment and of their own passive and active, intuitive and deliberated
movement choices.’33

Here ‘active’ and ‘passive’ occur as a result of constant interactive game the body
and music lead with each other. As far as we cannot talk here about the passive reaction
of the music due to pre – recorded material that is not being performed live thus not
transformable and interpreted in the moment, we can definitely say so about the bodily
reaction onto the music. It seems clear that in this case, it is the body that carries much
more of the transformative potential, acting in within pre – interpreted musical fragment
with fixed parameters. Still because of complexity of almost all scenarios, one is not able
to memorize exact spatial ‘placement’ of musical elements and patterns. I could compare
it to jumping on the three dimensional interactive stave or keys with major and minor
mixed together – you hardly ever know what is about to come. This uncertainty brigs up
a sensation of the music being passive as well towards the body. Still as many times
before here as well one is thus not able to reject phenomenological approach thanks to
strongly emerging subjectivity – they both become facts.
An active moment of the body, a movement directed towards space and resulting
in certain sound might seem active to the one performing it, still it might sound like a
passive moment in the music. As well as the bodily passive reaction, may result in an
activation of the musical scenario (f.ex. when minimalisation of the movement causes
acceleration of the sound speed or volume and bigger amplitudes slow it down).

A practical example may develop like this:

Dancer’s body entering the space makes the sounds hearable transmitting a feeling of the
creative power - dancer does an initial move (active moment). The next step is dancer’s
bodily reaction onto the sound he/she just heard that means a musically ‘passive’ (that
might become active as well) movement.
33 Jaana Parviainen “Dwelling in virtual sonic environment: Phenomenological analysis of dancers’
learning processes in working with the EGM interface” (2009)

44
We could also talk about an action at the same time becoming a reaction.

The next step is:

In this place more options come into play: either the body’s reaction onto the sound stays
‘passive’ and resolves in the inward kind of movement, a sort of escape away from the
sound, or the sound becomes an inspiration for the movement repetition. In the first
case body ‘escaping’ from the sound creates on its way another sort of ‘soundscape’ and
would stop finally finding interest in another sound. In the second case through the
repetition of the movement focusing on reproduction of exactly same sound or sound
combination, the body/body part, becomes more and more aware of the sound quality and
here would be the first time I have to mention phenomena of empathy. Body part
responsible for the sound appearance finally reaches a place where it coexists with a
sound. It finds a way to express the sound’s volume, quality, shape, placement in space,
its weight, tension - it simply enters this sound. In the moments when a body part really
mirrors and transmits the whole of a sound we hear, we can talk about the full empathic
embodiment that creates a special type of the local sensory awareness in the body,
sending all the attention to the tracked parts.

III. Empathy and embodiment

For Merleau – Ponty perception is basic bodily experience, where the body is not
an object but a subject, and where embodiment is the condition for us to have any objects
– that is, to objectify reality - in the first place. His work suggests that culture does not
reside only in objects and representations, but also in the bodily processes of perception
by which those representations come into being.34 In EGM setting, this phenomenological
concept confirms its relevance and goes even further.

34 Thomas J. Csordas “Embodiment and cultural phenomenology” from ‘Perspectives on

Embodiment. Intersections of Nature and Culture.’ Edited by Geil Weiss and Toni Fern Haber

45
Illusionary or/and real

As far as the research was based on the interactions between the physical body and
interface, in effect it resulted in many embodied transformations. It is difficult to inquire
where does the formal aspect of these transformations end and where are we confronted
with our subjective perception. If we can talk here about the ‘consistency’ of different
layers, we could suggest that what happened during the process was the ‘transformation
in consistency’ of the several ‘ingredients’, layers involved in the overall experience.
Thus the space occupied by dancing body and space devoted to interface stopped being
distinguishable and not even they melted into one, but they both created a new
transformable layer where two opposite forces stayed in the constant bargain. The new
‘inter’ dimension became a place for the discussion with the power to transform the
abstract into constant and other way round.

It could easily seem that a body ‘thrown’ into one of the scenarios could become
its slave as it hardly ever reaches a peaceful place or a still position but as all the
experience stays on the ‘in between’ level of the fight, discussion and argument, we could
talk here about a ‘master – slave relation’. I do not mean the body as a slave and music as
a master or the other way round, but I talk of a constant alteration between both qualities
on both sides of this audible dimension. Body is active and reactive as well as is the
music. Another characteristic and most significant conversion is though the impression
arising from a specific place where the body and movement meet - the materialization
of the sound. Thus in case of EGM we could talk about a sort of visible music that
similarly to performative music works of Dieter Schnebel, brings us optic illusions and
visual dimension of listening experience. This could be valid for the onlooker, but
what’s more appropriate as a descriptive to dancer’s experience would be to talk about
haptic qualities of the sound.
Haptic illusions consist of impressions of being touched by the sound and they were
very dominant in the EGM research. ‘Individuals possess strong association between the
materiality of objects and sounds commonly carried out with them. This implies that the
function of object is intimately bound with the sound it makes when we handle it. Touch
depends quite obviously on awareness of the ways in which objects come into contact

46
 35
with one’s body and affect one’s body by giving rise to sensation. ‘ Thus emerging
sensations arising immediately and unwillingly as intuitive sensory reactions to the
sounds often carried the feeling as we would have influenced or have been treated by a
material body. In description of the experience expressions like being touched, hit,
caressed appeared, commonly to all the researchers along with touching, hitting or
stroking the sound. I experienced as well the sound that would press me down, squeeze
me, lift me or it would enter my body, I was also able to feel the shape, weight and
consistence of the sound. If we want to talk about embodiment here, we could already
notice how liquid are the borders between the solid and abstract in this subjective
surrounding.

What happens to ‘initial’ body?

a) Temporary victory of the sound.

Where the ‘abstract’ at moments gets framed and formed into ‘material’, I want to
discuss what actually happens then to what was initially material – to the body. As I
mentioned before, some of the scenarios are already ‘shaped’ into certain formations that
one may outline with his movements, others remain ‘shapeless’. Body isn’t shapeless
neither abstract but it can nevertheless escape transformative power evolving from this
inter – relation. ‘If embodiment is an existential condition in which the body is the
subjective source or intersubjective ground of experience, then the studies (..) of
embodiment are not about the body per se’36 but about this what I call ‘interplace’. In this
case EGM set becomes a metaphor of this ‘interplace’ and I will show how the relation -
oriented embodiment becomes a process in itself.
Dancer’s trained body carries various experiences in different techniques, it is rich
with certain physical skills, it applies various approaches to the movement, space and
time, it deals with issues of dramaturgy, composition, improvisation as well as it
ismarked by social and cultural codes. All these factors we may consider as the ones that

35 Gibbs 2005, 50
36 T. J. Csordas “Embodiment and cultural phenomenology”

47
constantly shape our embodied beings. In the EGM research lab, as a dancer you enter
the space with all these ingredients and because of circumstances you have a chance to:
a) expand your physical skills; b) discover new perceptive qualities including your senses
of hearing, sight and most of all – touch; c) create new awareness – all that through
passive or active, instinctive or conscious process your embodied work is submitted to.

Sound and music are the components to which our bodies show a high
responsivity. Game with EGM interface is based on the constant combat between the
unconscious, pre – reflective, instinctive bodily reactions and our aware, willing physical
choices. As we enter the space of the interaction, as I wrote before, it is up to us with
which kind of attitude and approach we confront the interface thus partially we are able
to decide of our correlation and closeness with the music. I said partially because our
cognitive, rational side may loose heavily in this experience due to the affective power
of sound that will shape in big percent our physical appearances. Thus most of the time
we are not obliged to project into the space or into the future as well as we are not
capable of setting a priori our sensations because our movement will be mostly a result of
our reaction to a sound. ‘Negative’ and unpleasant sound qualities will make us
instinctively escape away from it, choosing for us a direction, muscular tension, speed,
dynamic and spatial arrangement. It may be that on the way of our escape, we will get
‘caught’ by another sound that will seem appealing and we’ll start exploring it or we will
try consciously to change our pathway just to meet with another sound we will
unwillingly react to. We could say that in general the power of the sound decides of our
short - term physical destiny.

In case of the influential sound we are not able to reflect and talk about it like f.ex.
about a painting. Our reaction will be immediate and out of control based on instinctive
response coded deep in our somatic system. We will very quickly incorporate the sense
of the musical identity in the best manner without even having a chance to think of how
are we going to embody this sound, neither will we have time to consider the context, its
origin and any of its formal aspect. It goes far beyond liking or disliking. Still in many
cases there is a possibility of more aware engagement with the music in EGM setting.

48
 b) Where the body takes over

As long as the body is mastered by the music and its free will is reduced to
minimum, it neither has possibility to engage, as the free choice and free will are
fundamental to engagement. In many cases though the ‘re - discovering’ of the sound,
leading to a detailed exploration emerges towards performance actions or rather towards,
as I call it ‘states’. These ‘states’ might be seen as the stages of the engaged
embodiment.
With our body attracted by, caught by a sound and responding to it, we occur to
have an immediate tendency to project a meaning, interpretation onto the performed
movements. As I already wrote dancing body acts alike to any social body, rooted into
various systems of social codes, in this case also rooted into codes specific to a dancer’s
routine it has no chance to escape from. Thus an appearing sound at first causes a pure
bodily reaction where our own choice is reduced to a minimum but shortly after we might
get confronted with an ‘outside mirror’, that is, with the perception of ourselves in that
particular situation which I would describe as proprioception or self awareness. We
realize a place we are in, we put attention to our body’s posture, exact sound of the
musical fragment and created in between them tension. All these factors indicate a certain
mis en scene, bring an idea of a role, a character, a state. In these moments performativity
enters into our explorations. We get out of the field of abstraction and drift towards acting
or rather I would say, towards the attempt to mentally and sensory understand the
emotion arose from the sound that is being revealed via physical appearance of
expressed states. The states are visible in the body, in muscular tension, in dynamic but
first of all they give a voice to our face, we enter the world of emotional involvement.

Thus let us sum up. We said there is no engagement possible without a present
cognitive element switched on. That means, while ‘passive’ bodily reaction to the sound
we may instinctively embody that sound and get emotionally caught by it - I would
compare it to the affective aspect of empathy. Still only when we notice, recognize our
embodied self that is, we become aware of the sensations provided by our somatic
system37 (mutual co - relation of our body parts; relation, tension created between the

49
body and the outside; sensations outer circumstances bring along), we are able to fully
engage ourselves further into the movement – sound construct. From this moment on,
there are two possibilities: one that we will willingly focus more on our own emotional
state evolved from the interaction with interface what I would call empathy directed
inwards (looking for the emotional recognition, reaching towards memorized pictures,
sensations) or we will try to better ‘understand’ the sound and we will consciously reduce
the expansion of our inner emotional stimuli directing all the attention towards one body
part and towards the outer organs of perception like our ears and receptors situated on
our skin. With such ‘equipment’ we may reach a state of full empathic embodiment of
the sound.
Thus the kind of empathy we deal here with contains the cognitive aspect as we
consciously decide to engage ourselves further, still it leads to activation of a different,
new sort of sensory attention reaching towards the sound, creating an outward
‘movement’ performed actually by our ears and skin. Thus I want to introduce here terms
like active listening and active perceiving. Thomas J. Csordas who researched on
embodiment in healing practice, says that ‘ in embodiment we deal with the special
engagement of sensory modalities, an engagement that defines a mode of intersubjective
perception and attention to the distress of another’38. This would explain how some of
the healers get signs of patient’s pain, others experience visual imagery but as well kind
of haptic, kinesthetic, auditory or proprioceptive imagery. In case of EGM experience the
sight that is normally together with touch fundamental to embodiment, is being replaced
by another sense – hearing/listening. Thus for the empathic embodiment with music
we mostly need our skin that becomes here a distinguished organ on its own and our ears
- those two together create an interrelated active sensory system.
In the process I described above we could observe many new features, evolving
around the question of embodiment and empathy. We saw how empathy emerges in this
particular musical experience and which sort of stimuli dancing body reacts to in such
setting. I showed how a dancing body is capable of developing empathic understanding
37 According to Wikipedia ‘the somatic nervous system (SNS) is the part of the peripheral nervous
system associated with the voluntary control of body movements through the action of skeletal muscles,
and with reception of external stimuli, which helps keep the body in touch with its surroundings (e.g.,
touch, hearing, and sight)’.
38 T. J. Csordas “Embodiment and cultural phenomenology”

50
not with the solid body, another human being or animal but with the musical material as
well as I described what happens to both protagonists’ embodied selves. Thus we
witnessed how in this interactive surrounding, musical material first had to become
materialized and embodied with help of dancer’s haptic and auditory imagery to finally
become embodied physically. This fact proves that even as a dancing body, we need
solid, recognizable references and physical sense of understanding in order to achieve a
full empathic engagement - we are not capable of empathizing with the abstract. Thus in
EGM setting, imagery embodiment of the music and appearance of somatic type of
attention together with listening abilities are fundamental to empathic engagement that
leads to the full empathic embodiment of the music. This process showed also that
empathy with music that appeared here is directed, conscious and willing and it evolves
as this music’s physical embodiment.
Concerning the fact of embodiment in EGM experience, we can agree upon
embodiment staying in a constant process, and upon its transformable character due to the
alterations between the conscious (directed) and intuitive (immediate, pre - reflective)
physical interpretation of the music. As next I want to talk more about the ear – skin
connection and somatic attention and their implications in the improvisational and
choreographic practice.

IV. The power of listening. Schumann experiment

EGM experience provided the new sort of sensory attention and sharpened my
skills of perception. I could almost say, it created space for discovering the interrelation
between the listening and perceptive abilities - I see them together as a new type of
perceptive organ. The interaction with interface lead to the moments of complete musical
embodiment at times, now I would like to present how I became more and more aware of
the listening organ during another musical experiment where the body and sound create
another kind of relation.

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Affective touch of music

Explorations I want to talk about took place also at the Institute for Electronic
Music and Acoustics in Graz, they happened in the frame of one of my last visits there
and made Peters and me meet in much more simplified circumstances. We have found
ourselves again in the same studio equipped with EGM generators but we left all of them
aside and did not turn on any device except of a common CD player and a video camera.
Peters was interested in exploration of embodiment per se and proposed to skip all
the confusing us technology. He brought a recording that contained an excerpt of one of
the Schumann’s songs, a short passage being interpreted in several ways by a pianist.
Next, he gave me a few hours to create a perfectly embodied dance and left the room. I
remained alone on the floor. First I found proposed exercise simply not that appealing
(even boring), I could not feel any intuitive or cognitive empathy for the suggested
excerpt, I was not motivated to spend three hours on ‘dancing to such a music’. I stood
up, played the recording and started wandering and ‘hopping’ around, pre - reflectively
disgusted by my way of improvising getting more and more frustrated at myself and
musical fragment. After all the experience with the body tracking, space felt weirdly
empty and deserted, I felt myself empty and uncreative, I hated the freedom I got offered.

After an hour or two Peters came back and found me full of doubts although I
didn’t want to admit the failure. He left again and I decided to apply a different method.
I placed myself on a spot in a still position and decided to not act physically, just to listen
and react. As my earlier attempts to embody the sounds of the piano were based on the
big spatial moves, I was not able to find an appropriate sensation. Now suddenly the
piano sounds started to dance my body in a way I have never expected. By switching of
the mental reasoning and creativity, I focused on my somatic system and let the sound
creep under my skin. Pursuing my theoretical research I came across a paper by Barbara
Montero and Johnatan Cole where they write about how they call it our ‘sixth sense’,
phenomena of affective proprioception - an effect responsible for the pleasure while
moving happening in the system of sensory afferents.39 I find a big similarity between
39 J. Cole, B. Mantero “Affective Proprioception”, Janus Head 9 (2), 299 – 317 (2007)

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what they call ‘affective proprioception’ and sensations brought during the Schumann
experiment, by the somatic system. As well as mentioned by them affective touch like
stoking, caressing or grooming we human beings are longing for since the existence of
most primitive communities, I could compare to the touch of the music that through
reaching the place of accurate physical embodiment brought me a real feeling of pure
pleasure.
Thus after a few hours of struggle and failed attempts involving my whole body and
movement in space, what I came up with was a little dance consisting of almost micro
movements including my eyebrows, head, chin, shoulders, neck and knees. We played a
recording and my face danced along. I remember the feeling of complete astonishment,
relief and accuracy or maybe beauty but first of all of complete peacefulness and unity I
could describe as pleasure. I managed to find a little area on my body, that I’ve been
searching for since a few hours, that would finally mirror the dynamic, volume, tones of
the played notes, thus my body parts and my organs had changed into the ‘real organs’
making me – performer and Deniz Peters – my audience, feel as the notes would come
out of my body and I’d become an instrument.

First surprise came when I realized I am able to express the first notes rather of
high range with my chin, another ones with my eyebrows, next with a back of my head. I
knew the result looked pretty weird and that dance was of a questionable beauty but it
was a first time I felt like a resonance box and the heard notes awoke a new net of
connections in within my body, making unclear whether I am the one ‘playing’ the notes
or rather notes have ‘played’ the parts of my body, as if they found the proper ones and
made them move. During all this experience I remained fully focused on the act of
listening, I tried to listen as actively as I could as well as I endeavored to make my skin
and skeletal, muscular system even more receptive. In effect I got a sensation of
activating the receptors situated amidst the tissues of my skin, an impression of moving
with a new inter dimensional organ and I believe that I have activated maybe the same
nervous fibres that are responsible for the affective touch.

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Problem of the perfect unison

Later on I was told to repeat my little solo and each time the goal lied in getting
more and more accurate with the music, in finding perfect timing and learning how to hit
just on time, a tone I am about to hear. While repeating the sequence we came up with a
discussion about the art of perfect unison in embodiment and in that case, we noticed
an anticipation that appeared in the process. As we dealt with a life body and
prerecorded music material, I had to adapt to the situation. My task was to embody the
piano sounds I hear the best possible, thus I talk here about the role of empathy in
embodiment as I was ought to empathize with a piano player performing that piece
rather than with music itself.
In order to make a note hearable, pianist needs to first hit the right key that will
result in a sound, the same strategy I had to apply onto my body. If I wanted to hear the
notes as the resolution of my movements, I had to first of all learn, how to be ahead of an
upcoming sound; anticipation of my movement appeared as a mirror moment to a
pianist’s movement of lifting of a finger before letting it fall on a key. According to
A. Marcel whom Cole and Montero quote in their paper ‘(...) awareness of voluntary
action appears to derive from a stage later than intention but earlier than movement
itself’’40 but here where we deal with the process of embodiment of the interpretation
we got an extra work to do as we got to actually embody the awareness and mind of the
pianist. After a few attempts and memorizing of all the qualities the musical excerpt
brought along, the anticipation was gradually happening later and later to finally diminish
the time gap between the movement and the appearance of the sound to minimum. Still
this example brought a question whether a perfect unison is possible to be achieved? And
can we talk about a real unison when this unison looks to the outside like unison but it is
achieved through the anticipation?

40 Marcel, A. (2002). “The sense of agency: Awareness and ownership of action.” In Roessler &
Eilan (Eds.), Agency and self-awareness (pp. 48-97). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Empathic unison seen through the eyes of Tom Pauwels and Gerald Kurdian

a) Master of empathic embodiment and his practice – Tom Pauwels

In February 2010 during a residency in the frame of ex.e.r.c.e – an educational

program directed by Mathilde Monnier in Choreographic Center in Montpellier, France I
had a chance to attend a showing of the ‘work in progress’ by Maud Le Pladec, a French
young choreographer. Performance she worked on entitled Professor was entirely based
on the dancers’ embodiment of Professor Bad Trip – electronic music composition by
Fausto Romitelli inspired by the writings about the effects of mescaline by Henri
Michaux. Piece presents choreography between two extremes: energy of rock and its
explosive force on one side and the rigour of writing on the other. Although all three
dancers trying to master the musical score presented highly physical skills, my full
attention went to the one ‘thrown’ completely into the sound. It occurred to be Tom
Pauwels a fantastic Belgian musician and performer (although he prefers to be called just
a musician) whom I knew already from the More movements fuer Lachenmann (2008)
created by Xavier le Roy in collaboration with the Wien Modern Festival.
Le Roy’s piece is for the audience a genius experience activating all our senses and
creating an adventure happening somewhere between the listening, hearing and watching.
Lachenmann’s music is being played live by the musicians sitting behind the screens thus
invisible but hearable for the most of the duration of the piece. In front of these screens
we watch two other performers – musicians (one of them was Pauwels) who perfectly
embody the sounds we hear, playing on invisible instruments. Thus what Le Roy
achieved was a creation of a complete illusion, as we would immediately connect the
sound produced by the couple behind the screens with the movements of two performers
we looked at. Watching Pauwels again I could completely empathize with the type of
attention he presented because I recognized this particular type of attention as the one I
wrote about in this paper. Concentration in the face, tension of the muscles and sensation
of high awareness in his hands were the physical signs and representations of the process
I knew he was going through on the stage. As the only one he managed with his gestures
to perfectly embody and incorporate the sounds we all could hear. To me it was obvious,

55
he became a full listening surface as he performed in this case a crazy challenging role of
the conductor. After the show, I managed to stay with Pauwels in the email contact thus I
had a chance to ask him a few questions concerning physical empathy in his performative
experience in the Professor and in the More movements for Lachenmann.

As Pauwels represents to me someone who is a master of perfect empathic

embodiment, I got very surprised hearing that empathy during working on Lachenmann
and Romitelli in relation to staged movement, never had crossed his mind before I
suggested it. Eventually he said that empathy in his own practice ‘in relation to music
could be seen as a mechanism of (…) pure self – surrender and devotion: a profound
attempt to fully understand the music (formally, physically and emotionally)’. Asked
about the practical side of the process he says that its initial point was ‘t o
master/memorize the score, the notes, the rhythms, the harmonic functions’. In the work
with Xavier le Roy these studies took him about half a year of continuous practice, that is
approximately 30 rehearsals with the ‘invisible’ guitar player and loads of live concert
experience with the work. ‘ So I was totally impregnated by the score, the musical
dramaturgy and the physical impact (the drive/pulse) before putting away the guitar’ he
recalls. In the work on Romitelli, the challenge was much bigger as Pauwels is not a
conductor and as he says he ‘spent the whole summer trying to get as much details as
possible out of the score (…) not being a conductor and not used to hear and master 8
instruments at a time the process was not so easy.’

After this so – called preparatory work where Pauwels sees himself more as a slave
and administrator (organizing the music) than a creative artist or musician ‘the challenge
was and is to create complicity with a possible audience (…) in the third lesson of the
Romitelli tryptic, my intention was to show with my hands some of the facts as the
ambitus (low – high), pointing out rhythmic elements, showing the dynamic, assigning
instruments to various spots in space (similar strategy Xavier Le Roy used in his ‘Sacre
du Printemps’) which results at first in a kind of conducting “my own way” (…) After
this I tried to reveal qualities with gestures that could tell something about the way the
sound transforms or is filtered (wah – wah, trumpet con sordino, strings scratch etc.) A

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third step of getting in the music and at the same time enriching the gestural vocabulary
was to connect to the imagery that arose when playing around with the gestural
vocabulary that I had been using so far. This results than in passages like the wild car
ride moment, being pushed away by the sound, playing basketball. I guess and I hope that
these are 'credible' decisions or deviations because I have acted so factual and formal in
the beginning of that third Lesson. So my empathy with the music provokes empathy of
the public with my movement (alas I hope).’

Concerning the notion of anticipation he described two different aspects of it: one
evolving out of the situation of a ‘double’ unison in Le Pladec’s work (unison with the
music and at the same time with two other dancers) and another emerging from his ‘solo’
duet with the music. He says about the experience with Romitelli: ‘ After two days of
working very hard on the very beginning of Lesson III (the first 30 seconds) we realize
that the only credible way to move together is that the three of us, only react and not
anticipate at all, this as a rule for creating the illusion of being together. I realize very
well that when doing the Lesson III by myself, I am the whole time balancing between
anticipation and reaction.’

Thus we can see in description of the empathic musical embodiment given by

Pauwels many parallels to the Schumann experience I pursued in Graz. Pauwel’s work on
a perfect empathic unison is a very conscious process, including calculated embodiment
that makes him able to each time reproduce quite exactly on what he decides before. He
says that in creating the material there were moments when he ‘let his body speak’ and
obeyed to the drive he was undergoing. Still he claims that ‘writing the material is not
instinctive anymore’ what finally does not disturb him in getting involved or moved when
reproducing that material - ‘ one can easily be affected again (…) hearing for the tenth
time a certain passage in the music’, so Pauwels and I agree with him in this matter.
Producing of the material based on embodiment carries a big empathic potential thus I
believe that reproducing of this material will work as a stimulant for the re – appearance
of the empathic involvement. In general I have found a grand connection between my
work and approach of a dancer trying to embody the music and Pauwel’s work who as a

57
musician tries to embody the sound in his moves – both ways lie very near to each other
what I could get the proves of.

b) Renaissance Man – Gerald Kurdian

Another person I have had chance to meet and talk about empathic involvement in
music was Gerald Kurdian, a singer and musician creating astonishing choreographies of
the sounds and radio waves, musicologist making sound performances. Talk I had with
him was for me another important step on the way of realizing, how my understanding of
empathy from the bodily/physical perspective, reminds at times of the understanding of
empathy from the musical side. Kurdian asked about empathy draw already at the start
an immediate connection between empathy and unison. Though he described empathy as
a synchronization of drive, as a fusion. He says:

‘I have a sensation of empathic moment when I feel we are synchronized, mostly with
people but these might be sounds or objects (…) There is something about being
connected to the people by either feeling the same or thinking in a similar way.’

I would describe Gerald Kurdian as a very empathic person active in many artistic
fields. His approach to empathy is very specific and rooted into his past. In year 2000,
before making music, Kurdian started his studies in Fine Arts and he describes his
generation as ‘highly conceptual with a complete disapproval for any remaining romantic
offspring.’ As a student himself he would notice that his way of understanding, sharing
and absorbing knowledge had mostly to do with his sensitivity, his sympathetic system,
with emotions and empathy. Thus Kurdian, with his need for empathy was ought to find
his place in a highly conceptual surrounding. He decided to use his empathic strategies
and affect people without loosing his position in a ‘cold system’. He found a solution
choosing music because of, as he says ‘our very instinctive relation to it and its
directness.’ Today in his work, Kurdian is busy with creating frames and generating
circumstances for empathy, he creates a sort of ‘home’ for the listening experience. He

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says: ‘I think listening is probably the first way to empathy because then you are alone,
it’s a question of opening, of possibility of being caught.’

As the power of listening was one of the first observations I have made during the
research in EGM setting I wanted to hear something about his point of view onto what I
call ‘active listening’. Thus Kurdian mentioned his singing experience that seems to be
very similar to my dancing experience. He says about ‘ a whole body participating in the
act of singing’, he has an impression of ‘constant stimulation’ – the sound his voice
produces is being stimulated by his own body as well as he himself reacts with his body
to the sound of voice he just has produced. These aspects of experience stay in a constant
dialogue.

Asked about the possibilities of existence of unison between the body and music,
Kurdian insisted on using word synchronization. He described a co – existence with the
music as a ‘common drive’ rather than unison. Why? He gave a very different than
Pauwels, less detailed and more rooted in the passive experience situated in the social
context, example. Thus we are to imagine a discotheque and a hall of dancing crowds -
they dance to the music, they do not analyze, they feel the rhythm and enjoy. Movement
of the crowd is being observed as a huge wave, a wave of listening surfaces where music
is being absorbed not only with the ears but with all the pores. Confronting the
loudspeakers and subwoofers present in the room, masses are carried by the huge sound
waves and in such conditions says Kurdian ‘the act of hearing becomes a highly physical
action involving the whole body stroke by hundreds of kilowatts.’ Kurdian draws the
conclusion about the impossibility of the unison emerging from the simple fact inherently
associated with the order of actions included in the act of dancing to the music. That is -
firstly act of listening/hearing, then the reaction that follows ended by the action – ‘as we
are reacting to the sound’ he says ‘performed action will always be delayed in
correspondence to the sound thus we are talking of necessary anticipation in creation of
unison.’ As far as this is true to the ‘dancing to the music’ experience, it cannot be
applied on the EGM experience where the movement creating the sound may become
simultaneously its own interpretation and reaction to this sound.

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 Another fact I got interested in and could relate it to my experience during the
Schumann experiment were Kurdian’s remarks concerning vibrations carried by the
sound. He talked about the vibrations appearing while singing and how the vibrations
produced while singing in bass frequencies would be transferred onto the low parts of the
body like pelvis, knees or muscles of the tights while high frequencies would place
themselves in the upper body parts especially in the facial area f.ex. in the forehead or
cheekbones. When Kurdian used a term ‘choreography of the vibrations’ in within the
body I realized that Schumann experiment and choices my body has made concerning the
frequencies of the sounds I have heard, must have been based on the same principles.
Initially the sensation of the perfect musical embodiment and harmony in the movement
during Schumann experiment I co - notated with the areas of different receptive
sensitivity on the map of the body. After talk to Kurdian I had to agree upon the fact of
the physical power of the music that in literal sense overtook not just the outer skin areas
but also the whole muscular – skeletal system of my body.

c) Feel the music

Mentioning that phenomena made me reach once again into the EGM experience
where I felt a similar manipulation from the musical side so strong at times, that I would
not be able to escape it. That happened especially when I heard/felt very high frequencies
whether they came along with the high tonality or with the unpleasant, painful sounds
like cutting metal, scratching metal, very high volume. In response to the ‘painful’ sounds
I would react in muscular tension kind of state of the physical panic represented by
stiffness of the body, shoulder lifted upwards, eye brows shifting downwards in a general
mimics of physical pain, suffering, with all the limbs immediately traveling close to the
body – basically those sounds made me immobile and my body longed for its quickest
possible termination. With the sounds of high range alike to as it happened in Schumann
experiment, the reactive parts were my upper body and my arms. High tones made my
body stretch and open, ‘reach for the sky’ on half point with my arms shooting straight

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upwards, with elongated spine. Chest and sternum filled with air, legs willing to get off
the ground – I floated in a general state of lightness.
Bass frequencies the same way as mentioned by Kurdian, situated themselves in the
lower body parts represented in physical actions like bouncing, deep plie, going into the
ground with feet gliding through the space. As in the case of high registers the most
dominant in the body posture would be strongly marked upper body arch then here it
would be replaced by a strong curve in the lumbar spine with the pelvis sliding under and
shoulders traveling towards each other in a sort of embracing mode. Low frequencies
would also result in a slower and thus heavier kind of movement.

Watching the solo of Tom Pauwels performing in the Professor where he as a

conductor masters 8 instruments at time I found him going under same principles. He
himself was not able to explain why does his body always wills to react accurate with the
sound and as an answer he sent a few remarks in this topic coming from his father who is
a specialist in the field of acoustics and physics. I think in this case they explain a lot.
Pauwel’s father calls it the ‘music of the body parts’ and talks about such a
relation between the volume, dynamic and frequencies of the music and the body parts:
Volume – is strongly connected to the size of the muscles
Dynamic – muscles are connected to the bones by tendons on both sides. The rather stiff
bone carries the mass of the muscles by two tendons that act like springs. Dynamics
appear when this mass (muscle) – spring (tendons) system is set into motion with regard
to its base (bone) – motion is the disturbance from the equilibrium position the system
was at rest
Frequency – when the music motion is increasing in frequency and this frequency
reaches the eigenfrequency 41 of the mass – spring system then a very high movement of
the muscle attached at the bone is experienced. The stimulating frequency is tuned
to the eigenfrequency and the system is set into resonance
Music of the body parts – in a certain sense each part of the body has its own
eigenfrequency, often also called the ’natural frequency’. All body parts have their
41 Eigenfrequency is in quantum mechanics a frequency at which the system will vibrate.

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eigenfrequencies lying between 20 – 100 Hz. The lowest frequencies are the ones of the
largest muscles, the higher the eigenfrequency becomes, the lower is the size and mass of
the muscles. Since our bones are not infinitely stiff, the vibrating muscles also set the
bones into the forced vibration but at the lower strength although we can feel it in the
joints.
Thus the feeling as ‘one would feel the music’ is a fact and in the professional fields it is
described as the sympathetic resonance of the body parts .42 This phenomena explains the
movement of the masses in the disco Kurdian talked about as well as it surely contributed
to the Schumann experiment and EGM experience.

As long as my body could freely react to the sounds and it felt liberated and the
movements were organic, so was my psychological and sensory response to it resulting in
the ‘well being’ and pleasurable experience43. But there were certain moments in EGM
setting that I remind as the physical nightmares and tortures that deprived me of my
empathic skills. Some of the ‘scenarios’ would set my body in terrible situations where I
was not able to react according to my physical and mental wish. For example the one
where the movement of lowering my arms would result in the increase of the frequencies
and volume of the sound that became unbearable not only to my ears but as well to my
body. Not able to escape away from the sound, this inter – body – space scenario made
me keep my arms directed upwards for long minutes as the relaxation would provide a
torture. This paradox setting made me realize how strongly we are physically and
mentally not only attached but fully dependent of the sound and how this manipulation
continues in the real life. The constant repetition of the musical fragment played by
someone living above us can drive us ‘crazy’ and the methods used in tortures including
forced listening to the sounds of dropping water can make us literally crazy.

42 Sympathetic resonance is a harmonic phenomenon wherein a formerly passive string or vibratory

body responds to external vibrations to which it has a harmonic likeness.
43 Cole and Montero in ‘Affective proprioception’ say that the pleasure in the movement may not just
depend on the feedback but as well on the harmony between the intention and action.

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CONCLUSION TO PART ONE

This part was devoted to phenomena of empathy arising from the ‘body – music’
connection and it endeavored to examine the circumstances, reasons and effects of its
appearance. I was interested in exploring this particular relation still longing for an
answer about the origins of empathy. Applying phenomenological approach, I presented
the body and music staying in a constant discussion, exchanging the manipulative power
being both subdued and commanding. Dancing act accompanied by the music became an
empathic act where the music resulted in its intuitive, at times conscious empathic
embodiment. I described how empathy - a ‘side effect’ in act of hearing/listening can
become a willing process belonging to the physical body, leaving its space of abstraction.
Emotions, feelings, movements happening in our brains and on the level of neural circuits
as well as the others aspects of empathy found their embodied selves in a labile form of a
dancing body. Music that firstly made me attentive to phenomena of empathy, later on it
served me as the empathy provider thus proving inseparability of both. Although this
musical experiment sharpened all of my senses, it gave a clear lead to the
listening/hearing that became a way into empathy. The power of the sound turned
listening into a physical act overtaking whole body, showing one is not capable of
ignoring its affective force and thus of freeing oneself from the unconscious – domain of
affective empathy. Music and empathy seem to lie in the most intimate relation, one not
existing without another.
In the next part I will discuss other empathic encounters where I will examine the
sight and observation as the stimuli that lead us into empathic embodiment.

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 PART TWO

INTRODUCTION

In a previous part, we could observe how the body entered empathy with the help
of music and we got acquainted with the characteristics and specifics of this
phenomenon. In this section I want to talk about other examples of empathic embodiment
evolving in different circumstances with application of distinct strategies. How do we
achieve an empathic embodiment without the music and why shall we at all do so? What
importance empathy plays in dancer’s practice in relation to another body or a group of
bodies? These topics I will explore here using another personal examples coming from
my professional experience and from there on, I will draw some connections and parallels
to the social, biological and philosophical facets of the body. I will reflect on the limits of
empathy and show how the bodily practice can widen our understanding towards the
others as well as how it can evoke a socio - historical dialogue on the physical level. We
will see that as far as the empathic thought has been strong in the musical experience,
here it exists as much more subtle subject suppressed by our social common routine,
difficult to be freed from. There where the music – our peacemaker is not present, it is
hard to feel empathy for another, even for oneself.

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 ‘Empathy Project Vol. I’ as an attempt of empathic practice

‘It is badly misleading, though perfectly ‘natural,’ to say that acting is pretending. To say
this connotes that the pretender falsifies himself, though he knows perfectly well who he
really is. But the actor-artist is searching for himself through enactment---experimentally
finding the other “in” himself, and so finding and developing himself in his freedom’

Wilshire (1978)

Living in Vienna, one is not able to escape the pictures form Viennese metro station
at Karlsplatz, neither am I. A place where thousands of citizens rushing to/from work,
hundreds of tourists and common people meet everyday with the ones socially rejected
who literally inhabit the underground passage, became to many a contaminated location.
For several outsiders like for example drug addicted, Karlsplatz is a place of
meeting, business and life. Among human masses passing in rush ‘their’ territory, they
seem to exist in a different time and space dimension according to their own rules. One
day, having already decided to work theoretically on empathy and already pursuing my
research in the IEM in Graz, passing through the underground passage instead of running
away, I stayed and observed. Rather than scared, I was curious and impressed as well as
was I completely conscious of my refractoriness still the curiosity won and I began to
visit Karlsplatz more often than before.
My admiration for the physicality of the drug addicted started from a picture where
five of them would stand in the circular formation straight in the middle of the human
crowd staggering, time to time dropping several items creating a sort of a sovereign
island. It was definitely not their lifestyle that appealed to me but a physical and
choreographic form I outlined from the social context. As I couldn’t afford and didn’t
want to act like a voyeur, I looked for the ways of escaping the immoral feelings and I
found a situation that could create some secure ‘objective’ circumstances – I decided to
pursue a research as a part of the choreographic creation process. Thus the hours of

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observation and time spent at Karlsplatz became the preparatory work necessary for the
bodily embodiment of the physicality of drug addicted in frame of the artistic practice.
Thinking how to approach this challenge without being ought to go through the drug
experiences, I chose to use the empathic skills as a method of my work and I invited two
other performers to apply same strategy. From this moment on what we three went
through, I could describe as a physical trip that gradually spread onto our emotional
system and changed our way of perception. This experience brought us much further than
we expected.

I. Beyond the limits of empathy

Our ability for empathy seems innate but as I already wrote, it does need proper
circumstances to develop and to be taken care of later in life. It is not obvious thus needs
to be cultivated in regard of its positive potential. As far as we are being reactive to the
sound and music that seem to be definitely one of the most important sources of empathy
concerning its origins, we tend not to be that responsive to other human beings. We are
able to dance to same music but it does not mean we will share the same understanding.
We could assume that empathy brought by the music applies on us its affective aspects
and for the willing empathy with the others, we clearly need to be capable of using
intellect, reasoning and imagery. Empathy with the others seems much more cognitive
and conscious, based on our interest, often evolving from our wish to help or to comfort
the other. I have already mentioned Frans de Waal who has written about how selective
empathy is towards our mates as he argued that we more readily identify with people who
seem more immediate members of our family or community. He mentioned as well that
empathy demands distance and detachment so one is able to constructively help another
by finding a proper solution. Constant empathy for the others would bring us into a never
- ending state of emotional grief causing depression and feeling of helplessness. Thus we
stay selective choosing the ones we want to empathize with except for the moments of
emergency where our instinct wins or the moments when our empathic skills are being
reduced to minimum. In case of danger, physical pain and in situations that are being

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emotionally difficult to deal with, staying empathic verges on miracle and requires strong
will and clear mind.

Beginning working on the ‘Empathy Project’ I did not intend to make any sort of
socially involved art, neither I wanted to help drug addicted and homeless people. My
only attempt was to physically ‘taste’ their way of ‘being in the world’ and through such
a process, to be able to enter another time and space dimension that I could apply onto
my choreographic and performance practice. What interested me the most was the
perception of time and space that are both strongly distorted by the use of drugs and this
factors I wished to transpose onto a dramaturgic scale of the ‘Vol. I’.
Our first visit at Karlsplatz became our first rehearsal. We spent around five hours
observing the movements and spacing of people there, slowly figuring out their daily
routine, activities they undertook, ways of communication, language they used up to the
food and beverages they consumed. All the passive observations we have made in a safe
space of the café, all the active part of our visit happened among the others. Our practical
task was to embody the state and physicality of drug addicted to such extend where we
would remain undetected by the passers by, neither by the drug addicted. Thus struggling
with feelings of fear, shame and impression of ‘doing a bad thing’, we physically and
sensory empathized with those people at the same time creating an invisible performance
at Karlsplatz. Instead of applause and congratulations to our success as it would have
happen in a theatre, we received bitter words, hardly any small coins and looks of
disapproval and disgust. Becoming like ‘them’ we did not join their current state of mind
but we definitely managed to understand their movement vocabulary in that state as well
as we captured the geography of the place. By the common crowd, we got immediately
included into a group of socially rejected and trust unworthy despite of our good
performance. Thus we found ourselves belonging to one of the groups that most of
society wishes to treat generally without any regard towards individuals because it
assures people’s comfort and saves them troubles, we crossed the borders of their
emphatic abilities. On another side, we as performers physically empathizing with drug
addicted stretched our empathic limitations, proving one is able to change places with

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entirely different human being, not necessarily feeling any sympathy for him. Physical
empathy allowed us to understand the other in an awkward and risky situation.

II. Strategy

My proposition to work on this specific physical behavior through empathy initially

was not even clear to me. The feeling I had being first time fascinated by their bodies I
could already describe as an empathic engagement as watching them brought a sensation
of knowing ‘how it feels’ on a rather mental level, something like a stimulation picture
that evoke certain memories although I have never took drugs before. Back then, in that
particular moment I did not know why was I attracted to those figures, I considered them
a great inspiration for the choreography, still there was this inner sensation very present
at that time. Today I think it might have been a feeling of physical attraction towards the
seen movements and empathy arose from a fact I was a dancer who reacted stronger to
such stimuli but I am not totally sure whether I am right here.
Our method of conscious empathy that we started practicing already at Karlsplatz
had to develop from there. I believe we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the results we
have finally obtained if we wouldn’t have been spending there a few days in the nearest
possible proximity to the others. Just in this way we were capable of gathering three –
dimensional and direct information we needed. If we started our research trying to
empathize with the video material, I am pretty sure we would have ended up producing a
mere copy or imitation that needs to be distinguished from empathic embodiment. I
explain why.
Any video material as well as any kind of real recording one can find on youtube
despite their documentary aspect and truth they reveal, tend to become ‘unreal’ to our
minds and bodies. Screen like a border puts us in a comfortable situation where we can
watch ‘reality’ being ourselves detached from this reality, where we can probably provide
the understanding of this reality but we are not able to experience real characters’ ‘being
in the world’ which in this case was fundamental to empathy. Watching videos we
would be able to follow the movement patterns, we would learn some of them and try to
copy them, to imitate them because of a strong visual stimuli. We would obtain

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fragmented, two dimensional information and based on it, we would start creating our
own physical truth in relation to the material we’ve seen, acting ‘as if we were them’
without the possibility to experience their full reality. Video material in form of edited
clips does not respect the continuity of a timeline neither the space homogeneity thus it
was not capable of transferring the real embodied selves of the drug addicted who’s
embodied selves in big percent consisted of these factors.
I realized that in this particular case, we need a live situation where we do not
become only observers but also the observed ones. Where we would have a chance to
experience not just the physical states taken out of the context but where we could
confront ourselves with their surrounding that is a huge part of their embodied nature.
First time that I noticed how the overall energy created by a person as well as her/his
world construct play a role in the empathic embodiment and how significant is to get in
touch not just with the body per se but as well with the circumstances it exists in. These
circumstances seem to be the prolongation of the ‘self’. Here similarly like in case of
empathy with the music, the empathic embodiment occupied the ‘interplace’ T. J.
Csordas talks about in his paper and it proved that ‘embodiment is about neither behavior
or essence per se, but about experience and subjectivity’44 thus once more we are back to
Merleau – Ponty and phenomenological concept.

Visits on Karlsplatz restrained us from the act of formal mimesis and forced us to
apply this specific movement logic onto our bodies. Obvious imitation and copying of the
observed postures did not go because of three reasons: a) it seemed and looked artificial
and put us in danger of being exposed, b) it made us feel as we would pretend to be
someone we were not and thus it brought even more inappropriate sensations concerning
the ethical issues, c) it did not open the way to the mental embodiment. As far as my
personal approach to the movement lead straight through the empathy into embodiment,
two other performers confronted with the ‘foreign’ vocabulary entered empathy through
the copy of that specific way of being. Drawing a parallel to a dance class situation, I
could compare it to incorporating a method rather than formal shape or form (like f.ex.ap-
44 T. J. Csordas “Embodiment and cultural phenomenology”

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- plying the Skinner release technique onto a ballet combination). Thus very soon they
would notice that dark sunglasses, dirty clothes and ‘unwashed’ look were not good
enough. They had to look for another skill in order to understand the unknown – the only
help was empathy.
Except for the bodily logic, our aim was to grasp not only what was visible but also
what was hidden and variable including the simulation of the perception and mental
situation. In his “Perspectives on embodiment” Csordas mentions some researchers who
travel thousands kilometers in order to study embodiment of other ethnic groups applying
same strategy as we did. Example of Carol Ledermann who incorporated Malay bodily
postures and practices as a prerequisite of her own experience of semangat (Spirit of
Life) and angin (Inner Winds)45 clearly shows how the physical embodiment of a certain
way of living makes you belong to a community where through the practice of specific
‘being in the world’ mode, you are able to enter certain ritual states. I believe we used
exactly same method – physical identification helped us to reach another state of being.

Our findings from Karlsplatz we carried further into a dance studio and rehearsed
the new movement bringing it closer and closer to ourselves, making it our own.
Strategies were various according to each individual. I usually achieved the physical –
mental state through the imagery and stimulation of a real situation. While practicing I
would recall the moments from Karsplatz and imagine myself back there again. This
feeling would make me want to act as appropriate as possible in order to melt with that
particular surrounding. Thus I first created references for myself and with help of those
references, I could later on enter empathy. Working with other two performers, I gave
them purely physical indications (like ‘bend more your knees’, ‘open your mouth’) and
waited for the moments where they could get away from the formal physical aspect and
reach a state they could call ‘their own drug addict’. The unified look of the state wasn’t
what I searched for. It was about finding an individual place for yourself where your
body and mind would access a remarkable change.
As we based our research on observation of and identification with drug addicted
who use so called ‘downers’ (substances that lower down your metabolism slowing down
45 Csordas p. 119

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your tempo and time of reaction), we incorporated physical features specific exactly for
that type of physical presence that was primarily a total relaxation of the body. As the
substances very often work like anesthetics, taken in a big dose they reduce to minimum
the proprioceptive capabilities of one’s body. That results in the constantly open mouth,
in most awkward bodily positions heavily torturing your joints and muscles that for a
‘sober’ human being would be a very painful experience, in the falling down eyelids and
a never – ending fight with the sleepiness a.o. Other physical characteristics are the slow
motion walk, constant repetitions of little activities like mobile phone checking, money
counting (substances cause the lack of short time memory, that means you forget what
you have done five minutes ago), the lack of interest and awareness towards the outside
world, straight directed pathways – sort of ‘being in a tunnel’ look. All these elements
connected to the monotone rhythm of their life on Karlsplatz that consists as well of
‘looping’ same actions like pacing around, looking for a dealer, taking drug, having a
‘trip’, calming down, killing hunger, looking again for a dealer bring a general
impression of a full circle and of the inescapable ‘evil’ dimension that makes everything
move like in a dream – like atmosphere.

We did not know what that state was, none of us took that type of drugs before
thus we had no idea where are we going to with our practice. Although each of us tried to
enter the physicality of drug addicted from another side, soon we found common points
to our strategies. All of us, we picked up characteristic open mouth, soft knees and half
closed eyes and we agreed these are the fundamental physical components leading into a
physical – mental change. The state soon started to appear as a reflex of going into a
certain bodily position. This full of resignation position where the whole body endeavors
to reach maximum of physical relaxation including softening of the face, eyes, joints and
muscles lead us in fact to the relaxation of the inner organs and the organs of perception
like sight and hearing. Our physical power was gone thus we were not able to produce
almost any kind of ‘spectacular’ active movement, we got stuck in passivity and rejected
any physical effort to such extend where we would get tired from any smallest action,
even of carrying the weight of our own bodies. Our ears and eyes were ‘closed’ creating a

71
sensation of a complete isolation what together with our bodily weakness resulted in
much longer time of reaction and made any kind of communication almost impossible.
Thus the experience that started as the outside oriented empathic act with the use of
sharpened sensory awareness on our way to embodiment, brought us in the end to a
completely opposite, introverted state where we found ourselves hard of hearing and of
seeing. We are pretty sure this state isn’t necessarily a ‘real’ mental state of the drug
addicted but as a matter of fact through their physicality we managed to enter entirely
different state of perception towards ourselves and the outside without loosing our
individuality. This state achieved with help of empathy resulted in a state where empathic
skills are certainly diminished. I believe this could as well explain the lack of empathy
characteristic for the relations between drug addicted, represented in their lack of agency
and actual sense of isolation.

Further on in our process, working on creation of actual performance we still

pursued our research aiming in constant development as individuals and as a group, not
wanting to come up with a final product that would be cut from the experience we went
through. Thus parallel to our research on physicality of drug addicted, we focused on a
group empathy that was only possible through empathy with each other. We used
imaginary empathic practice f.ex. listening to the text describing individual experiences
of a man who was about to freeze to death and trying to embody this process ourselves,
we researched the physical specifications and ‘ways of being’ of the others wearing each
other clothes, we listened to each other’s reports upon certain emotional experiences, we
tried to see with the other’s eyes, hear with the other’s ears – this way we searched for a
homogenous common empathy.
Afterwards our task got more difficult as we were supposed to create common
empathy with each other in a state that clearly restrained us from it. In a state where our
sensorial attention was directed to the inside instead of outside, it became very hard to
create the group empathy. Nevertheless what helped us was first the individual work on
appropriation of foreign timing and rhythm that finally resulted in creation of common
group rhythm and dynamic – one slow pulsation. Again the physicality allowed us to
enter empathy when our own empathic predispositions were dull and oppressed.

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 III. Empathic embodiment of the drug addicted as a part of the ontology of
‘self’ in the choreographic context.

Merleau – Ponty himself was convinced that embodiment could be the starting
point for the existential analysis of culture and history and his book “Phenomenology of
perception” is the study that goes this direction. Our experience we have made during our
empathic explorations brought us to a point where we could start looking at embodiment
as a departure point for examining evolutional and authentic remains in a contemporary
dance practice.

Physical representations of our ‘travel’ like the maximal relaxation of outer and
inner organs via action of opening the mouth and closing our eyes seem to remind of the
pictures we know, coming from other movement techniques like f.ex. authentic
movement . With the sight switched off, through activation of our listening skills and
through a deep relaxation, we seem to go back to our embryonic initial selves apparently
free from the social codes and forms. One of main issues in the authentic movement is
the work on revealing of our unconscious somatic projections that haven’t been
‘mentalized’, which we don’t remember and which may come from the early stadium of
our evolutional development. Putting focus on attunement on the bodily level, authentic
movement aims in unification of our unconscious and conscious through the work on
our somatic system.
As I mentioned before my empathy for the drug addicted was accompanied by a
strong physical sensation of ‘knowing that state’, I said as well, I have never taken drugs.
In the later stage of our research when we reached a certain state of meditation and sort of
‘embryonic’ state of being, I realized I got back to my physical unconscious memories, to
a state I already knew. That was what at first activated the empathic feelings – not the
memory of something I could remember but a memory of what I couldn’t recall. Thus the
practice of the movement of drug addicts became a kind of authentic movement practice
in all its paradox. The same physical qualities gave more awareness to my somatic
system, putting the main attention away from the act of seeing or active listening. The

73
only physical work happened like in case of authentic movement, on a somatic level
giving priority to the self - somatic awareness and inner listening to the pre - codified
bodily memories. Here we could start thinking whether the use of ‘downers’ type of
drugs brings one the new sensations or it reveals the sensations that have always been
there. Distracting one’s perception of the outer reality, they create a place where traveling
into a ‘shapeless’ unformatted and uncommunicative state of physical being one doesn’t
need to obey to the social pressure.

CONCLUSION TO PART TWO

Thus our research based on applying of empathic approach in the social context
that begun with the choreographic and physical analysis of phenomena rooted in the
social dimension, lead us via empathic embodiment to the transposition of that
phenomena into a performance situation bringing artistic qualities to it. Using physicality
and through our bodies we managed to draw the somatic type of understanding towards
the others that caused as well visible changes in our motor system as well as in our
perception towards the outside. As the ‘side effect’ of the explorations, we observed
similarities of the achieved state with other significant states appearing as part of other
dance practices like authentic movement, where we encounter the ‘unconscious’ and
what’s beyond our ‘mentalized’ memory. This step in the process brought us back to the
socially rejected ones whom we started to examine from another perspective - rooted in
type of movement practice focusing on search for the unconscious physical self. Through
changing the contexts, we have made a circle and we got back to our starting point but
enriched in embodied knowledge, ready to look at the drug addicts differently.

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Interview with JENNIFER LACEY / Impulstanz Festival 2009

Hi Jennifer, happy you found some time for me. I’m writing the MA thesis about empathy,
decided to interview some people of whom I think they may refer to empathy in their
works.

Oh no! I am blocked on that level, afraid of intimate questions.

No worries, I mean more physical empathy, promise not to make you uncomfortable
Very first and simple question - what’s for you empathy in general?

O God, I don’t know. Let me google it.

No, please respond spontaneously.

I cannot, I’ll check it in dictionary and than I’ll know what is it for me. Ok, here’s
written: “(..) A motivation oriented towards the other(..) The capacity to know
emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other
person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s
shoes. “ Yeah, now I know. So empathy doesn’t equal sympathy, it’s not the same. You
don’t need to like a person to be empathic with her still empathy is engaged.

You mean it demands activity?

Yes, empathy is an implication. It is an allowance to trust yourself in knowing what that

could be. Mirror neurons are in the base of physical empathy (you know about them
right?), physical empathy has to certainly do with intuition. There are a lot of techniques
applying empathic approach. The first example would be authentic movement I’ve done a
lot of it - all the sensorial work with touching, smelling, observing, playing the witness
and doer. One needs to really take care not to get stuck in one’s own world. The role of

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the witness is empathic in authentic movement. He needs to watch and after not just
describe what he’s seen but travel together with a doer trying to look for sensorial
experience and metaphors. To do so, he needs to engage himself.

Can you distinguish different modes of empathy? Which is the closest to your
understanding?

The physical sense of it, I know it from my teaching experience. It includes a lot of
touching and learning through touch, it is a purely practical skill one can learn by going
into someone’s body. When I teach I see and understand why a person cannot move her
leg, I simply perceive the system I refer with my own body. Of course all the bodies are
different but I allow myself to trust in my own experience and body awareness.

Here you are talking about kinesthetic empathy, what about the empathy towards your
own body?

Wow..difficult. I think I got away from it because of fears and different experiences I
went through. I take time to warm up properly before the show, it is also very much
based on sensing and listening. I lay down with eyes closed and check how my body feels
today. Most of the time it tells me so I can follow the body, it guides me and I trust in
what it tells me.

Any difference between the copy and empathy?

Copying is the way into the empathy. I never worry about reproducing the image.
Imitating is an important issue in the process of learning. After, the level of empathy
depends on how much you are going to let another person into you, how much you trust.
While teaching you establish the frame so you can assure certain happenings.

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You believe one can work on the rise of empathy?

Of course but I am not a therapist, I’m an artist. You know, years ago I was confronting
myself with many different techniques I didn’t understand. I guess that really helped me
in developing empathic skills.

Empathy as the phenomena of which kind?

Empathy is very physical. It is an electric system of a subtle body. You can even feel it
on emotional level – before you can name emotion, your body tells you which emotion it
is.

What would you imagine as ’ dancing empathy’?

Maybe you don’t need to dance it? It is a dance already.

Thank you.

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Interview with MARTIN NACHBAR / Impulstanz Festival 2009

Hi. I wanted to ask a few questions concerning my MA thesis I am writing right

now. It’s on physical empathy.

Physical empathy? Never heard of that, what is it?

Trying to find out myself. What’s for you empathy in general?

Hmm..It is an ability to imagine how the other one feels it has to do a lot with
imagination. I look at you and I trust, believe I know what/how you feel, yeah..it has to
do with trust, you trust the other feels like you.

Can you distinguish different modes of empathy? Which is the closest to your
understanding?

For me empathy brings up words like memory, imagination, trust and distance.
For example in my work where there is a lot of reconstructing of the old material, I use
empathy in learning those phrases, without it I guess I’m not able to understand them.
Before one of my shows - a reconstruction of an expressive dance from the 20s, I asked
people in the audience to try out the movements they were about to see in a moment.
Before, knowing the original from a videotape there was a lot of laughter, after having
tried them, it stopped. They understood the aim and difficulty of that dance, could watch
it on another level after going through a similar experience by themselves.

And the closest?..

Emotional empathy.

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Any difference between the copy and the empathy?

Well copy somehow equals empathy or maybe empathy leads to the copy..Now when I’m
observing my son I guess that’s more likable. He is empathic that’s why he copies us,
parents but I think the copy could also lead to empathy. Still for me empathy stays in a
distance..

What do you mean?

I mean sometimes we need a distance to another in order to understand and have a look
from outside to finally be empathic with him.

Empathy as the phenomena of which kind?

I’d say imaginary – sensorial, these two very close together but it has to do with action,
sensation, imagination and emotion.

Is there something like ‘common empathy’ you think?

Common empathy..hm..I think it has a lot to do with ethics. I said before, empathy from
one side needs a distance but on another it diminishes the distance.
Where’s empathy, the ethics are possible to happen. That is I guess influencing this
‘common empathy’.

You mean ethics as the universal moral system?

I was discussing lately the difference between ‘morale’ and ethics. For example
SS ethics although brutal don’t exclude empathy because empathy is selective and
exclusive. You are able to choose with whom you want to empathize but the moral

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system is another issue. So I think common empathy exist but very different from culture
to culture.

What would you imagine as ‘ dancing empathy’?

I know people are able to be very empathic about a dance they will never be able to do. I
could imagine addressing a group of people and offering to teach them a particular dance,
could be called ‘dancing empathy’.

And if you had to choose one type of movement as description?

The rhythm, bounce, escaping the hard ground. I think there is something primary about
the inner pulsation and the movement of bounce coming along. Observing people
listening to the music, they would all start to bounce rather than moving left or right - that
could be a dance of empathy as well. There is this ancient wish to escape the gravitational
force, has a lot to do with the blood circulation and the bounce of organs. A very
important role, plays here also the slowing down, it definitely increases empathic being
together along with one rhythm.

What about the lack of empathy?

For empathy to exist we need besides imagining the memory, the physical memory. So I
could say the lack of empathy equals the lack of memory.

I still wanted to ask you whether you could see any relation between the level of empathy
and dance in unison?

Well..I never thought of that. For me what’s most important in unison is for sure the
distribution of weight and orientation of spine. Of course empathy would play a role in
making the unison perfect. Definitely the act of breathing together and creating the ‘one
body’ includes empathic approach. And this feeling of coming/being together is placed

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somewhere deep, not on a surface of the body. I could say in my case physical empathy
lives close to the spine.

Thank you.

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 FINAL CONCLUSION

‘No Fake’ is a title I chose not without a reason. Starting my reflections deriving
from a subjective personal point of view reaching into various sources, I endeavored to
find out whether I wasn’t mistaken thinking of empathy as a sort of ‘human truth’. The
sensation I had concerning the huge loads of emotions and sensibility empathy revealed
in front of me needed a confirmation. Going through different publications coming from
many distinct fields and disciplines that I mentioned in the first part of this paper, I built
up strong fundaments that helped me further on in establishing and clarifying my own
concept.
Thus part ‘Empathy in theory’ showed the power of empathic phenomena as one
influencing our neural, psychological and physical beings helping us in drawing
connections with the outside world and creating our place in society. We’ve seen how big
role empathy plays in our personal development as well as how it affects our sense of
social belonging and understanding. Next to its great positive and human force
contributing to the social integration, empathy revealed also its negative potential as
phenomena lying at the base of destructive mass movements. In the first part we observed
empathy as a choreographer of life and real embodiment.
Second part where empathy met art indicated already a direction towards the
conscious empathic practice and it evolved mostly around the engagement in fiction. It
proved that escaping into fictional worlds created by literature, film or theatre stimulates
our imagination and thus improves our empathic skills as it extends our capacities of
mental and physical understanding through act of necessary identification. We could see
how spectator’s engagement with fictional characters fosters their sympathy and
sensitivity, as well as it opens the door to understanding of the other’s point of view
creating a model of a probable situation which we can use as an experimental field for
practicing empathy. Besides talking about the audience and about theatre as a space of
common codes and memories, I suggested that empathy is strongly related to a time

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factor and thus it plays a big role in studies of esthetical changes and movements in art.
This chapter showed art as a prolongation of our embodied selves.
Final and most self referential part of this work entitled ‘Dancing Empathy’
examined the differences between various modes of empathic embodiment in
choreographic practice and dance context. I presented the circumstances in which the
initial idea of this thesis was born and how the physical experiences in the constant
exchange with thoughts resulted in the studies on embodiment. Main issue was to
describe how the empathic approach to physicality can change our perception and how it
can create another point of view not only onto choreographic practice but also onto life. I
presented two situations where the body would enter empathy via two distinct modes –
through the music and through the observation.
The conclusion I drew from comparison of those two different stimuli is an
assumption that the act of listening is the shortest way into empathy. Listening seems to
evoke much more bodily awareness and it provides quicker signal reactions than our
sight f.ex. like in the case of danger. My physical explorations confirmed that the act of
seeing that serves us from the first days of our life to learn different skills via imitation,
leads us rather to the act of copying not leaving much space for the interpretation which I
count as a factor playing important role in empathy. Act of seeing does not demand our
involvement it allows us to be a passive observer creating much bigger distance between
the outside world and our body, closing our eyes we can detach from reality. Concerning
our listening skills and hearing apparatus, the escape from what we hear is much more
difficult. Listening seems to lie much closer to our body. When listening the field for
interpretation is much bigger and each act of listening contains in itself an interpretation.
Baby learning how to speak unconsciously uses empathic skill in order to embody the
proper sound. The same happens when we learn a new language and try to repeat difficult
for us vowels or accents – the sound brings us into empathy. Each person will hear
differently the same word and will repeat it in a distinct way, everyone will react
differently to the same piece of music. The sound being active does not leave us without
reaction, still this reaction being various for each individual.

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 Here my search for ‘human truth’ ends, it ends successfully. In empathy I found
common ground for human activities on different fields, in different contexts. Behind all
the individuals I can see one collective face mirroring the whole world – empathy makes
us dance and live in unison.

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www.corpusweb.net
www.criticaldance.com
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www.onfiction.ca - Online Magazine of the Psychology of Fiction by K. Oatley
www.parentingscience.com
www.wikipedia.org

Performances

Empathy Project Vol. I by M. Chowaniec, Imagetanz Festival, brut Vienna, March

2010
More Movements fuer Lachenmann by Xavier Le Roy, Tanzquartier Vienna, Sept.
2008
On Listening Labor in TQ Vienna, March 2010
Professor by Maude Le Pladec, CCN Montpellier, Feb. 2010
Sacre du Printemps by Xavier Le Roy, Tanz im August Festival, Hebbel am Ufer,
August 2007

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 Show must go on by Jerome Bel, Tanz im August Festival, Hebbel am Ufer, August
2007
Soziale Choreografie im Alltaeglichen by Gerald Kurdian and Christian Scheib,
Tanzquartier Vienna, December 2009

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“Hiermit erklaere ich eidesstattlich, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbstaendig und ohne
fremde Hilfe verfasst habe. Alle Stellen oder Passagen der vorliegenden Arbeit, die
anderen Quellen im Wortlaut oder dem Sinn nach entnommen wurden, sind durch Angaben
der Herkunft kenntlich gemacht. Dies gilt auch fuer die Reproduktion von Noten, grafische
Darstellungen und andere analoge und digitale Materialen.
Ich raume der Anton Bruckner Privatuniversitaet das Recht ein, ein von mir verfasstes
Abstract meiner Arbeit auf der Homepage der ABPU zur Einsichtnahme zur Verfuegung zu
stellen.”

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