The problem of inducing negative emotions

My goal with this project will be to inspire feelings related to several contrasting emotions in separate pieces. This means that some of these studies will deliberately evoke emotions that will have negative valence and naturally will be unpleasant.

Considering this, though, I may want even the negative emotions to bring some sort of satisfaction, and not just be torturous to the audience. In spite of negatively-valenced intended responses, I know from seeing others' dances that this sort of art can lead to a kind of appreciation, respect, fulfillment - as if we are relieved to have such a deep buried feeling met onstage in another's body. In fact, personally, I feel that this relates most to dance for me, above the other arts. Like mirroring in therapy, seeing an emotion we recognize, maybe even particularly for negative ones, though immediately unpleasant, validates some part of our human emotional experience (probably some part that we would not normally allow to see the light of day, or even admit to ourselves). This video has a great introduction that illustrates this relief...




The catch to this whole string of thought is that this may not be the most honest reproduction of the experience of perceiving the original stimuli. Maybe I'll go to the source and ask the experimenters more about that though- it may not be a pure recreation if I make the relief described above my goal. Having sat through the IAPS myself as an undergrad participant, I know that some of the negative images truly are horrendous and sickening, with no sense of personal relief as if anything had been mirrored. In fact, they're such strong images (most likely from the extremes of the catalog) that it is unlikely that it could mirror anything an average person could relate to. I'm not sure yet how liberal I'm willing to be in re-interpreting the participant/audience experience regarding this and other factors. It'll definitely be a challenge if I choose to delve into the areas such as those referred to as "mutilation" images (with some of the strongest positive ones being fairly sexually explicit)... they'd certainly be a well-defined reaction, but I'll have to gear up to actually processing and re-presenting that with my dancers and audience.

The pleasanter dances may also prove difficult to portray meaningfully without looking silly or shallow... it will be the nuances and subtle colorings between the emotions and the blends of their effects on us that will enrich the dances to bring them beyond "well, clearly this dance is meant to be pleasant/beautiful" to "this dance makes me feel joy/love/anticipation..."