Macarena's influence on American dance forms and similarities to the Africanist Aesthetic

Introduction

This discussion will select a dance piece that we have not covered in class. The discussion will incorporate an idea or theory that Brenda Dixon Gottschild presents in one of her lectures while on campus. The discussion will then triangulate these two things (the dance and the theory) with an Africanist aesthetic lens and continue to develop a thesis out of this triangulation.

The macarena dance shows that imitation is not as immediate as you would think and are sometimes several choreographic assisted learning sessions to achieve some coordination and, if possible, so famous grace in movement of arms and hips.'s possible that during a party some of the attendees to see the macarena dance have preferred to wander about the neural networks that enable one to follow a choreography or not. For example, one might wonder if watching the choreography from the comfort of a chair would be activated the same neurons of those who run them. This would not be a trivial question considering recent developments and debates in neuroscience about the role played by mirror neurons in social cognition in general and understanding of the actions of others, in particular. The mirror neurons came forth for the first time in individuals and outstanding about them is that "lit up" not only when an individual carried out an action (such as grasping a cup), but also when the individual observes another performing the same action. Later, other studies have suggested a similar system in humans.

Discussion & Analyses

These neurons, with the ability to reflect the observed and executed actions are in the parietal cortex and promotor cortex. Given its evident involvement in various aspects of social cognition, they are "neurons empathic" and "the force behind the great leap forward in human evolution". Before more excited, it is still necessary to understand several aspects regarding its origin and how they work. According to Cecilia Heyes, University of Oxford, the first thing you need to know is where do mirror neurons?. According to a review published this year, the mirror neuron system could be 1) an adaptation to the understanding of the action on others or 2) a product of associative learning. In the first case, mirror neurons by the natural selection because it helped the holders thereof to understand what others were doing. In the second case, mirror neurons would be a product of the same learning studied Pavlov with his famous dogs (Seligmann). According to Cecilia, both explanations are plausible, although the hypothesis of associative learning has more advantages.

For starters, the experience can have a significant effect on the activation of mirror neurons. For example, some of the differences observed between other primates and we could be that during human development receive more training and / or stimulation to perform certain actions (Lannert). Some authors suggest that if one individual received some type of training maybe your mirror neuron system would behave similar to ours. If the latter were true, ...