2020

Burger, Birgitta; Toiviainen, Petri

Electronic dance music (EDM) is music produced with the foremost aim to make people move. While research has revealed relationships between movement features and, for example, musical, emotional, or personality characteristics, systematic investigations of genre differences and specifically of EDM are rather rare. This article aims at offering insights into the embodiment of EDM from three different angles: first from a genre-comparison perspective, then by comparing different EDM stimuli with each other, and finally by investigating embodiments in one specific EDM stimulus. Sixty participants moved freely to 16 stimuli of four different genres (EDM, Latin, Funk, Jazz – four stimuli/genre) while being recorded with an optical motion capture system. Subsequently, a set of movement features was extracted from the motion capture data. Results indicate that participants moved with significantly higher acceleration of torso, head, hands, and feet and more overall movement to the EDM stimuli than to the other genres. Between EDM stimuli, several significant correlations were found, suggesting an increase in acceleration of different body parts with clearer and more percussive rhythmic structures and brighter sounds. Within one EDM stimulus, participants’ movements differed in several movement features distinguishing the break from surrounding sections, showing less acceleration, as well as less overall movement and rotational speed during the break. These analyses propose different ways of studying EDM and indicate distinctive characteristics of EDM embodiment.