Improvisation allows latitude for unexpected outcomes–revelations, concepts, processes—to emerge. This two-days workshop is a movement lab to explore and provide insights into the emergent phenomenon of synchrony among a group of people.

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We are inspired by the agreement among anthropologists who see the function of dance as a technique to encourage humans to live in large groups, together with recent studies that demonstrate that group capacities go beyond the simple aggregation of the capacities of individuals.

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Synchrony is a pervasive drive of nature extending from atoms to animals, from people to planets. Being in synchrony with others, a self-organization spontaneous emergence of order, relates to an elevated state in social life. From dancing to playing, praying, and singing, synchrony is a commonplace feature of social life. Just as a flock of birds performing rituals which keep them synchronized, matching of actions in time with others facilitates synchrony in people.

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Improvisation as a collaborative design is used to explore concepts such as social cohesion, awareness, and self-attention. Our hypothesis is that these components play significant role in synchrony among people. We ask questions such as “what facilitates synchrony among people,” or “what is the experience of being in synchrony”. Notice that these questions relate to explicit (setting) as well as implicit (mental state) conditions.

 

For more information, and joining the workshop please contact us at:

csl@tauex.tau.ac.il

 

Further reading:

 

Cohen, E. E., Ejsmond-Frey, R., Knight, N., & Dunbar, R. I. (2010). Rowers' high: behavioural synchrony is correlated with elevated pain thresholds. Biology letters, 6(1), 106-108.

Dunbar, R. I., Kaskatis, K., MacDonald, I., & Barra, V. (2012). Performance of music elevates pain threshold and positive affect: implications for the evolutionary function of music. Evolutionary psychology, 10(4), 147470491201000403. Chicago    

Ehrenreich, B. (2007). Dancing in the streets: A history of collective joy. Macmillan.

Haidt, J., Patrick Seder, J., & Kesebir, S. (2008). Hive psychology, happiness, and public policy. The Journal of Legal Studies, 37(S2), S133-S156.

Hove, M. J., & Risen, J. L. (2009). It's all in the timing: Interpersonal synchrony increases affiliation. Social cognition, 27(6), 949-960.

Reddish, P., Fischer, R., & Bulbulia, J. (2013). Let’s dance together: synchrony, shared intentionality and cooperation. PloS one, 8(8), e71182.

Strogatz, S. (2004). Sync: The emerging science of spontaneous order. Penguin UK.

Tarr, B., Launay, J., Cohen, E., & Dunbar, R. (2015). Synchrony and exertion during dance independently raise pain threshold and encourage social bonding. Biology letters, 11(10), 20150767.

Theiner, G., Allen, C., & Goldstone, R. L. (2010). Recognizing group cognition. Cognitive Systems Research, 11(4), 378-395.
Wimsatt, W. C. (1986). Forms of aggregativity. In Human nature and natural knowledge (pp. 259-291). Springer, Dordrecht.

 

 

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