Conversations and Social Interaction as Expressive Form

Prompt:

“Two people engaged in conversation at a café, with their words materializing as floating text, sound waves becoming colorful swirling forms in the air, and their gestures leaving behind trails of movement, like an invisible dance between them.”

Social Interaction (Drama + Sound + Rhythm)

• Gestural Language: Expressing meaning through facial expressions, body posture, and micro-movements.

• Conversational Rhythm: The back-and-forth nature of dialogue resembles musical call-and-response structures.

• Improvisation: Everyday conversations involve spontaneity, much like theatrical performance.

Research Problem:

While much research exists on verbal communication, but outside of EXA there is limited exploration of conversation as an intermodal phenomenon, where gesture, tone, rhythm, and spatial awareness interact in dynamic ways.

Research Questions:

• How do gesture, vocal tone, and rhythm in conversation create an intermodal dialogue beyond spoken language?

• In what ways can expressive arts therapy engage embodied dialogue techniques to support nonverbal or emotionally complex communication?