Children's understanding of emotion in dance

Abstract

This study investigated children's understanding of emotion in dance movements. Professional dancers were instructed to improvise on the emotions of joy, anger, fear, and sadness and to transform these improvisations into short solo dances, which were recorded on video. Eight performances were selected for use as stimuli. Children, aged 4, 5, and 8 years, and adults watched these performances and indicated which of the four emotions they perceived in the respective performance. All age groups achieved recognition scores well above chance level. As a rule, 4-year-olds' recognition was inferior to that of the other age groups, but in some cases either girls or boys of this age achieved as good a recognition as one or more of the other age groups. The 5-year-old children achieved recognition levels close to those obtained for 8-year-olds and adults. A cue analysis based on the Laban movement analysis suggested that force and tempo in movement were the key factors for emotion recognition.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation through a grant to Alf Gabrielsson.

The authors would like to thank Alf Gabrielsson for valuable advice and suggestions for this manuscript. We also would like to thank Gun Roman at the National College of Dance for valuable co-operation. Finally, thank you to all dancers!