Kinesemiotics : modelling how choreographed movement means in space / Arianna Maiorani.

Introduction: What is Kinesemiotics? -- Chapter I. How to capture dance discourse? 1. Dance notation systems: what they do and do not do -- 2. Dance as a language: the approach of dance studies, kinesthetics and cognitive sciences to movement-based communication -- 3. A socio-semiotic approach to dance: the theoretical background of Kinesemiotics -- Chapter II. Basic concepts in Kinesemiotics. 1. Kinesemiotics and the human body in space -- 2. Space as a Semiotic Dimension -- 3. Motivated Movement as Projection and the Idea of Dance Discourse -- 4. The Functional Grammar of Dance model -- 5. Dance as a Mode -- 6. Dance language: system, instantiation and realization -- 7. Dance Discourse and Music -- Chapter III. An introduction to manual analysis with the FGD. 1. Introduction to the analysis -- 2. Body parts movement possibilities in the FGD system -- 3. Comparative examples of manual analysis of moves and sequences -- 4. Dance discourse and the music score -- Chapter IV. The path to automated analysis: a series experiments with the English National Ballet. 1. Why automated analysis? Reasons and prospects for developing digital recognition of dance discourse -- 2. The experiment protocol -- Open-ended conclusions

"This innovative work introduces the interdisciplinary field of research of kinesemiotics, offering a new adaptable model and means of analysis for understanding forms of movement-based communication, such as dance, that use a codified language shared by a community of users. It begins with a theoretical overview and review of existing literature on the main approaches to movement-based communication, specifically dance, which underpin kinesemiotics as an area of study. It reaffirms previous work which established dance as a form of embodied communication in that it encompasses a wide range of semiotic styles and forms shared by communities of "speakers." In collaboration with the English National Ballet, Maiorani employs the genre of ballet as a means through which to understand and analyse some of the key concepts of kinesemiotics, mainly that of space as a semiotic dimension and "motivated movement," or movement with meaning. Supported by automated movement recognition tools from the fields of bio-robotics engineering and computer science, Maiorani argues for ballet’s capacity, when movements are projected into meaningful space, to extend beyond sequences of physical movements to become a meaning making practice." -- Utgivarens hemsida.