Temporal relationship between dancer’s body movements and music beats in classical ballet

Musicality is one of the most essential aspects of dance performance: Dancers control their bodies to the music, and audiences appreciate dances beautifully harmonized with music. The present study explores this problem from the perspective of synchronization between music beats and body movements. Specifically, we investigated the temporal relationship between dancer’s body movements and metronome beats when a dancer performed four basic classical ballet movements (i.e., changement, passé, jeté, and tendu) to the metronome. We measured body movements of 10 ballet dancers using an optical motion capture system and force plates, and analyzed what movement reference points of dancer’s body motion (e.g., movement endpoints and ground reaction force peaks) occurred on or close to the beat and backbeat. Specific reference points coincided with the beat timing common to most dancers, but the different reference points were synchronized with the beat depending on the movements. These reference..., Appratus and signal processing
We measured the dancer’s body movement using an optical motion capture system (Vicon Nexus) at a frame rate of 250 Hz. Retroreflective markers were attached to 35 body sites using a plug-in full-body gait model. Ground reaction force (GRF) was measured using a force plate (Kistler Instruments) at a sampling rate of 1 KHz via external analog inputs to the Vicon system. Motion data were filtered with a 4th-order zero-phase low-pass filter (cutoff frequency: 50 Hz), and velocity and acceleration were calculated using numerical derivatives. GRF data were filtered with a 4th-order zero-phase low-pass filter (cutoff frequency: 400 Hz). Positional data are expressed in xyz coordinates, where the x-axis represents the front-back direction (positive towards the back), the y-axis represents the left-right direction (positive towards the right), and the z-axis represents the up-down direction (positive upwards). 
Task and procedure
The participant’s task was to perfo..., , # Temporal Relationship between Dancer’s Body Movements and Music Beats in Classical Ballet

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dncjsxm8v](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dncjsxm8v)

## Summary of experiment

The purpose of this experiment is to analyze the temporal relationship between the dancer's body movement and musical beats when a dancer dance to music. To this end, we measured the body movement of classical ballet dancers using an optical motion capture system (Vicon Nexus) and a force plate (Kistler Instruments). The participant’s task was to perform the specified ballet movements in sync with the metronome’s rhythm. The target movements were *changement*, *passé*, *jeté* (outward), and *tendu* (outward).

In order to examine the temporal relation between body movement and metronome beats, we defined several “movement reference points” (i.e., distinctive perceptual events that can be used to synchronize body movements with the metronome beats) for each movement. We analyzed the time ...