Dancing In and Out - An Ethnographic Study of Flow in Professional Ballet Dancers

Abstract Flow, first identified by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from narratives of optimal experiences, describes an altered state of consciousness in people’s enjoyment. Over the last five decades, flow has been studied with human motivation and well-being among disciplinaries like sports, arts, work, and education. Although professional ballet dancing incorporates natures of elite sports, artistic expressions, and collective occupational setting, flow studies in this context were minimal. Like most flow studies, a cross-sectional deductive approach on flow’s dimensions was adopted overlooking its mechanism, resulting in limited account of the dynamic process of consciousness alternations in flow interventions. After Keith Sawyer’s studies of group flow – a shared flow among jazz musicians, later studies, limiting to team sports, music, and art-making, had biased on the social antecedents instead of individual or situational ones. Flow experiences from the viewers’ perspective, as revealed in this study, and its interplay with other forms of flow were yet to be uncovered. Beyond the narrowed perspective of flow experiences in certain moments, the evolving meaning of flow across one’s life deserves further investigation. Integrating the radical embodiment perspective of consciousness and the multi-level model of flow, this ethnographic study aims to explore 1. professional ballet dancers’ lived experience of the dynamic interaction of their body, brain, and the environment in the process of flow, 2. their experience of flow as movers and witnesses on the collective relational level as well as the interplay among different forms of flow, and 3. their evolving relationship with ballet and flow across the career. As the participant-as-observer, the ethnographer took part in professional ballet dancing and performances for one and a half years with the Hong Kong Ballet, while observing, conducting individual in-depth interviews, and writing fieldnotes. The qualitative iterative approach was adopted in data analysis and validation through follow-up interviews and Authentic Movement practices with dancers. Apart from rich narratives of professional ballet dancers’ flow experiences on both the individual and collective relational level as movers and witnesses, major findings of this study include: 1. The mechanism of underflow, flow, and overflow in a four-phase flow cycle, 2. Contributors of group flow both on the interpersonal and individual level, 3. The phenomenon of flow from the viewer’s perspective – the witness flow and its interplay with other forms of flow on the spatial dimension, 4. Professional ballet dancers’ relationship with flow and its evolution across dancers’ career on the temporal dimension. The perspective of dissemination is gradually broadened, inspiring discussions from the role of embodiment in the flow cycle, the value of reciprocity and kinesthetic empathy in flow on the collective relational level, to the evolutional and overlapping nature of flow cycles in life. The findings inform the relevance of organic processes in the flow cycle to well-being and career development, not limited merely among dancers. The iterative ethnographic process involving the ethnographer as both the participating-dancer and observing-researcher has allowed empirical discoveries of the phenomenon of witness flow and metaphors of dancers’ relationships with flow across their career.

抽象心流（Abstract Flow）最初由米哈里·契克森米哈赖（Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi）从最优体验叙事中提炼而来，指的是人们在享受过程中进入的一种意识改变状态（altered state of consciousness）。在过去五十年间，学界已在运动、艺术、工作与教育等学科领域，围绕抽象心流与人类动机、幸福感的关联展开了诸多研究。尽管专业芭蕾舞蹈兼具精英运动、艺术表达与集体职业场景的多重属性，但针对该领域的抽象心流研究仍寥寥无几。与多数抽象心流研究类似，过往研究多采用针对抽象心流维度的横断面演绎法，却忽视了其内在机制，导致对抽象心流干预中意识改变的动态过程的阐释极为有限。在基思·索耶（Keith Sawyer）针对群体抽象心流——即爵士乐手共享的心流体验——的研究问世后，后续研究多局限于团队运动、音乐与艺术创作领域，且偏向探讨社会前置因素，而非个体或情境层面的影响因素。而本研究旨在揭示的观众视角下的心流体验，及其与其他形式心流的相互作用，此前尚未得到充分探索。除了聚焦特定时刻心流体验的狭隘视角之外，心流在个体一生中的意义演化也有待进一步研究。本民族志研究整合了意识的激进具身视角与心流多水平模型，旨在探究三个核心问题：1. 职业芭蕾舞者在心流过程中，身体、大脑与环境动态交互的具身体验；2. 舞者作为动作执行者与见证者，在集体关系层面的心流体验，以及不同形式心流间的相互作用；3. 舞者职业生涯中与芭蕾及心流的关系演化历程。本研究采用参与者-观察者（participant-as-observer）范式，研究者以该身份加入香港芭蕾舞团，参与了为期一年半的专业芭蕾训练与演出，期间同步开展观察、个体深度访谈并撰写田野笔记。数据分析与验证环节采用质性迭代方法，通过与舞者开展后续访谈及真实动作（Authentic Movement）练习完成。本研究不仅获取了职业芭蕾舞者作为动作执行者与见证者，在个体及集体关系层面的心流体验的丰富叙事，还得到了四项核心研究发现：1. 欠流（underflow）、心流与超流（overflow）的四阶段心流周期机制；2. 人际与个体层面的群体心流促成因素；3. 观众视角下的心流现象——见证者心流，及其在空间维度上与其他形式心流的相互作用；4. 职业芭蕾舞者与心流的关系，及其在职业生涯时间维度上的演化历程。本研究的传播视角正逐步拓展，引发了多维度讨论：从具身过程在心流周期中的作用，到集体关系层面心流中互惠与动觉共情的价值，再到生命中心流周期的演化与重叠属性。本研究结果表明，心流周期中的有机过程与幸福感及职业发展息息相关，且这一关联并不局限于舞者群体。本研究采用的迭代式民族志方法，让研究者同时以参与式舞者与观察式研究者的双重身份开展工作，从而实证发现了见证者心流现象，以及舞者职业生涯中与心流关系的隐喻内涵。