Sensing Rhythm, Showing Rhythm, Sharing Rhythm: Using Perceptual Performativity as Choreographic Practice / Mattt Moriarty (2021)

This research process aims to explore potential ways in which rhythmic capacities of contemporary dancers may be activated and developed as well as how they may be used to drive the creative process forward. Based within a framework of embodied cognition, I sought to tap into participants’ phenomenal experience of listening to a multi-layered piece of music to collaboratively construct a choreography and build a visual representation of a polyrhythmic composition. Inspired by Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences and William Forsythe’s use of perceptual performativity, this process sought to investigate rhythm perception and production in dance and to produce a filmed product that exercises both performers’ and spectators’ rhythmic perception through sensory modalities such as audition and vision. Additionally, the product film is accompanied by a ‘process’ film—composed of studio footage and recorded participant reflections—and a written supplement to elucidate the making process and its theoretical backing. Over the course of this research process, participants reflected on themes such as modes of listening, balancing attentional demands, identifying and breaking personal habits, ensemble connection, and sense of personal agency. Together, these outputs and insights paint a larger picture to illuminate how a creative process can utilize the perceptual modalities of dancers to devise performance.