While biomechanics has achieved successes in many fields involving locomotion, motor learning, skill acquisition, technique optimization, injury prevention, physical therapy and rehabilitation, one area has heretofore been scarcely represented in the literature -- Arts Biomechanics. Arts Biomechanics clearly has significant potential for application in the performance arts, such as music and dance, since skills needed for these activities are visibly related to the human musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Less apparently, biomechanics may also enhance the analysis and comprehension of other arts, such as painting, where gesture is often embedded in the artwork by means of symbolism, tradition, the process of art creation, or as an inherent product of the existential nature of humanity. There are many challenges facing the integration of the Sciences with the Arts and this book attempts to show that component. |