A framework for analyzing the "choreomusical" relationship between dance and music

Dance and music are foundational human behaviors that likely co-evolved as intertwined modes of social communication, artistic expression, and collective coordination. Despite their intertwined nature, dance and music are typically analyzed in isolation from one another, both in research studies and in applied settings. I present here a proposal for a general framework for conceptualizing the cross-modal relationship between dance and music. This framework is called SpREE and is based on the analysis of four key dimensions relating dance and music: Space, Rhythm, Entrainment, and Expression. Such a framework should be useful for not only understanding the rich diversity of dance and musical styles across world cultures, but for providing insight into clinical interventions such as dance therapy that are intrinsically based on the cross-modal interaction between dance and music.