Who are we?

We are a transdisciplinary team formed by cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Elisa Filevich (Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen), dance artist (Irina Demina), and both neuroscientists&dancers (Deliah Seefluth and Gayatri Nerpagar).

Brought together with the generous support of the Volkswagen Foundation,  the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, Fonds Darstellende Künste, the Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, and the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen for couple of years we have been engaged in an ongoing conversation exploring the intersection of neuroscience and dance practices - with a particular focus on motor awareness: how we consciously experience and assess our own movements, and how well we can do so.

Our transdisciplinary research constellation proved to be both stimulating and unusual, as the disciplines involved — dance and cognitive neuroscience — seem to share little in common, neither methodology nor vocabulary. Yet it soon became clear to us that there is much to exchange. Dance-artists and performers study movement every day — in studios, on stage, and in everyday life. Meanwhile, cognitive neuroscientists are investigating in the labs how our brains perceive, control, and remember movement. Each field is generating insights, yet they rarely meet in dialogue. This project is an invitation to bring them together and foster conversation on questions of mutual interest.