Dancing with Objects: A Psychological and Neurophysiological Analysis

This article uses the psychological concept of body schema and the neurophysiological notion of peripersonal space to discuss the phenomenon of dancing bodies that wear, handle, and share objects. The author shows the complex and dynamic relationship between body and object to be central to the experience of dancing with objects, which is investigated in terms of multisensory integration, most notably in relation to proprioceptive, haptic, and tactile perception. It is posited that, although stemming from different theoretical approaches, both the psychological and neurophysiological perspectives demonstrate how the body incorporates and is incorporated by the things it moves with.