Hotspots and trends of flamenco dance research: A CiteSpace analysis

Introduction

“Flamenco baile is a dance of passion, courtship, expressing a wide range of situations ranging from sadness to joy.” (UNESCO, 2010). It has a history of more than 200 years and it is commonly considered that it is the result of the integration of multiple cultures which have developed in Andalusia (Machin-Autenrieth, 2015; Moon, 2015; Palma et al., 2017). It was listed as Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2010 and has become the culture feature of Spain, which has been widely spread and recognized on the world stage and has attracted an increasing number of enthusiasts all over the world like United States, the United Kingdom, France (Cuellar-Moreno, 2016; De Santiago, 2018; Diamond, 2018). The impact of flamenco dance has been increasing by the international market demand (Aoyama, 2007), it has been proofed by universities’ program between different countries, and activities or festivals and cultural tourism over continents (García et al., 2019; Palma, Palma, Rodríguez, Martín, & Cascajo, 2017). It also popular in Asia, like South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, more and more practitioners are from China, and Japan has the largest number of amateurs and dancers of flamenco (Aoyama, 2007; Diamond, 2018).

Previous research studied the biomechanical aspect of flamenco dance generally related to footwork technique analysis with professional dancers as subjects described the average values of the vertical component of ground reaction force, analyzed the range of motion in lower limbs joints and pelvis (Forczek-Karkosz et al., 2021), demonstrated the smooth oscillations of the centre of mass in all three trajectory planes, which provide theoretical information to flamenco dancers and teachers (Forczek, Chicón, & Vargas-Macías, 2016). In terms of injury research, pains and injuries have been reported in professional flamenco dancers and students, and indicated knees, lumbar and cervical spine shows high incidence (Baena-Chicón et al., 2020). Already early studies such as those by Bejjani et al., 1988 suggested it may be caused by the huge vibrations accompanying the flamenco dance form. Considering physiological aspects, previous studies described the energy requirements of flamenco dancers by testing aerobic and anaerobic capacities, indicating flamenco dancers have those two both and have a substantial anaerobic power output, which is meaningful for developing training strategy (Pedersen, Wilmerding, Kuhn, & Enciñias-Sandoval, 2001). Meanwhile, the data on the average heart rate and maximal oxygen consumption of professional flamenco dancers have been described. It proved great physical workloads requirement in flamenco dance (González et al., 2011). However, there are still many limitations to applying flamenco in biomechanics or physiology, and fewer studies covered the holistic perspective of flamenco movement (Forczek et al., 2017). Some articles involved psychological analysis of flamenco participants. There is evidence that shows both students and professionals displayed higher levels of helplessness than those who were only students, and anxiety states which can be triggered by the artistic professional development on stage before spectators may relate to the levels of catastrophism (Baena-Chicón, Gómez-Lozano, Cano, & Vargas-Macías, 2021). Meanwhile, there is research that studied Brazilian female flamenco dancers and indicated 64.7% of participants were not satisfied with their bodies though they had high self-esteem (Nakamura, Juzwiak, de Almeida, & Montesano, 2012). Relating to the perspective of flamenco culture, tourists use the dance expression as a positive factor for self-esteem self-expression, and self-exploration, also, as a way to differentiate themselves from other groups (Matteucci, 2014). One empirical study focused on ethnography recorded from a martial arts club and a flamenco class, observing, recording filming and participating in the classes they found trans-situational practice, matching and combining situations and communications, can explain ethnography to some extent, for better understanding other social practices for sociological reasons, and being able to reconstruct it (Schindler, 2018). However, there is few studies have looked at review of flamenco's academic research field which could enable us to better understand the development and phenomenon of flamenco dance.

Through Citespace software, we can make a comprehensive review of the academic research status and hotspot of flamenco field and infer future research trends and what we can see more clearly than other types of review is that this software shows the hotspots and trend in visualized analysis. CiteSpace, commonly advanced by Dr Chen Chaomei, is an intellectual visualization software for analysing and visualizing co-citation networks (Chen, 2006). It was designed to behaviour the visualization electric network. The collaborate networks incorporate authors, institutions, and regions; the co-occurrence network includes terminology, keywords, and categories. The collaborate network is to manifest the community connection with author, organization, and district in a study field; the co-occurrence network is to uncover the development of study hotspots and trends (Chen et al. 2014; Chen, 2005).

Therefore, the objective of this study, with using of the CiteSpaceV software is to analyse and review the flamenco researches, which enables the development of flamenco dance research since 1982 to 2021 to be reported precisely and visually and provides reference information for the further research of flamenco dance in the future.

Materials and methods

The information was gathered from the Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection. This study strategy is used for the research without publishing time limitation: TOPIC: (flamenco) AND TOPIC: (danc* OR baile) AND LANGUAGE: (English OR Spanish) AND DOCUMENT TYPES: (Article OR Review). After the initial screening, 114 related documents were retrieved in WOS, 107 in the Scopus. After removing duplicates and screening records, there are 130 publications in total, database updated on 4 December 2021.

CiteSpaceⅤ were used to parse the literature in this research. It is an intellectual visualization software commonly advanced by Dr Chen Chaomei. It was made use for behaviour visualization electric network. The collaborate network incorporates authors, institutions, and regions; the co-occurrence network includes terminology, keywords, and categories. The collaborate network is to manifest the community connection with author, organization, district in a study field; the co-occurrence network is to uncover the development of study hotspots and trends (Chen et al. 2014). Co-citation is defined as the third article citing two references, it can be one case of co-occurrence, which can include co-occurrence words, as well as co-author, co-region. A reference may be cited for many purposes or for different reasons (Chen, 2013; White & McCain, 1998). However, the cited literature may be cited in a manner similar to the function of citing underlying concepts. Therefore, the visualized map from CiteSpace can identify the structure of patterns and trends and the dynamics of the underlying scientific literature (Braam, Moed, & Van Raan, 1991). The citation tree rings show the citation history of an article. The ring's colour indicates the corresponding citation time. The thickness of the ring is proportional to the number of references in a given period (Chen, 2013).

The 130 documentations downloaded were inputted into the CiteSpace 5.5.R2 software for bibliographic analysis with the time spacing set from 1982 to 2021 (130 records), and content analysis with the time span set 2000 to 2021 (114 records), both with the time part of a place as one piece each year. The nodes of the author, organization, region, and keyword were selected. Selection criteria were g-index, k=15.

Results

Bibliographic analysis

1 Time distribution of published papers

The relationship between the number and time of published papers can reveal the research history and development speed in this field and predict its development trend. The time distribution of published papers in the field of flamenco dance research is shown in Figure 1.

It can be seen that the research papers on flamenco dance were first published in 1982. However, before 2008, researchers did not pay enough attention in this field, there are at most 3 articles published a year. Since 2008, it shows an upward trend with fluctuations even though the most was only 16 articles in 2021. While it also saw a surge in 2015 with 15 records and in 2019 with 14 records.

2 The co-occurrence network of scientific research authors

CiteSpace is only being equipped with use of counting the quantity of the first writers, so the writer is referred to underneath all first writers. Table 1 lists the authors with further than 2 articles. Alfonso Vargas-Macías, with 5 articles. Luis Gadea-Mateos, Alba Paris-Alemany and F.J. Bejjani with 3 articles, respectively.

As shown in Figure 2, 179 researchers (N = 179) participate in the related researches of flamenco dance, and they have 242 (N = 242) research cooperation of varying degrees, showing that 24 groups with at least 3 members are formed in the field, 9 of them have more than 2 publications and show relatively stable.

It also can be seen from Figure 2, Alfonso Vargas-Macías, as a professor at the Telethusa Centre for Flamenco Research, has involved three teams and formed the largest research cooperation network in the field of flamenco dance. They focused on the aspects of biomechanics, podiatry, and injury of flamenco dance. One of the most cited articles is Metatarsal Pain and Plantar Hyperkeratosis in the Forefeet of Female Professional Flamenco Dancers (Castillo-López et al.,2014). The group of Fernando Santonja Medina did researches in the same area as well, such as Magnetic Resonance Study of Lumbar Disks in Female Dancers (Capel et al.,2009) and Comparison of two field methods for estimating body fat in different Spanish Dance disciplines (Alvero-Cruz et al., 2014). F.J. Bejjani with other members as a team also focused on the biomechanics aspects, publishing articles such as Musculoskeletal demands on flamenco dancers: a clinical and biomechanical study (Bejjani et al., 1988). Cain, K.L group studied on the physiological aspects, such as Physical activity in youth dance classes (Cain et al., 2015), as well as ME Pedersen group, which did research about energy requirement, plantar flexion and dorsiflexion strength in flamenco, such as Energy requirements of the American professional flamenco dancer (Pedersen et al., 2001) and Measures of plantar flexion and dorsiflexion strength in flamenco dancers (Pedersen et al., 1999). Alba Paris-Alemany with other researchers as a group focused on the motor image published, such as Visual-motor imagery predominance in professional Spanish dancers (Paris-Alemany et al., 2019). It can be seen that most of these groups focus on biomechanical and physical research.

3 The co-occurrence network of scientific research institutions

The authors’ institutions which have more than 3 articles are listed in Table 2. The University of Seville with 8 articles are the most prolific institution, followed by the University of Granada with 7, Saint Anthony Catholic University has 6 publications as well as International University of La Rioja. And Telethusa Centre for Flamenco Research has 5, University of Malaga and Rey Juan Carlos University published 4 articles respectively. It shows the main research institutions are universities in different regions.

According to Figure 3, there are 82 (N=82) institutions involved in flamenco dance research, and these research institutions have 91 cooperations (E = 91). In the network, the density is 0.0274, which shows the cooperation network of scientific research institutions is relatively stable. However, as table 2 shows, in the largest groups, the centrality value of Saint Anthony Catholic University is 0.14, Rey Juan Carlos University with 0.09, The University of Seville with 0.05, University of Malaga and Telethusa Centre for Flamenco Research with 0.02, the rest all as 0.00

4 The co-occurrence network of scientific research region

As Table 3, Spain, as a place where flamenco developed, ranks the top with 60 publications. The second is the USA with 15. France and England with 3, respectively. Other regions which did not list on the table made little contribution. As Figure 4 shows, there is less cooperation research between regions.

Content analysis

1 Keywords co‑occurrence analysis: thematic hotspots

As shown in Table 4 and Figure 5, “flamenco” has the largest nodes with 25 frequencies in the co-occurrence network, which is closely related to the keyword “dance”, “flamenco dance”. “Physical activity” is the 3rd on the list with 8 frequencies as well as “dancer”. Followed with “body” with 7 frequencies. Other keywords whose frequency is more than 3 and less than 6 in the field are “culture” “identity” “pain” “Andalusia” “biomechanics” and “art”.

The High-centrality keywords in the flamenco dance research. “Flamenco” (0.43) “dance” (0.42) and “dancer” (0.24) ranked the top 3 of the high-centrality keywords, while “art” (0.22) “body” (0.15) “anthropometry” (0.15) “physical activity” (0.12) are also the keywords whose centrality is more than 0.10. “injury” (0.09) “flamenco dance” (0.06) “Andalusia” (0.06) and “motor imagery” (0.05) are also high-centrality keywords but less than 0.10 and more than 0.04. Combining with Tables 4 and Figure 5, it can be seen that there are two main hotspots in the last 21 years.

1) Biomechanical and physical aspects, as related keywords are “body”, “anthropometry” “physical activity” “injury” “pain” and “biomechanics”, focusing on “dancer”, such as articles Physical Activity in Youth Dance Classes (Cain et al., 2015), Comparison of two field methods for estimating body fat in different Spanish Dance disciplines (Alvero-Cruz et al., 2014), Analysis of selection criteria in the access tests to official Dance Studies (Parent et al., 2016), Algias as a predisposing factor of injury in flamenco dance students (Baena-Chicón et al., 2020), Receptiveness of Spanish and Flamenco Professional Dancers in Their Training and Development (De las Heras-Fernández et al., 2020).

2) Cultural aspects, including related keywords “culture”, “identity” “art” and related about “flamenco dance”, especially in “Andalusia”. Such as Domains of public activity in touristic flamenco shows (Wieczorek, 2017), Identity, Migration, and the Arts: Three Case Studies of Translocal Communities (Smith et al., 2011), Artists, Tourists, and the State: Cultural Tourism and the Flamenco Industry in Andalusia, Spain (Aoyama, 2009)

2 Strongest citation burst analysis: thematic trends

As Table 5 shows the strongest citation bursts of keywords in the field of flamenco dance, it can be seen that “body” shows the strongest burst from 2015 to 2021. “Physical activity”, “motor imagery”, “emotion” and “style”, show a burst in the last three years. It indicated that the attentions of future studies on flamenco dance may pay to physical and psychological research.

Discussion

This study revealed that the hotspots and trends of flamenco dance research with a visualization analysis based on 130 articles published from 1982 to 2021 in Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection with CitespaceⅤ software, which included time distribution of published papers, Co-occurrence network of scientific research authors, institutions, regions, and keywords co-occurrence and strongest citation bursts analysis as well.

“Cultural”, “physical” and “biomechanical” researches as hotspots and trend over the world in the flamenco field

It is not difficult to predict that “cultural” study is one of the hotspots. First of all, it is a multi-cultural background art product integrated and developed in the Andalucia region in Spain with various elements (Palma et al., 2017) and it was listed as Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2010 and has become the culture feature of Spain. Secondly, even though flamenco was considered a marginal art for Spanish society and it is not until the 1980s that the form was professionalized (de la Torre, Lara, & Arjona-Fuentes, 2019), a number of scholars tried to improve the recognition of flamenco as heritage at a political level since 1990s, and it was chosen as a symbol of regional cultural development and a prominent symbol of Andalusian identity (Machin-Autenrieth, 2015). Therefore, the cultural aspects, including identity and art research related to flamenco dance, especially in Andalusia, is one of the hotspots in the last 21 years. Furthermore, Flamenco promotes tourism in Spain, as an important part of cultural tourism, it has attracted many people and creates a huge global market demand (de la Torre et al., 2019; García et al., 2019). So, to find the way to improve the experience to the tourists, bringing the emotion and also living it (García et al., 2019), some researches about “cultural” aspect was studied.

We can also notice that these researches are not only in Spain, there are also some from different regions. It is widely popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other Europe countries (Machin-Autenrieth, 2015; Palma et al., 2017). as well included regions like Mexico, Poland, Canada according to results of this research. Except for tourism, emigration could also be a reason of this popularization. Some of emigrants from Spain developed flamenco where they stayed. They devised training program, run restaurants, bars and related activities which is a medium to bonds between them (Ruiz-Morales, 2011). Activities are formed through individual groups, universities and communities related to flamenco dance, which not only expands social identity and strengthens regional identity, but also developed the flamenco culture world widely (Crespi‐Vallbona & Richards, 2007; García et al., 2019). Eva Encinias Sandoval, who built the flamenco program at the the University of New Mexico, could be a great example. She wove flamenco into the cultural fabric of New Mexico and started Festival called “Flamenco de Alburquerque” which draws audiences and dancers. Additionally, in both the United States and Canada in the first half of the century also the intangible cultural heritage such as the art of flamenco has been moved (Briseno, 2021). Flamenco dance is popular in Asia as well, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, more and more practitioners are from China, and Japan has the largest number of amateurs and dancers of flamenco (Aoyama, 2007). This phenomenon may be caused by globalization. There were universities’ program between different countries, and activities or festivals and cultural tourism over continents. On the contrary, unlike emigration or social identity, the main reason why it became popular in Japan is that it has a completely different culture from flamenco. The culture of Japan is opaque with its highly codified gestures in the observance of which propriety represses emotion to preserve a calm exterior of social harmony (Diamond, 2018). In the 21st century in Japan, although many women have achieved economic independence, they still suffer from gender discrimination. Therefore, flamenco can express strong emotions and it does not necessary a partner, which is also a reason for its popularity in Japan (Diamond, 2018).

About “physical” and “biomechanical” aspect as hotspots, there are some main reasons. Flamenco dance has its unique characteristics with strong emotion and the footwork technique (Baena-Chicón, Gómez-Lozano, Cano, & Vargas-Macías, 2021), which requires dancers strike the floor to make a loud and rhythm voice (Vargas-Macías et al., 2021). Therefore, dancers were usually required to have a high level of physical conditions (Forczek, Baena-Chicon, & Vargas-Macias, 2017), there is research indicate that the require is similar to those of elite sports (Pedersen, Wilmerding, Kuhn, & Enciñias-Sandoval, 2001). Meanwhile, some research investigated as well the injury frequency of flamenco dancers and deduced that the pain and injuries on lower limbs and back may be caused by the model of footwork movement (Castillo-López et al., 2014; Pedersen, Wilmerding, & Science, 1998). Therefore, the biochemical and physical descriptions and relevant studies have been demanded to be researched, in order to prevent the injury or pain and improving dance performance. On the other hand, thanks for the advancement of research in the entire dance field, people are pursuing technical and aesthetic improvement in a more scientific way, and they have increased their awareness of physical health and injury protection. Also, compared with the previous family-style or mentor-apprentice-style methods (de la Torre et al., 2019; Palma et al., 2017), the official organizations and institute of development are more capable of academic research. The professional researchers who have been trained by institutionalization are more aware of scientific training methods. Meanwhile, flamenco has reached schools and universities, that could be also the reason that “psychological” aspect may be one of the trends for future studies. Therefore, biomechanical and physical aspects have become the hotspots in the field, including body, anthropometry, and physical activity research focusing on dancers, and it is going to act as an increasingly significant character in the future.

Comparing with related researches with Citespace software

There is limited research currently existing on research hotspots and trends in flamenco dance, but some articles have been reported to explore hotspots and trends related to other style dance fields. For instance, the article Quantitative Analysis on Research Trends of Dance Sport at Home and Abroad (Ma & Huang, 2019) studied on the hotspots and trends of DanceSport (Latin dance and Ballroom dance) research, including 61 records (1990-2018) with CitespaceⅤ as well, which has been found that the number of articles related to DanceSport published in Web of Science database, shows a skipping trend of rising since 2007, which is similar with flamenco dance time range in this article. Furthermore, another similar result is that in co-occurrence network of scientific research authors and institutions aspects, both of DanceSport and flamenco dance research show that although the number of research groups is less, there are some groups relatively stable, and the main research institutions are universities in different regions.

By contrast, the difference between DanceSport and flamenco dance researches is that the main research regions, Spain and the USA ranked the top of flamenco research, while the UK and the USA were the main regions in DanceSport research area. It may be due to the origin and level of development of those two styles of dance. Additionally, in terms of hotspots and trends, DanceSport researchers focused on the exercise, health, and disease interventions of adolescence and the elderly, while flamenco researchers draw more attention to the biomechanical and physical aspects as well as the psychological aspects of dancers.

Comparing with related researches with other statistical methods

Some bibliometric analysis about the dance field has been documented with other statistical methods: information was downloaded into spreadsheet software (Microsoft Office Excel), and additional coding was manually performed for all analysis. For example, Publications in dance field in Arts & Humanities Citation Index: a bibliometric analysis (Ho & Ho, 2015) and A bibliometric analysis of dance performance reviews in the dance category of the Web of Science (Wang & Ho, 2019), these two with this method analysis about dance research and dance reviews respectively, based on Arts & Humanities Citation Index database of the Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science Core Collection.

According to the results in the face of the authors, they all indicated that most of the authors are single-authors. Interestedly, comparing with this study of flamenco dance research that the number of relatively stable groups was few to 9. That might mean researchers in the dance area should strengthen cooperation in the future. Furthermore, Huei-Chen Ho has also found that “body” and “education” were new popular words in article titles. Similarly, “body” is also one of the high-frequency keywords with high-centrality in flamenco dance research. Simultaneously, a common result of those two above articles about dance research and review is that “Ballets” is the main area for current dance researches and reviews, which may partially indicate that other dance style research needs to be studied in the future. Even though those above two pieces of research included more records of the data, they had limited to the bibliometric analysis including aspects of publication language, output, authors, journals, and distribution of words in the article title. Rather, this article, researching flamenco dance with CitespaceⅤ, can more clearly show the bibliographic and visual analysis evolution, hotspots, trends in Co-occurrence network and keywords with the strongest citation bursts.

Conclusion

CiteSpace software applies to fix quantify analyse added apparently, intuitionistic, and objective. Precise algorithms can analyse the hotspots, trends, knowledge base, and high-quality literature. Although the data recorded in this study are only 130 publications, hotspots and trends in the field of flamenco dance could be detected, this research could manifest the start, bursts, high-centrality and frequency reveal the evolutionary trends of hotspots. Based on the above analyse, the following conclusions can be drawn:

From the bibliographic analysis, the number of announced works in this field shows a growing trend in 2008 and reaches its peak by 2021. From the scientific research authors, Alfonso Vargas-Macías is the highest yield author in flamenco dance research, followed by Luis Gadea-Mateos, Alba Paris-Alemany and F.J. Bejjani. 9 research cooperative groups which have more than 2 publications and at least 3 authors are formed in the field of flamenco dance research, and most of these groups focus on biomechanical and physical research. In terms of scientific research institutions, The University of Seville with 8 articles is the most prolific institution and Saint Anthony Catholic University ranks the highest centrality value. Main research institutions are universities in different regions. The cooperation network of scientific research institutions is relatively stable. Spain and the United States are high yield regions.

From the content analysis, the cultural aspects, including identity and art research related to flamenco dance, especially in Andalusia, which is one of the hotspots in the last 21 years. Furthermore, biomechanical and physical aspects have become the hotspots in the field of flamenco dance, including body, anthropometry, and physical activity research in the last years focusing on the dancer, and it is going to act as an increasingly significant character in the future. Besides, as physical activity, motor imagery, emotion, and style as keywords showed a burst in the last three years, the attention of future studies on flamenco dance might change to psychological aspects as well.

Funding

This research received no external funding

Bibliography

Author notes

* Correspondence: Sebastián Gómez-Lozano, sglozano@ucam.edu

Additional information

Short title: Analysis of flamenco dance

How to cite this article: Zhang, N.Y., Gómez-Lozano, S., & Vargas-Macías, A. (2022). Hotspots and trends of flamenco dance research: A CiteSpace analysis. Cultura, Ciencia y Deporte, 17(53), 99-108. https://doi.org/10.12800/ccd.v17i53.1861

Cultura, Ciencia y Deporte
ISSN: 1696-5043
Vol. 17
Num. 53
Año. 2022

Hotspots and trends of flamenco dance research: A CiteSpace analysis

NingyiSebastiánAlfonso ZhangGómez-LozanoVargas-Macías
San Antonio Catholic UniversityTelethusa Centre for Flamenco Research,EspañaEspaña