Solveig Aasen (University of Oslo): What Is It for Music and Dance to Match?
The relationship between music and dance can sometimes be a ‘match’, a remarkable fit between the audible manifestation that music is and the visual or kinaesthetic manifestation that dance is. A match between two things requires that there is a common measure with respect to which the match obtains. What can this be for two so different phenomena as music and dance? I argue that the most promising answer is: movement. This answer will not be satisfactory unless the movement of music and the movement of dance are the same on some level. I suggest that they are: there are qualities of movement that guide both dancers and musicians when producing dance and music as perceptible phenomena. But the match in qualities is elusive, since the qualities are instantiated in different ways in music and dance respectively.
Aesthetics Seminar Convenors: Catharine Abell and James Grant
