Aesthetic appeal of dance actions depends on expressivity, liveness and audience characteristics

Across two pre-registered experiments, one live and one online, we investigated how audiences' aesthetic experience during a contemporary dance performance was shaped by audience members' individual traits, as well as by the characteristics of the performance. In an ecologically valid live performance setting, we replicated results from previous laboratory-based research concerning stimulus characteristics and aesthetic enjoyment. Specifically, using the motion capture system XSENS®, we found that 1) objectively measured movement kinematics (acceleration and velocity) differed significantly between expressive and non-expressive dance pieces; and 2) observers preferred expressive dance pieces over non-expressive pieces. Multivariate analyses of variance were used to evaluate the extent to which location (home, theatre), liveness (recorded, live), type of dancer (avatar, human) and intended expressivity (expressive, non-expressive) influenced audience responses to a contemporary dance performance. Liveness and type of dancer, along with the interindividual differences age, education, sex and personality, were found to reliably modulate audience members' responses. Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling showed that among different aesthetic enjoyment variables including liking, beauty, wanting and boredom, ‘interest’ was the strongest predictor of individual audience members' wish to see a dance performance again. Evidence obtained with a single dance performance can clearly not be generalized to all dance performances, but these results highlight, at the very least, the importance of assessing interindividual differences when researching aesthetic preferences for contemporary dance.