Direct and indirect methods for measuring audience reactions to contemporary dance

Contemporary dance – an artform where the major medium is movement,deliberately and systematically cultivated for its own sake – provides acomplex, challenging but rich context for investigation of human perceptionand cognition (Hanna, 2008; McCarthy et al. 2006). In this paper, we outlinetwo different techniques that have been applied to gauge psychologicalresponses to Australian contemporary dance. The first direct and explicitquestionnaire method can be administered after a live or recordedperformance, and the second indirect, implicit method is useful in the contextof dance film. Both techniques may be used to record and analyse perceptualand psychological responses to other artforms such as music, drama, cinema,new media, and multimedia. Detailed explanatory reports of the techniquesare in the process of being published (Glass, 2006; Stevens et al. 2010)