UCLA

This essay undertakes to illuminate the work of Randy Martin by surveying a range of theories offering hypothetical answers to the question of why dance seems to generate more energy than it demands, an experience often reported by those who engage in it. Coming from the disparate disciplines of social history, psychology, neurobiology, phenomenology, and aesthetics, these theories do not necessarily conflict with one another nor do they agree about dance's energizing capacity. Taken together, however, they lend greater insight into Martin's concept of “mobilization,” and the analysis of them answers Martin's call to evaluate dance from within the presumption of conditions of abundance rather than scarcity.