{"id":226,"date":"2013-07-29T09:38:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T14:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/?p=226"},"modified":"2013-08-17T23:21:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-18T04:21:12","slug":"dancing-mathy-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2013\/07\/29\/dancing-mathy-masters\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing Mathy Masters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Creating or finding patterns, reasoning spatially, tending to aesthetics, being precise, and creating in a universal idiom\u2014these are acts common to both math and dance. \u00a0<\/span><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n

Not everyone is exposed to mathematics via art, especially a performing art.\u00a0 As a math and dance double major, I recall feeling vindicated when one of my choreography courses required that we build models of both a dodecahedron and a cube as visual aids for spatial awareness. \u00a0As of late, both dancers and mathematicians are exploiting these connections for educational purposes. At the primary level, Malke Rosenfeld uses patterns in rhythm and symmetry ideas to\u00a0promotes choreographic inquiry into mathematical thinking on her blog Math in Your Feet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"From

From Malke Rosenfeld’s Math in your Feet blog<\/p><\/div>\n

Ms. Rosenfeld, a rhythm dancer and homeschooling mother, worked with a math specialist Jane Cooney to meld her passions for dance and math into a way of helping elementary students learn both.\u00a0\u00a0 Her video<\/a> is posted also at a new site called MATHAGOGY<\/a>\u00a0which serves as home to a bank of two minute math education videos featuring the \u201cperson behind the practice\u201d. \u00a0Some of the most experienced math\/dance educators might be Erik Stern and Karl Schaffer, two professors, who have developed several activities for upper elementary<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Here is a video<\/a>\u00a0showing clips of their ensemble. \u00a0A recent article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS<\/a>)\u00a0highlights their organization<\/a>, which has been giving dance performances inspired by or demonstrating mathematical ideas for over 20 years.<\/p>\n

\"008-20130709-synergy-web\"

The Synergy exhibit at the Simons Center, photography by Gregor Tarjan<\/p><\/div>\n

Professional mathematicians also find the intersection between movement and math worthy of serious research. \u00a0A surprising number of mathematicians enjoy Contra-dancing, the topic of a recent paper entitled “Different partners, different places” which can be found at the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts<\/a>. \u00a0Just last week, Diana Davis, a geometer who won the Physics category of the AAAS-sponsored Dance Your Phd Contest in 2012 (there is no \u201cMath\u201d category), gave a talk at the Simons Center about her\u00a0work on Veech surfaces. \u00a0Her video\u00a0can be found at this post from last year on\u00a0Math Munch<\/a>, one of my favorite blogs. \u00a0\u00a0 (If you want to enter the contest or see old video submissions<\/a>\u00a0this year you could win $1000, but the deadline is October 2013.)\u00a0 Currently, the Simons Center is hosting an exhibition Synergy: Dance, Data, Sculpture,<\/a> which features collaborations between sculptor William Duffy, choreographer William Forsythe, and dance and technology specialist Zuniga Shaw. \u00a0 \u00a0The upcoming Bridges Conference<\/a> in the Netherlands \u00a0will include a presentation by Karl Schaffer, as well as three other dance-related presentations. \u00a0Tell us about your experiences with mathematics and dance!<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creating or finding patterns, reasoning spatially, tending to aesthetics, being precise, and creating in a universal idiom\u2014these are acts common to both math and dance. \u00a0 Not everyone is exposed to mathematics via art, especially a performing art.\u00a0 As a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,4,9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-math-education","category-mathematics-and-the-arts","category-recreational-mathematics","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3tW3N-3E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}