Andrea Camila Pinzon Barranco

In this academic article published in the Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research by the Edinburh University Press in 2014, Bennerman proves and argues that though dance is different from spoken language, dance is still structured as a language and she uses linguistic to prove her point. Henritta Bennerman is the head of research at London Cotemporary Dance School (Intellect) and she was motivated to write this essay by seeing the challenges that many of the choreographers she works with face when trying to find ways to express or share their ideas with the audience. She wants to show that just as language is meaningful, dance is too.

Through the essay she explains that, as language, dance is arbitrary (i.e.,that words have no direct connection with their meaning) and it has displacement (i.e., that we can use language to speak about the past, present and future) which are two main characteristics of human language as explained in Gorge Yule book The Study of Language (15). In fact, Bennerman explain that in many choreographies, movement is used to represent events of the past and the future (flashbacks and foresights). She uses as an example the choreography of Maratha Graham Night Journey to show the displacement: at the biggening of the performance one character forces another to reveal the events that lead up to her suicide. All that was done through movement! (Bannerman 68). As for dance being arbitrary she explains it with two examples: 1) the movement Graham contraction used in ballet is usually used in choreography to evoke emotional states. 2) when a group of dancers enter a stage in marching way it will arouse a military association in the public without the dancers needing to making any military gesture such a "salute" and without any costumes or music implying it (Bannerman 69-70). she also argues that what I explained before shows that dance has semanticity.

Furthermore, she compares the syntactical/semantic situation that happen in language also happen in dance. These situations happen when we switch the order of a word in a sentence and changes the meaning of the sentence. For example: " John ate the spider" and "the spider ate John". Babberman argues that the same situation happens in dance (the order of steps matters): if you have a run, jump, fall sequence it invokes disappointment, sadness, failure. However, if you inverse the sequence (fall, jump, run) it means the opposite: joy, hope, optimism (Bannerman 70).

Finally, Bennerman explains that she would not argue that dance has sentences as language does (S-NP + VP), dance has utterances. This means that is concerned about the intonations and the situational context of each movement. So, it is the music and the scenographic context that will allow the audience to understand the whole performance (the "text").

Her essay allowed me to orientate my understanding of my research. I will not try to argue that dance is language, but more that it acts like it and it is structure as a language. I also like the fact that her essay gave me a more technical understanding on how dance is like language contrary to the TED talk mentioned before that is more experience related.

HENRIETTA BANNERMAN. “Is Dance a Language? Movement, Meaning and Communication.” Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, vol. 32, no. 1, July 2014, pp. 65–80. JSTOR, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.43281347&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Yule,George. The Study of Language. 7th edition, United Kingdom,Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Mirela Arsith, and Daniela Aurelia Popa Tănase. “Nonverbal Communication through Dance.” Acta Universitatis Danubius: Communicatio, vol. 12, no. 1, June 2018, pp. 53–63. DOAJ, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsdoj&AN=edsdoj.6916d93456aa46209282f6f176eda510 &site=eds-live&scope=site.

Charnavel, Isabelle. “Steps Toward a Universal Grammar of Dance: Local Grouping Structure in Basic Human Movement Perception.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, June 2019, p. 1364. MEDLINE, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01364.

In this article, "With a Hop, a Kick and a Turn, Cumbia Enters the Global Stage", written by Heather Wisner for the Dance Magazine; she talks about this Colombian traditional dance originated in the Colombian Costal region. Wisner interview professional cumbia dancers and choreographers in the United States to know the history, the meaning and the aspects of the type. She also shows the growth of cumbia and how it has evolved over time.

First of all, through an interview with the Colombian (from Barranquilla) cumbia teacher of Miami' international dance studio, Laura Altman; she discovered that Cumbia was born in 1800s as part of the Spaniac slave trade in in the Colombian Coast (Wisner 66). In fact, cumbia is the mix of Spanish, African and Indigenous music and dance: it was danced barefoot on the beaches with the long skirts owned by the Spanish slave owners, it is composed of African rhythms and played with indigenous instruments (Wisner 3). Also, by interviewing Altman she learned the story told by the tradition style of Cumbia: men and women are flirting with each other openly. They make steps toward and away of each other, but they never touch; they are teasing each other. Cumbia is a beautiful courtship dance in which the men is trying to conquer the women' heart (Wisner 68). Moreover, Martin Vejareno from the band La Cumbia eNeyé (who also teaches cumbia's music and dance) explained to Wisner the different cultural styles and influences specifically in the dance: women's dance is composed of little steps, they drag their feet, they are quietly strong which is an indigenous style. On the other hand, men's dance is fast and aggressive, but more graceful which is an African style (Wisner 68). Cumbia is clearly a dance that represents or summaries Colombia's culture and history!

To continue, Wisner also explained that Cumbia became very popular in Mexico and asl internationally. However, the style of it changed in comparison to the Colombia traditional style. In fact, in some clubs in the United States it is possible to hear Cumbia's rhythms being mix with techno and in Mexican style is closer to salsa (Wisner 68). The later is also the case in Costa Rica.

To conclude, I am from Barranquilla (City is the Costal areas of Colombia) and I already knew a little about the story told through Cumbia, so I decided to search more on its story and thus go deeper in my knowledge on the subject. Of course, this is not as technical as the academic journals that I have read and it is not as connect to language from the surface. However, I think it does show the language aspect of dance through the story it tells: the history of Colombia and the courtship. We use language to tell stories, but the same can be done with dance. Dance does have meaning as language does!

Wisner, Heather. “With a Hop, a Kick, and a Turn, Cumbia Enters the Global Stage: A Dance That Began as Part of the Spanish Slave Trade in Colombia Is Gaining Popularity.” Dance Magazine, vol. 80, no. 9, Sept. 2006, p. 64. Gale Academic OneFile, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.150864183&site=eds-live&scope=site.

"Dance the Universal Language of Storyteller" is an honors thesis written by Meagan Woodard. She was a graduating student at the Ouachita Baptist University. Her thesis was accepted and approved by her thesis director and the director of the CarlGoodson honors program. This honors program searches "to further academic excellence and inspire intellectual curiosity for qualified students" (Ouchita Baptist University). It seems that what pushed her write this paper is her own love for dance and her own experience with it. She also describes a particular day that marked her and made her see dance as an universal language: that people from all over the world flew to Texas to dance along side her; she was amazed by the fact that many of those people did not speak English and yet they were dancing the same thing and telling the same story together (Woodard 2). In this thesis, Meagan argues that dance is an universal language for storytellers; she believes that dance breaks the barriers of language. She explains the importance of dance in many religions. She specially focus on indigenous dances from two places: Australia and the Polynesian islands, specially New Zeeland and Hawaii, and an indian dance called (also type of music) "Bharatanatyam".

First of all, she starts by describing the way gagudju people, which are indigenous people from Australia, used to use dance a way to tell stories and passed them down from generation to generation. In fact, this community, and others in Australia, used to dance with the purpose to tell stories about their land, their people, and about animals. These stories were passed from generation to generation (Woodard 7). This was so significant and meaningful to the gagudju that the talented dancers, and signers, were "highly respected members of the Aboriginal community as they are the ones to pass the stories from generation to generation" (Woodard 8).

To continue, Woodrad explains how the indigenous dancers from the Polynesian Islands are also storytellers and how their dances is full of a powerful story. First, the Maoris people of New Zeeland used (and the people of New Zeeland still do) to perform Haka. Haka is a signing and a dance; there are different types of Haka and each has its own meaning or purpose. In fact, some are war-dances and others a way to welcome others (Woodard 9). In general, in Haka the feet are used to keep the time/rhythm and the arms movements tell the attitude and feelings of the words main function to emphasize the song (Woodard 10). Second, the Hawaiian people used (and still do) to dance Hula. Hula used to be religiously related but now it represents Hawaiian culture and history. In fact, up until the 19e centaury, Hawaiian people did not have a written system for their language, therefore they used Hula to tell their stories and pass down traditions (Woodard 10). Then, to survive the European colonization, Hawaiian had to stop speaking their language, however they never stop dancing Hula which became some sort of language for them (Woodard 11).

Finally, Woodard conducted her own experience: she created a choreography fo Henderson State University. She decided to tell her depression personal story through dance (Woodard 17-20). After, creation process and rehearsal the group was ready to present. Woodard asked the members of the audience two questions (note that the piece had no name, so people had no hints): (1) What is the story of the piece? (2) What/who is the story about? (Woodard 20). She was amazed that 52/55 were able to answer these questions the rightly. Woodard then concludes that dance is an international language instead of universal since according to Marriam webster definition of international it means" Active, known or reaching beyond national boundaries"(Woodard 22).

To conclude, this source simply "re-enforced" my belief that dance goes beyond words and it is able to tell stories just as we can do with language. Dance reveals feelings, but also has a displacement aspect as you can use it tell stories of the past (cultural baggage in the dance), the present (the reason why we do it in the moment) and the future (the dance might be saying things about the future as the Haka dance sometimes do). This was also discussed in the academic source by Henritta Bennerman called Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research. This is also somewhat discussed in Mariela Arsith and Daniela Aurelia Popa Tanase' paper called non-verbal communication through dance where it puts in light how dance reveals feelings, and how the meaning of dance might chance depending on the cultural and social context; this was seen in Woodard descriptions' of the different dances. This source was really helpful and enriching as it putted forward different kind of dances.

Henrietta Bannerman. “Is Dance a Language? Movement, Meaning and Communication.” Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, vol. 32, no. 1, July 2014, pp. 65–80. JSTOR, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.43281347&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Mirela Arsith, and Daniela Aurelia Popa Tănase. “Nonverbal Communication through Dance.” Acta Universitatis Danubius: Communicatio, vol. 12, no. 1, June 2018, pp. 53–63. DOAJ, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsdoj&AN=edsdoj.6916d93456aa46209282f6f176eda510 &site=eds-live&scope=site.

Ouchita Baptist University. "CarlGoodson Honors Program", https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors/.

Woodard, Meagan. " Dance the Universal Language of Storytellers" , Carl Goodson Honors Program at Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita, 20 Apr. 2020, https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1770&context=honors_theses

Pytlik,George. " The Language of Ballroom Dance", Delta Dance, Jan. 2020, https://delta.dance/2020/01/language-of-ballroom-dancing/

Dance, which is a form of non-verbal communication, functions as a language for it has some of the properties unique to the human language, it can be used as a tool to tell profound stories, and our brains organize movements in a structural way as we do with language.

1) Dance has properties that are unique to the human language such as arbiteriness and displacement; which seems to suggest that dance could be consider a language-like form of communication.

2) Through movement, dancers and choreographers are able to tell clear stories and narratives for the general public about the past,the present and the future.

3) When watching a dance performance, humans organize movements in a structural way as we do with language.

In this academic journal, "Unspoken knowledge: Implicit Learning of Structured Human Movement", Written by Tajana Opacic et al, the authors investigate if dance is an implicit learning as language and motor skill are. The authors seem to be interested on the capacity of humans to learn "structural regularities of a particular language or musical environment through mere exposure and implicit learning" (Opacic et al. 1570), and therefore they are curious to know if this can also happen with movement sequences (i.e., dance) among unexperienced people in the practice. The scholars focus particularly in contemporary dance since is a type of dance that does not have a particular vocabulary as ballet does (ballet has specific steps associated with French words/labels) for contemporary dancers are continuously inventing new movements. To be able to do this experiment, Opacic et al. used artificial grammar where dance movements and sequences of movements are the stimuli. Artificial grammar is used in academia as a way to investigate implicit learning.

To start, as mentioned above the researches used artificial grammar to do this experiment. This consists of showing participants "grammatical sequences", and then ask them to classify new sequences as grammatical or ungrammatical (Opacic et al. 1571). In this case, the grammar sequences where movement sequences (i.e., dance) and the stimuli during the test phase (was specifically 66 sequences: 22 grammatical exposures (of artificial grammar based on dance movements), 22 grammatical test (of new movements sequences), 22 nongrammatical test (of new movements sequences) of five different dance movements characteristics (Opacic et al. 1572). The stimuli were unfamiliar dance movements and unfamiliar movement sequences, and the participants were all unexperienced people with dance. The sequences Now, during the experiment they separated the people in two groups. The first group is called the "exposure group"; they were expose to the artificial grammar before seeing new sequences. The second is called "control group"; they were not expose to the artificial grammar before hand (Opacic et al. 1572). For the purposes of my own research, I will focus on the results with the exposure group.

To continue, after their experiment, Opacic et al. found that the exposure groups did a good job catching up the regalities of the artificial grammar for they were able to say which sequences were grammatical and which were ungrammatical (they also did this better than the control group) (Opacic et al. 1575). These groups also got a zero criterion based on the confidence of their answers and the accuracy of them which means that implicit learning happened among the participants (Opacic et al. 1575). The zero criterions says that there is no relation between the confidence of answers and their accuracy which. In other words, Opacic et al. found that just as it happens with language and motor skills, humans are able to implicitly learn the "grammar of dance".

To conclude, this source was very hard for me to understand at first. However, I commited myself to understand it because I noticed that it would be relevant for my own reaserch project for it shows, as the Steps Toward a Universal Grammar of Dance: Local Grouping Structure in Basic Human Movement Perception paper did, that there is some kind of grammar present in dance. Which is good proof when arguing that dance acts as language (language has patterns and grammar). This source was very technical and it expanded my knowledge on the subject.

Tajana Opacic , Catherine Stevens and Barbara Tillmann

All members of the University of Western Sydney. Tillmann is also part of "Universite´ Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique".

• Grammatical: conform to the rule

• Ungrammatical: Violate the rule

Charnavel, Isabelle. “Steps Toward a Universal Grammar of Dance: Local Grouping Structure in Basic Human Movement Perception.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, June 2019, p. 1364. MEDLINE, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01364.

Opacic, Tajana, et al. “Unspoken Knowledge: Implicit Learning of Structured Human Dance Movement.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, vol. 35, no. 6, Nov. 2009, pp. 1570–77. APA PsycArticles, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1037/a0017244.

The author of this academic paper is called Ivar Hagendoorn. She is a choreographer, photographer and research. She is also part the Cognitive and affective Neuroscience Department of the Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Hagendoorn argues here that dance and language share characteristics at the level of sentence construction; however, that they differ at the level of meaning, reference, truth and function. She also explains that her paper "explores the relationship between dance and language in the light of recent findings from linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology" (Hagendoor 221).

To start, Hagendoor explains that usually, in the academic world and simply among the general public, movement sequences are considered to be like phrases, and the collection of individual movements/positions to be "vocabulary" (Hagendoor 223). Hagendoor adds that a "phrase" is more that a sequence of movements: it has structure, a beginning and an end. She uses ballet and Bharata Natyam dance as examples. First, ballet is widely known to have a concrete and vast vocabulary; "It consists of numerous movements and positions which can be combined in an infinite number of ways, although various rules restrict the ways in which movements can be performed just as the rules of grammar limit the number of correct phrases" (Hagendoorn 223). She explains that, for instance, a battement can only be performed in front, in the side and in the back of the body; it cannot be done diagonally. This was not written down but have been passed down from generation to generation and overtime it has become a rule and it defines "proper ballet". To continue, Baharata Natyam is an Indian dance and a tradition of more than 2000 years old. In this dance, some movement have a symbolic meaning (Hagendoorn 223). For example, a sudden release of the head and the arms may symbolise death while a stretched arm drawing the upper half of a large circle may symbolise heaven (Hagendoorn 224). Another interesting fact with this type of dance is that "just as the words in spoken language can be descriptive as well as metaphorical" (Hagendoorn 224). In fact, gestures that stand for objects like bee, moon, lotus flower might and can also stand for longing or anger.

To continue, Hagendoor also exposes the other side of the coin: how language and dance differ. She specially uses the concept of truth and false in descriptive sentences. In fact, a "descriptive sentence either true or false" (Hagendoorn 224). She uses as an example the sentence " The cat is on the mat". Here, the sentence is true if the cat was actually on the mat and if it was not, well the sentence will be false! However, in dance we cannot do this. In fact, a dance teacher could tell a student if the movement/position is right or wrong, and if the dancer is going into the right or wrong direction in a choreography, but this does not make the movement/position more true or false (Hagendoorn 224). She also argues that with dance you cannot gossip or pass down knowledge on a subject such as mathematics (Hagendoorn 224).

Moreover, Hagendoorn explains what conceptual integrating is and how it applies to dance as well. From what I understood, conceptual integrating is the process of trying to figure out what a word/gesture means in its context. As we do so, we try to reconstruct the missing elements that will tell us the meaning of it. Hagendoorn uses the example of taking off their jacket and pulling up their sleeves while at work: it could mean that the person in hot or that person is getting down to work. The same happens in dance; movements such as falling, fleeing, evading, seeking support, etc. are performed outside of a specific context and are independent of any apparent goal can be interpreted differently by different people since we are all different and have different references in life (Hagendoorn 228-229). This kind of situation mentioned before is also called blending (another example: how we use I have a virus for computers and also for physical health or medicine contexts). An example of this in a specific piece is in the Swan Lake where a woman, Odette, transforms into a swan in the day and a human at night. In this piece, the dances is not making actually swan movements when they dance; however, the movements reflect the grace of a swan into a human body (Hagendoorn 229-230). According to Hagendoorn this creates "a blended figure with a structure on its own" (Hagendoorn 230).

To conclude, this source was very much helpful because it allowed me to see the opposition of what I argue, which is that dance is a language -like communication. It gave me the opportunity to learn how language and dance differ from one another in a technical and more academic way. Also, I learned knew concepts of language that I did not know before, and I certainly did not realize that it applies to dance as well, such as conceptual integrating and the fact that a descriptive sentence is always true or false. Of course, concept such as phrases, syntax and vocabulary in dance are not new to me anymore since Charnavel speaks about it in her paper Steps Toward a Universal Grammar of Dance: Local Grouping Structure in Basic Human Movement Perception, and Opacic et al. in Unspoken Knowledge: Implicit Learning of Structured Human Dance Movement. I will like to add that this source was quite easy to understand which is much appreciated!

Charnavel, Isabelle. “Steps Toward a Universal Grammar of Dance: Local Grouping Structure in Basic Human Movement Perception.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, June 2019, p. 1364. MEDLINE, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01364.

Hagendoorn, Ivar. "Dance, Language and the Brain.", Int. J. Arts and Technology, Vol. 3, Nos. 2/3, pp.221–234.https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download doi=10.1.1.460.1014&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Opacic, Tajana, et al. “Unspoken Knowledge: Implicit Learning of Structured Human Dance Movement.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, vol. 35, no. 6, Nov. 2009, pp. 1570–77. APA PsycArticles, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1037/a0017244.

This Newspaper article was written by Judth Lynne Hanna. She is a professor in both the Dance deparment and the Anthorpology departement at the University of Maryland in College Park. In this article publised in the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance she explains how dance ressemebles verbal language and influences litterature. This article while is written in a newspaper; is still is an academic article for she sites her sources and speaks with formality. However, in this site the full article is not there, so I searched it somewhere else and I will site according to that second site (page number refences).

Hanna starts her argument by citing an old proverb: " Good dancers have mostly better heels than heads" (Hanna 1). She says that this quote shows the tendency of society to "distrust" the body and think of it as separate from the mind. However, she affirms that " dance requires many of the same faculties of the brain as verbal language" (Hanna 1). In facts, she mentions that the psychologist Howard Gardner affirms that dance is a form of kinesthetic intelligence, a kind of thinking and is an ability that allows you to solve problems " through control of one's bodily motions" (Hanna 1). Adding to this, Hanna mentions the anthropologist Gordon Hewes who argues that dance is still at the basic level of human expression (Hanna 1). In fact, Hewes explains that the body is not mute and that language is based on the innate cognitive structure of gesture: "movement is our mother tongue and primordial thought" (Hanna 1). Hanna says that this can be observed among infants as they track movements and anticipate them as they do with the peek-a-boo game. Moreover, Hanan uses as arguments two studies made by the psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow and her collogues. The first study found that deaf children with hearing parents that have not been exposed to a "conventional sign language" use gestures as a mean to communicate and they even use it in a grammatical-like way. The second studies explain how deaf children use gestures while they speak with other deaf people and seeing people to send their message (Hanna 1-2). Even if they do not see the way they move their hands, they use gestures for their speech cannot always fully convey their message.

To continue, Hanna explains that research has proven that dance has many similiarities with verbal language. In fact, dance lights up the same parts of the brain as verbal language in what regards conceptualization, creativity, and memory as verbal language (Hanna 3). She adds to that the fact that both verbal language have vocubalery and grammar. In dance, vocaublary looks like steps and gestures while and grammar are "rules for justifying how one dance movement can follow another" (Hanna 3). She also affirms that dance has arbitrariness,discreteness,displacement,prductivity,duality of patterning (system of physical action and one of meaning), cultural transmission,ambiguity,affectivity and several people who use it (Hanna 3).

To conclude, this part of the article was very helpful as into how dance and gestures are linked which then explain why dance is like language in terms of how it allows us to communicate; and how it come so naturally to humans. This article also mentions notions such as vocabulary, grammar,arbitariness and displacement. These have also been mention in all the academic journals that I have read.

Hanna, Judith Lynne. " Languauge of Dance." Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 24 Feb. 2013, pp.40-45, The Language of Dance: Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance: Vol 72, No 4 (tandfonline.com)

Hanna, Judith Lynne. " Languauge of Dance." ResearchGate, Apr. 2001, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273371092_The_Language_of_Dance

This article was written by Xuexin Cai and Lauren Clingan and published in the GazelleNewspapaer. In this short article they express one of the beauty of dance: the fact that dance breaks international barriers. As it is possible to see in their title; they very much agree on the argument that language is an universal language.

To star, the authors argue that "Dance is a form of language that transcends not only cultures but also species " ( Cai and Clingan). They explain that male birds use body language to conquer the female and compete against another male bird. Cain and Cligan say that before developping linguistics skills our ancestors used to used to use holy as a form of communication. In other words, dance has always with us!

They continue by expressing that dancers are storytellers tell their stories throught their holy: "I may not immediately understand your language, culture or religious traditions, but you can tell me your story and I will listen; you can show me your story and I will watch". They add to their argument that hip hop was born in the 1960s by black people. It became way for black youth (who have been affected by drugs, sex and gangsfights) to communicate and it created a new community for them. Now, as they say, we can see hip hop being dance in the streets of New York, clubs in Tokyo and parks in Paris: Youth of all different ethnicities make friends through dance. I will end by quoting this: "Dancing will not cure diseases, will not end famines nor will it fight to bring peace. But as a universal language, dance speaks of joy and a hope that can never be taken away".

Cai, Xuexin, and Lauren Clingan. " Dance as Universal Language", The Gazelle, Oct. 05 2013, Dance as Universal Language | The Gazelle.

This article and research were written and done by a undergraduate student of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Melissa Pieck. It seems that she was part of the department of communication at her school. The purpose of the author was «to gain an understanding of message-related behavior, to explain how dance is a communicative phenomenon, and how dance is used to send and receive messages through nonverbal behavior" (Peick 1). She specially focuses on a social kind of setting or environment with college students: night clubs and bars. To do this research she made observation, used charts and ask questions to people in the bar.

To start, she explains some theory such as the codes that can be used to send messages through dance is such social settings: Space (i.e., distance between dancers/partners), touch, facial expressions and eye contact (Peick 1). She continues explaining that touch can send both positive and/or negative messages: " different forms of touch produce different interpretations and reactions" (Peick 2). Moreover, she mentions how North-American is a culture of "bubble" or what we call personal space. However, when it a social context where dancing is one of the central activities as it is in a night club or a bar the personal space norm is broken and closeness becomes a norm or an expectation: "The medium of dance naturally invites more physical contact than many other types of nonverbal communication "(Peick 2).

To continue, after her experimentation and observation in different college bars she was able to answer her three research questions. The first question was "How are the nonverbal codes of proxemics, haptics and kinesics reflected in bars and club dancing?" (Peick 3). Peick found out that the types of touch that are the most present in these kinds of environment are: hand to/hip/butt/waist, self-touch and snuggling behind (Peick 5). She observed that self-touching happens more frequently among females when they are dancing with other females and that in general sings of having a good time are: smile, laugh, open mouth, raised eyebrows, closed eyes and plucked lips (Peick 6). Now, to her second research question: "What kinds of nonverbal messages do individuals claim they send to their dance partners?" (Peick 3). She found out, after asking questions to some females, that there are five kind of messages sent: filtration messages associated with closeness, eye contact and sexual movements; attention seeking messages which seems to go hand in hand with fliting; "having fun messages" which is associated when someone does not care how they look when they dance or what other say as long that they are "having fun"; confidence messages which sings are going with rhythm of the music, feeling the music and not follow or imitate someone's else moves (having your own); and "not interested messages" which can be resumed as backing off and having no eye-contact or asking friends for help through facial expressions (6-7). Finally, her third research question: "What kinds of nonverbal messages do individuals claim they receive from dance partners?" (Peick 3). She found out that people receive 5 kinds of messages: Flirting and attraction messages, "not interested messages", messages of confidence, "love of dance" or " having a good time" messages, and messages of disrespect as when butt grabbing happens (Peick 7).

Now, I believe this paper was somewhat helpful in terms of perspective. In fact, I have not yet found any article discussing dance in a social context. Now this article has many flaws that I believe have to do with when it was written:2005. Peick asked more questions to females than males and when she did ask to males it was regarding how they received messages from females. It is a she assumed that females are the ones sending messages and males receiving it; she did not let the readers get a glimpse on how male might send messages. When she asked how they received the messages it is more regarding disrespect messages...I believe her stereotypes on this matter show in her paper. Moreover, though she visited different kind of bars where different cultures where represented she did not make culture a separate variable in her research, instead she simply wrote that she observed that females were less comfortable in salsa bars because males did not hesitate to get close quickly because in Hispanic culture is a contact kind of culture (they do not have the "bubble") (Peick 6). The problems is that she did not ask those females how they actually felt, she did not make further research on this. Once again I Believe this shows some bias...

Peick, Melissa. "Dance as CommunicationL: Messages Sent and Received Throught Dance" , University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 2005, https://www.uwlax.edu/globalassets/offices- services/urc/jur-online/pdf/2005/peick.pdf1.

I have been dancing all my life; I was born a week after the famous Caranval de Barranquilla, so I learned to dance salsa and cumbia at an early age. I have always considered to dance to be like a language by itself and as I encountered other dancers along the way; most of them claimed the same thing. However, is this true? I dance a language-like communication? Does it go beyond non-verbal communication? For this project I wanted to find as an answer to these questions: what do scholars have to say about it? I think that my closeness to this subject made the research more interesting and somewhat fun to me.

First of all, human language has particular properties that any other form of communication, such as non-verbal communication, does not have. Interestingly, research has proven that dance also has many of those properties. In fact, dance has arbitress and displacement, and syntactical/semantic situation also happens in dance performances at it happens in spoken/written language. All of this seems to be more recurrent in theartical dance performance (i.e., performed for an audience, also usually longer).

To continue, we use spoken and written language to tell stories, transmit traditions and to share knowledge to the next generation. Now, for a long-time people used dance to achieve the same purpose and people still do! In fact, this happens a lot in historical and traditional dances. Some examples are Hula, in Hawaii; Haka, New Zeeland; Cumbia, Colombia, and some dance of the gagudju people from Australia. Also, Mariela Arsith and Daniela Aurelia Popa Tanase reflected the ability to tell stories in their LOVE life and Dance Project: Expressive therapy for Empowering Youth project where one of the exercises, called dance your life exercise, participants had to use movement to tell their life experiences.

Finally, from my research I found out that when people look at a dance performance, they structured it in their minds are they do with language which creates some sort of "dance grammar". In fact, scholars have concluded that movements are like vocabulary, that movement sequences are like phrases and the order of movements becomes "syntax". Moreover, just as language structured this seems to be implicitly learned by the audience.

At the end I concluded that dance is not language but it is a language-like communication.

Break is the first hip hop kind of dance. It was borned in the streets of bronx, New York, between the 1960s-1970s and was popularised by afro-american and latino youth. Break is composed of many footwork, and head and back spins. It also incomporates movements from martial arts and hymastics. Break is energic,creative,humerous, and pours out some sense of danger . Breakdancing has been officially added to the olympics in 2020 and will be for the first time part of the international competetion in the Paris Olympics of 2024 (Britannica).

Logan Edra, aslo known as Logistx, is a famous breaker. She is only 18 years old and yet she has many accomplishments in her domain: she is a professional dancers, a choreographer, she teaches classes all over the united States! Logan is also a very active advocate for social justice. Last year, she won the first place in the name of the United Sates at the international RedBull BC one individual breaking competition which is one of the major international breaking competitions.

Adaso, Henry. "A Bried History of Breaking Dance", LiveAboutDotcom, Jan. 2019, https://www.liveabout.com/history-of-breakdancing- 2857231#:~:text=The%20History%20of%20Breakdance,of%20funk%20maestro%2C%20James% 20Brown.

Britannica. "Break Dancing", 2020, https://www.britannica.com/art/break-dance.

RedBull BC One. "B-Girl Vavi vs. B-Girl Logistx | Final Battle | Red Bull BC One World Final Poland 2021", Youtube, https://www.britannica.com/art/break-dance .

Thank you for checking my blog and I hope it made you fall in love with dance in some way : )