Dancing Leaves
Photo by Tilly Blair
Over a century after the beautiful and frenetic flight of the bumblebee inspired the famed orchestral composition, it inspired one theoretical physicist to study the mathematical puzzle of insect flight. During her Radcliffe fellowship, she met a dancer, filmmaker, and choreographer who, similarly inspired by the beauty in natural movements, had been thinking about their deeper sensory context. The two convened a group of interdisciplinary scientists for two Radcliffe seminars to explore movement’s effects on the human mind, body, and soul—all for the joy of exploration.
The Radcliffe Moment
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A leaf falling in autumn. A dragonfly hovering over a pond. For millennia, humans have been captivated—and inspired—by such movements in nature.
Jane Wang was working on the physics of turbulence when she became fascinated by the mathematics behind how bumblebees and dragonflies hover and turn. By the time she arrived for her Radcliffe fellowship in 2007, she had become an expert on insect flight. There, she met another fellow, Christine Dakin, a dancer and protégé of Martha Graham who was equally taken with movement in nature. Thus began a (so far) 15-year-long exchange about movement. Why? Because, they agree, it’s beautiful.
Dakin and Wang soon led two exploratory seminars at Radcliffe, with participants bridging many disciplines—computer science, music, neuroscience, and systems biology as well as dance and physics—to explore not only the mechanics of movement but also its effects on the human mind, body, and soul. The inquiries of this “Dancing Leaf Group” now seem ahead of their time, as the field of neuroaesthetics—the scientific study of the neurological effects of the arts—gains momentum. Their conversations reinforced Dakin’s own dance practice and teaching, and Wang expanded her cross-disciplinary research: she is integrating physics and neural science to understand the evolution of insect flight and shaping inquiry around the neurophysics of locomotion. “I think we are hardwired to be fascinated about natural movement,” she says.
The People
Christine Dakin
- 2007–2008 Evelyn Green Davis Fellow, Harvard Radcliffe Institute
- Faculty member, the Ailey School and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre
- Former principal dancer and artistic director, Martha Graham Dance Company
- Guest artist, Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble
- Teaching artist, Graham for Europe
- Guest artist, Univerdanza, Universidad de Colima (Mexico)
Jane Wang
- 2007–2008 fellow, Harvard Radcliffe Institute
- Professor of physics and of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Cornell University
- Visiting scholar, Flatiron Institute, Simons Foundation
- Visiting scientist, Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Dancing Leaf Group, which convened Radcliffe exploratory seminars. Photo courtesy of Christine Dakin
In this image from a 2022 Science paper, high-speed cameras captured how upside-down dragonflies right themselves. Photo courtesy of Z. Jane Wang
Christine Dakin dancing Martha Graham's Night Journey. Photo by John Deane
Related Content
- Nature's Dance
- Dancing Leaf Group (Christine Dakin’s personal website)
- Projects of the Jane Wang Lab
- The Fleeting Nature of Performance (Harvard Gazette, May 8, 2008)