'Community' is a multivalent concept, subject to a plurality of contexts and constructs that can alter and shift its meaning. As a dance artist, I have encountered myriad understandings and manifestations of 'community' through dance practice, and perceive an intrinsic relationship between dance and 'community.' A 'West African' dance class in Philadelphia — designated as a 'community-based' class by the instructor — provides a rich opportunity to excavate this relationship. The class, one of several offered throughout the city, is located in West Philadelphia. It is an intergenerational class attended by a diverse demographic of participants (race/ethnicity, gender, profession, class, age, ability, etc.) with an array of motivations and goals for participating in class (as made evident through conversations and interviews). All are welcome to attend, regardless of previous experience or skill level in 'West African' dance. My dissertation is a qualitative research study that examines participant experiences and interpretations of 'community,' with attention paid to the socio-cultural/political context of 'West African' dance in the United States, specifically in Philadelphia. Methodologically, this study is situated in sensory ethnography, philosophically oriented in community based participatory research, and draws from phenomenological strategies towards gathering lived experience data. Lived experiences of 'community' are placed in conversation with literature concerned with theories and constructions of 'community' from a range of disciplines, as well as texts that interrogate the historical, sociocultural and political contexts which frame 'West African' dance within the United States. As a member of this particular 'West African' dance class, I situate my own experiences within that of the collective, migrating inward and outward between personal reflection and participant narratives. As such this investigation lies at the intersection of subjective, intersubjective, and cultural knowledge. / Dance

In the study, the curricula of three selected dance departments in the United States, whose stated missions embrace cultural diversity, are examined. The primary research question is: Do the curricula of selected dance departments in the United States reflect the values of cultural diversity or pluralism as explicitly expressed in their mission statement? Through random online sample of thirty-nine mission statements from non-conservatory-based dance departments that grant degrees in the field of dance was collected. Although the use of the term diversity expanded greatly throughout the late 20th century, a delimitation of this study was to focus on cultural diversity as it relates to race and ethnicity. Mission statements are part of most dance departments' rationale and communication of values. Since dance departments are a part of larger institutions, it can be assumed that their missions are consistent with the focus of those organizations. As a primary outcome of organizational and of strategic planning, these statements are designed to differentiate one college or university from others. They are an articulation of the specific vision and long-term goals of a college or university, or more specifically in the case of this study, a dance department. Because one cannot assume a college or university's interest or commitment to cultural diversity, this study identified departments with a stated interest in cultural diversity from which to assess how such interest and commitment translates to curriculum; no direct conclusions about the home institution's implicit approach to cultural diversity was made. Future dance educators, dance artists, community artists, and arts administrators, as well as dance historians and scholars, are educated in the dance departments of colleges and universities throughout the United States. Thus, these departments have a large impact on the way dance is experienced throughout our society. Through an analysis of primary data, I examined the ways in which selected dance departments fulfill, or do not fulfill, their stated missions of cultural diversity. The methodology included a document analysis of the following primary source documents: mission statements, audition requirements, sequential department curriculum, required course readings, and demographics of faculty and students. Additionally, all teaching faculty and senior undergraduates from the selected dance departments were given a questionnaire to complete. The educational and performance background of faculty members, along with their areas of expertise, was the focus of the faculty questionnaire. In an effort to understand if student goals are aligned with the mission of the department, the student questionnaire included questions that asked seniors what type of positions they were interested in pursuing after graduation, and whether or not they felt they were prepared to enter the workforce given their course of study. The questions of how student goals are connected to working in culturally diverse communities of the 21st century, and if so, how the curriculum was designed to met the goals of students, were also explored. Finally, a field observation was included to provide context for each of theses institutions. This examination of three selected dance departments in terms of culturally diverse curricular offerings provides dance educators in higher education with examples of how selected dance departments carry out their stated missions. In this study dance departments that have developed strategies and mechanisms to implement their stated missions of cultural diversity throughout their curriculum are highlighted. Additionally, I encourage departments that have not been able to transmit their commitment to cultural diversity to department curriculum to do so, offering them tangible strategies which they can implement. / Dance

<p> As a result of Francisco Franco overthrowing the young republican government during the Spanish Civil War (1936&ndash;39), countless citizens fled their home country in search of personal security and economic prosperity. Significantly, many of these expatriates were artists and musicians who eventually made their way to the United States, where they achieved celebrity status as dancers, singers, instrumentalists, and composers. This dissertation examines the lives and works of two such composers. </p><p> In the 1950s, Carlos Surinach (1915&ndash;97) and Leonardo Balada (b. 1933) came to the United States by way of New York City. Although both men were from Barcelona, their music and careers followed different trajectories. Surinach is often best remembered for his collaborations with choreographers of modern dance, such as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Pearl Lang, and Alvin Ailey; however, his contributions to dance constitute only a portion of his creative output and were often adapted from his concert works, as choreographers found the rhythm and drama of his music appealing. Surinach&rsquo;s style often exhibits a deliberate use of flamenco idioms and is examined in three of his most important flamenco-inspired works: <i>Ritmo Jondo</i> (1952), <i>Sinfonietta Flamenca</i> (1954), and <i>Flamenco Cyclothymia</i> (1966). This dissertation also presents new biographical details regarding Surinach&rsquo;s education and conducting career in Europe, the impact of his lover Ram&oacute;n Puigcerve Bel on his career, and his work in the film and television industries. </p><p> Whereas Surinach maintained a consistent style throughout his career, Balada recognized the advantages of experimenting with new techniques, which he has done with great success. This dissertation examines three of Balada&rsquo;s works from his self-described second period, which began in the mid-1960s. For ten years, Balada moved away from tonality in order to explore new timbres, textures, rhythms, and avant-garde techniques that led to three of his most important works: <i>Sinfon&iacute;a en negro: Homenaje a Martin Luther King</i> (1968), <i>Mar&iacute;a Sabina</i> (1969), and <i> Steel Symphony </i>(1972). All three pieces have been recorded and widely performed, and they mark the beginning of a decades-long career as both professor and composer.</p>

The purpose of this study was to explore the cascading mechanism of choking under pressure in dance, validate an integrated-perceptual model of choking, and examine the effectiveness of a 7-week combined self-talk and progressive muscle relaxation (ST-PMR) training program in alleviating the effects of self-consciousness in choking under pressure in dance. The proposed model aimed to determine the performance decline-choking incidence by evaluating the appraisal processes that contribute to the domino effect of choking under pressure prior to, during, and after a performance error occurs. The model additionally included self-presentational concerns on anxiety and performance decline. The study examined 23 dancers using a mixed method approach which consisted of a randomized pretest-posttest control group experiment and semi-structured interviews. Overall, the ST-PMR training program was effective in increasing self-confidence, self-efficacy, and overall performance rating in comparison to dancers in the control condition. In addition, the ST-PMR training decreased somatic and cognitive anxieties significantly for dancers in that condition in comparison to dancers in the control condition. However, the results failed to show a decrease in self-consciousness as expected. The integrated-perceptual model was also partially substantiated; pre-intervention data suggested that the dancers’ initial appraisals of their performance led to increased cognitive anxiety and emotional arousal which preceded initial error occurrence. The dancers’ ability to utilize coping skills contributed to the likelihood that they experienced subsequent errors, which is consistent with the integrated conceptual model of choking under pressure. However, the post-intervention data failed to support the study’s hypotheses as all dancers in the ST-PMR and control conditions did not experience the cascade effect. Additional implications for this study and future research are discussed in detail. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / May 3, 2018. / choking under pressure, dance, progressive muscle relaxation, self-talk / Includes bibliographical references. / Gershon Tenenbaum, Professor Directing Dissertation; Susan K. Blessing, University Representative; Graig M. Chow, Committee Member; Thomas Welsh, Committee Member.

This thesis enquires how a rethinking of sight as the primary sense for experiencing dance performance can instigate new choreographies that embody the interplay between seen and unseen, described and not described, inside and outside, subject and object. By ‘unseen’ I mean invisible to the eye but potentially available to other senses or imaginative capacities. Choreography is a methodological and critical lens through which to explore relationships between description, translation and sensory perception in a range of performance engagements that invite multi-sensory attention. The research is launched with implications arising from a consideration of audiodescription: the supposed neutrality of the speaker, the potential for cultural mismatches or power tensions in translation and the challenge of making spoken language more fully represent the body in performance. The thesis argues that rethinking ideas of description, from the beginning of a devising process, can lead to the production of choreographic work that does not privilege vision. The research for this thesis has involved choreographic practice combined with writing. In this writing, the on-going narrative of my choreographic studio work has been deliberately interwoven with analysis and contextualisation of this practice. The different elements enacted in the studio and at the writing desk have continually interacted, back and forth, identifying in the process, appropriate objectives for successive phases. For example, the reflections stimulated at each phase of concurrent theoretical research and studio work have deepened my choreographic enquiries, while also identifying other points requiring further exploration. This exploration has been carried out during further practical choreographic experiments in the studio, triggering still further theoretical analysis, and so on. In this way, the dancer writing becomes, and interacts with, the writer dancing. Sensory and kinaesthetic knowledge can build a more integrated and immersive sensual experience of dance as something to be not just observed but also engaged in. The intention is that insights from the research will inform strategies for original choreography expressed in performance.

The purpose of this study was to explore the cascading mechanism of choking under pressure in dance, validate an integrated-perceptual model of choking, and examine the effectiveness of a 7-week combined self-talk and progressive muscle relaxation (ST-PMR) training program in alleviating the effects of self-consciousness in choking under pressure in dance. The proposed model aimed to determine the performance decline-choking incidence by evaluating the appraisal processes that contribute to the domino effect of choking under pressure prior to, during, and after a performance error occurs. The model additionally included self-presentational concerns on anxiety and performance decline. The study examined 23 dancers using a mixed method approach which consisted of a randomized pretest-posttest control group experiment and semi-structured interviews. Overall, the ST-PMR training program was effective in increasing self-confidence, self-efficacy, and overall performance rating in comparison to dancers in the control condition. In addition, the ST-PMR training decreased somatic and cognitive anxieties significantly for dancers in that condition in comparison to dancers in the control condition. However, the results failed to show a decrease in self-consciousness as expected. The integrated-perceptual model was also partially substantiated; pre-intervention data suggested that the dancers’ initial appraisals of their performance led to increased cognitive anxiety and emotional arousal which preceded initial error occurrence. The dancers’ ability to utilize coping skills contributed to the likelihood that they experienced subsequent errors, which is consistent with the integrated conceptual model of choking under pressure. However, the post-intervention data failed to support the study’s hypotheses as all dancers in the ST-PMR and control conditions did not experience the cascade effect. Additional implications for this study and future research are discussed in detail. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / May 3, 2018. / choking under pressure, dance, progressive muscle relaxation, self-talk / Includes bibliographical references. / Gershon Tenenbaum, Professor Directing Dissertation; Susan K. Blessing, University Representative; Graig M. Chow, Committee Member; Thomas Welsh, Committee Member.

This dissertation studies the complex relationship between Italian Renaissance art and dance. Interdisciplinary scholarship has hitherto focused on Renaissance dance treatises, which often exhibit parallels with contemporary writings on painting and sculpture. My research goes beyond the textual parallels to focus instead on the mechanisms of figuration in the visual arts, and on the corporeal sensibility of the Renaissance image. I examine the ways in which figural patterns, interactions, and gestures can be understood in terms of choreography. At issue is the nature of figural composition and of the figure itself, the characteristics of the dancing body and the role of that body within the corporeal imagination of the artist. The fundamental thesis is that the Renaissance artist can be considered a choreographer in his own right. Chapter One (From Solo to Chorus) provides a framework for thinking about the artist as choreographer by discussing at length Leon Battista Alberti's On Painting (1435/36). First, I show that Alberti's definition of figural composition is essentially choreographic, in that it concerns the formal organization of bodies that move with expressive purpose. Secondly, I analyze Alberti's emphasis upon the Calumny of Apelles and the Three Graces, themes from Antiquity that express an aesthetic held in tension between the poles of fury and grace. These poles ultimately take us one step beyond the alignment of composition and choreography: Alberti also breaches the strict limits imposed on the body by court dance practice. In doing so, he paves the way for artists who expand the world of dance pictorially. These two aspects of Alberti's book--the choreographic nature of figural composition and the role of dance in the figural imagination--establish the range of issues discussed in the next four chapters, which treat paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings made between circa 1430 and 1520. Organized to progress from duo to chorus, they treat both explicit and implicit depictions of dance as well as bodies ranging from the graceful to the frenzied. Chapter Two (Duo) explores Annunciations by Donatello and Botticelli as dancing duos that pivot on the opposition between entry and reception, flourish and calm, male and female. The dance is just about to begin--impending duet signals imminent union. Focusing on Botticelli's depiction of the Three Graces in the Primavera, Chapter Three (Trio) considers representations of actual dancing, moments when artists such as Botticelli, Mantegna, and Leonardo da Vinci become choreographers in the most explicit sense of the term. Chapter Four (Chorus I) looks at Antonio Pollaiuolo's Dancing Nudes, a fresco that demonstrates the ability of the artistic imagination to choreograph dances far beyond the limits of reality. Chapter Five (Chorus II) extends the dissertation's reach into the sixteenth century with a discussion of Raphael's design for the Massacre of the Innocents engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi. Its graceful figures and their careful composition lead to an inevitable engagement with dance; the violence of the subject is transcended by a choreographic aesthetic. Raphael's art confirms this dissertation's argument for the artist as choreographer, a thesis that has the potential to broaden understanding of what lies at the very core of Renaissance art itself: the composition of human bodies in motion.

In the past two decades, there has been a ubiquitous turn to affect theory in discourses within the humanities and social sciences. Whilst it is the overarching intention of affect theory to bring the body back into focus in critical and cultural debate, this thesis identifies a paradoxical lack of theorisation regarding kinaesthetic experience in ‘the affective turn’ (Clough, 2007). Specifically, I identify a kinaesthetic gap in affect studies literatures, whose genealogy can be traced to a process philosophy lineage, thereby theorising affect as nonconscious, autonomic, and non-phenomenological (Clough, 2007; 2010a; 2010b; Gregg and Siegworth, 2010; Grosz, 2008; Hansen, 2006; Manning, 2009a; 2013; 2014; 2016; Massumi, 1995; 2002; 2011; 2015; Thrift, 2004a; 2008). I contend that this non-phenomenological movement has had significant consequences for practice-led researchers, such that, embodied articulation of affective experiences remains outside the frame of critical affect studies. In response, I coin the original term affective-kinaesthetic, to close the gap between affect and kinaesthesia, arguing that, the experience of affect is kinaesthetic in nature. These critiques are informed by my affective-kinaesthetic experience of conservatoire dance training, spinal injury, and my ongoing somatic performance practice. Thus, my research imperative is defined as affect-led, and my research approach is defined as somatic. By putting somatic practice, specifically, Body-Mind Centering (BMC), in conversation with affect studies, I develop a somatic approach to analysing and articulating affect, coined, a somatics of affect. Through the creation of two bodies of research-led performance works titled Prone (2011-2012) and Ballast (2014-2015), and attendant processes of what I term, somatic writing, I contribute a kinaesthetic epistemology of affective experiences to the field of affect studies. I conclude that somatic, and specifically practice-led voices are critical to the development of affect studies, despite being inaudible amongst more dominant affect theorists and philosophers; in short, that somatic voices are the critical, kinaesthetic future of affect theory.

This research will examine the various techniques of writing stage directions for choreography or dance action within a feature film script. I will discuss and analyse two methodologies for annotating choreography, both developed by experts in dance notation. I will also examine and interpret the observations made by film director, dancer and choreographer Bob Fosse about the purpose and objectives of dance action in feature film scripts. I will examine two case studies of contemporary feature film scripts that contain dance action. The selected scripts are Strictly Ballroom (Australia, 1992) and Flashdance (USA, 1983). These scripts do not use a published system of dance notation to write dance action. I will analyse and investigate the stage directions for choreography and dance action used within both scripts. The exploration of these various approaches to film choreography may form the basis for writing stage directions for choreography or dance action in my own feature length screenplay titled Learning to Dance. As a screenwriter with particular interest in dance I intend to employ dance sequences at different stages throughout my script as a story telling mechanism. It is important to me to be able to clearly communicate and translate choreographic direction into my script in a manner that ensures its eventual interpretation fulfils its original purpose in the story. Therefore I am seeking a methodology for translating and expressing dance sequences in an accurate and concise written form. One key outcome of my research may be the development of a structural and technical framework for providing choreographic direction appropriate to the conventions of screenplay writing. I therefore intend to contribute to the screenwriting field by attempting to develop a framework for providing stage directions for choreography within a film script and then applying this framework within my own screenplay, Learning to Dance. In addition to the study of choreographic notation I will explore the observations made by film theorists such as Adrian Martin, Jerome Delamater, Rick Altman, J.P Telotte and Steve Neal about genres that contain dance action as a defining characteristic. It is my intention to write a screenplay that in part, borrows from the customs and codes of an established genre or subgenre. Therefore my objective is to understand, appreciate and reflect upon the genre the best fits my vision of Learning to Dance. Learning to Dance is the story of Giselle Williams (18) who aspires to be a professional dancer. When Giselle's father is arrested for fraud Giselle is forced to abandon her wealthy surrounds to live and work in one of Melbourne's tough, inner city, high-rise public housing estates. Here Giselle meets her key support roles, Muslim siblings Yasmina (21) a talented belly dancer and her handsome brother and Giselle's future love interest Ali (20) who welcome Giselle into their humble, tight knit and family oriented community.

The goal of the paper is to develop a framework in which to ground the analysis of the aesthetics of Western concert dance, particularly contemporary concert dance, in order to help dancers, choreographers, critics, and the general dance audience understand and discuss dance from the perspective of a common intellectual ground. Examined are the relationship between epochs in concert dance and the corresponding aesthetic theories and the elements that differentiate and unify contemporary concert dance from other Western concert dance, including the unique spatiotemporal nature of dance and the simultaneous presentation of universal human-ness and individual truth via the kinesthetic empathy of viewer and dancer. A brief explanation of phenomenology and of its parallels to the consciousness required of dancer, choreographer and viewer supports a phenomenological approach to a theory of Western contemporary concert dance as most relevant at this time.