“Dance as a Producer of Humanity – Kinaesthetic Empathy and the Art of being Human” – an article from the WM call
By: Maija Ikonen
Dance is a product of culture and a form of activity that is part of being human. But how and why is dance capable of producing and expressing humanity, being human? Two different figures from the dance world discuss what it means to be human and their work in dance in the light of kinaesthetic empathy.
Anniina Kumpuniemi, managing director and choreographer at Tanssiteatteri MD in Tampere, has made dance her career for 22 years and has been working professionally in dance for 17 years. Matti Haaponiemi has been dancing actively for three years. He has no professional dance qualifications but has several years of experience in contact improvisation.
Kinaesthetic empathy
Kinaesthetic empathy offers tools for perceiving and empathising with the experiences of another individual. The concept of empathy gained ground in the early twentieth century, particularly as a result of the research of philosopher Edith Stein. Researcher Jaana Parviainen addresses the topic in her article of the same name Kinesteettinen empatia (Kinaesthetic empathy) (2002). In her view, empathy is predominantly the question of what we can know about the experience of another person and how we are able to know it. Empathy is not solely made up of sensory perceptions, such as hearing and seeing, or emulating these, but is a special kind of autonomous act. For this reason, immersing oneself in another person’s movement experiences also helps us to understand those experiences. Experiences of kinaesthetic empathy can thus open a channel to understanding another person.
In Stein’s concept of empathy, we are not imprisoned within the bounds of our individuality but are able to attain the expression of a different kind of world; empathy enables experiences to be shared between individuals, resulting in a holistic understanding of differing viewpoints. Empathetic experience makes it possible to find different perspectives through which the world of experience of another individual can be perceived.
Kinaesthetic empathy as a tool for dancers
Someone who works in dance might easily identify and recognise experiences of kinaesthetic empathy but putting these into words demands a moment’s pause for thought. How can we process knowledge that has its origin in movement, in interacting with and touching another person?
Dancer-choreographer Anniina Kumpuniemi views kinaesthetic empathy as an important tool in human interaction.
“I see kinaesthetic empathy as one of the vital functional characteristics of humanity. Empathetic emotions build different levels of understanding, which enable us to connect mentally and physically with another person’s world of experience. Our daily lives are steered by our past experiences, guiding us in how to be a person, how to behave with others. Kinaesthetic empathy lives within every person and every living being,” says Kumpuniemi.
Kinaesthetic empathy serves as an important tool in conveying our own thoughts and elucidating them to others.
“When giving instructions as a choreographer, I hope and assume that the other person is participating in a dialogue. Using dialogue enables me to interact with another person at the level of movement. It helps in searching for ways of receiving and giving a movement; opening a movement out and absorbing even its smallest details. Naturally, working methods vary. Some people put more into words than others,” Kumpuniemi says, continuing: “It is natural to seek a connection through action and movement. Empathetically identifying with movement is communication. You can never be sure how a message conveyed by movement will be received or whether the result will be fruitful points of contact.”
From considering empathy, the discussion moves on to examine contemporary dance.
“It is interesting that contemporary dance is felt to be an art form which is hard to understand. The fear of incomprehension may well have the effect of reducing audiences for contemporary dance. However, everyone is capable of understanding each other on a physical level, empathetically, and thus also of experiencing dance empathetically. Thus everyone has the capacity to understand dance on their own terms, bringing their own nuances to it. The capacity for physical understanding is found in each and every one of us,” Kumpuniemi says.
So can being aware of our own physicality and the skill of empathy be difficult?
The physics and chemistry of contact improvisation
Contact improvisation is dance in which dancers improvise movement while simultaneously being in physical contact with each other. A shared dance can emerge by sharing the weight of their bodies, by touch, by mapping one’s own and another person’s space and through shared energy.
Dancer Matti Haaponiemi describes kinaesthetic empathy as a language of movement.
“It is a plus that you cannot automatically impose your own way of moving on the person you are dancing with, so that instead a moment of dancing together becomes a shared experience. A physical dialogue emerges between the dancers; what is now and how can we move together?”
In shared dance, identifying with the other dancer directs the movement and creates it at the same time.
“Contact improvisation could possibly be compared with playing and learning table tennis,” Haaponiemi continues. “One player can’t bombard their opponent with fast serves if the recipient doesn’t know the rules nor has no experience of playing. You have to meet your partner halfway, recognising, searching, finding and losing together. Exchanging physical information is important because the exchange is happening now.”
Matti Haaponiemi is actively involved in contact improvisation in Tampere, directing and participating in improvisation classes every week. The classes are attended by people from all walks of life, all of whom are dancing from different starting points. Participants range from dance professionals to experts in entirely different fields and the fact that the group is open and welcoming is important; no-one is excluded. The motivation for attending the classes varies. To some, touch and closeness are important, to others dance technique.
“To some, contact improvisation is more physics, to others it’s more chemistry,” as Haaponiemi aptly puts it.
Dance improvisation creates knowledge
In Anniina Kumpuniemi’s view kinaesthetic empathy can be used in improvisation as a means of reading movement, a kind of movement literacy.
“This is a mechanism which is formed through the experience of movement-related empathy. The skill of following each other in pair work lies in using kinaesthetic empathy, bringing it out and putting it into practice. Human motor skills are incredibly well developed, possibly more developed than we even understand. Movement encompasses an endless amount of information, choices and variations. In improvisation, anticipating another person and executing a movement express physical understanding of the other person.”
Matti Haaponiemi continues: “You can identify with another person solely by watching the way they move. In contact improvisation, watching a movement and feeling it convey a wealth of information besides the feeling of the weight of the body, including a range of emotions from sorrow to joy.”
To Matti Haaponiemi, contact improvisation is always different. The emotion is affected by the physical as well as the psychological state that he himself is in when dancing and moving.
“Experiences of empathy arise as flashes and snippets, and they can sometimes be difficult to identify and put into words. The familiar can also feel new, never experienced before.” The feeling of unfamiliarity may be surprising.
In her article Reflektiivinen ruumis, tanssin rajapintoja (Reflective body, Borderlines of Dancing) (2003) dance researcher Maarit Ylönen states that kinaesthetic empathy describes an ability to empathise with another person; through physical interaction an individual can approach someone who is a stranger to them in their movements and experiences.
Through shared dance we can learn about each other as well as about ourselves. Can dance help us to understand each other at new, different levels, without our customary preconceptions?
Experiences of sameness
In her work Meduusan liike (The Motion of Medusa) (2006), researcher Jaana Parviainen asks why a number of studies concentrate on the differences between movement rather than studying their sameness. In her view, it would make more sense to study the traits that unite living beings instead, for example, of differences in movements and physicality. Experiencing sameness requires empathy and empathy is only realised in the interactive relationship between the ego and the other.
Do we in fact need experiences of kinaesthetic empathy and sameness to be able to cope with our everyday lives and to survive as human beings? Is the feeling of sameness essential to interacting with and understanding another person?
Recalling a powerful experience of kinaesthetic empathy, Kumpuniemi remembers the experience of sameness between father and daughter.
“It was startling to notice my father’s characteristics in my own character and movements. My father’s quick temper had been passed on to me, through our shared lives. A life lived and experienced together leaves its mark on every one of us and sometimes the experiences of empathy bubble to the surface without warning in a sudden moment of insight. The body records what you have learned, lived and experienced together. People absorb ‘hints’ from others which you can occasionally perceive in your own self. Experiences of kinaesthetic empathy thus incorporate invisible boundaries”, Kumpuniemi explains.
It is thus possible to notice that you are performing a certain gesture which you recognise you have adopted from someone else; the movement has its origin in someone else’s vocabulary of movements. We identify with each other, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
The power of interaction
According to Anniina Kumpuniemi and Matti Haaponiemi’s experiences, kinaesthetic empathy is a human characteristic which strengthens human interaction. Feelings of empathy operate as a central communication tool in the work of dancer and choreographer alike.
Kinaesthetic empathy helps us to better understand ourselves and others at the same time. Emotions can help us to gain an insight into and interact with new things, yet they can sometimes confuse us too. Dance is thus an activity which increases human interaction and the conveying of information.
Listening plays an important role in the exchange of physical information enabled by dance. Dance helps us to become aware of what is now, the moment in which the dancers are purely listening to each other.
In our interaction we can, knowingly or unknowingly, identify with others, absorb information from others and make it real through our own bodies. We need others to realise ourselves. Perhaps this is what makes us human.
Sources
Interview: Anniina Kumpuniemi, 12.12.2013, Tampere
Interview: Matti Haaponiemi, 15.12.2013, Tampere
Parviainen, J. (2002) Kinesteettinen empatia (Kinaesthetic Empathhy) In Haaparanta, L. & Oesch, E. (eds.) Kokemus (Experience). Tampere University Press: Tampere.
Parviainen, J. (2006) Meduusan liike: Mobiiliajan tiedonmuutoksen filosofiaa (The Motion of Medusa: Knowledge Formation in the Era of Mobility). Gaudeamus: Helsinki.
Ylönen, M. (2003) Reflektiivinen ruumis, tanssin rajapintoja (Reflective body, Borderlines of Dancing). In Saarikoski, H. (ed.) Tanssi tanssi. Kulttuureja, tulkintoja (Dance dance, Cultures, interpretations). SKS: Helsinki.