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This thesis examines the philosophical and aesthetic characteristics of dance improvisation in two enormous contexts: Africanist dance forms and the diverse genres that this term encompasses, and postmodern dance practices that grew out of the work of the Judson Dance Theater in the sixties. The impetus for this study grew out of previous research in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in West Africa where I collaborated with a Burkinabe dancer to uncover how our histories influence our approach to movement-making. I soon realized that we possessed different understandings of dance improvisation, and I endeavor to unpack those differences in this study. I seek to evidence the range of understandings of dance improvisation that exist in the United States by including the voices of six Philadelphia-based artists who I have interviewed for the purpose of this research. Although I initially contacted Olivier Tarpaga, Zakiya Cornish, and Cachet Ivey for their work with African dance genres, and Esther Baker-Tarpaga, Marion Ramirez, and Molly Shanahan for their work with postmodern practices of improvisation, the amount of overlap between the two contexts soon became apparent. In exposing the diverse practices of improvisation, I hope to spark a conversation about what constitutes dance improvisation in the United States. / Dance

The first part of this thesis provides an autobiographical reflection and three contextualising histories to illustrate the increasing codification of late twentieth century UK contemporary dance into discrete cultures. These are professional contemporary dance and professional performance, dance participation and communitarian intervention, and dance as subject for study and training. The central section of the thesis examines post-millennial reports and papers by which government, executives and public sector arts organisations in both England and Scotland have sought to construct and steer dance policy toward greater collaborative connections on financial and ideological grounds. This is contrasted with a theoretical consideration of collaboration drawing on a range of academic approaches to consider the realities and ideals of creative and artistic collaboration and organisational collaboration. Finally, the thesis draws together these historical, theoretical and policy driven considerations in a series of six case studies to establish the network of connections. Two professional contemporary artists and companies, two community dance organisations and two education departments (one of each from Edinburgh, Scotland and one of each from the North West of England) are scrutinised to assess the challenges, tensions and opportunities in reconciling policy driven collaboration with artistic integrity.

The leisure mistress project is a perverse contemporary burlesque about leisure and inactivity investigated through a low-key style of dance performance, in an age where leisure pursuits are exhausting business. Julie-Anne questions her notions of dance, its place in her life and her work and challenges other ideas about what dance is. The concerns of the work include social, political, cultural and aesthetic issues. The core theme of leisure facilitates cultural investigation via performance with social critique being implicit. The process and the product are private, personal, idiosyncratic but have wider resonances and ramifications / Master of Arts (Hons) (Performance)

Inaugural-Dissertation--Berlin. / "Notenbeilage": 57 p. at end. "Literaturverzeichnis zu Kapital 1": p. 60. "Quellenverzeichnis": p. 65-67. "Bibliographie der Tanzliteratur bis 1900": p. 78-107.

Femininity and Dance at the Interface of Performance: An exploration of Femininity through Performance in Suit Up, a choreographic/performance dance thesis compiles the research behind Suit Up, a ten-minute dance for six women, which investigates the performance of femininity, and provides a deep analysis of the choreography of Suit Up. This thesis looks at all elements that went into the production of Suit Up and explores the relationship a woman has with her femininity and the performance of her femininity. This thesis focuses specifically on the gestures that the particular women in this piece associate with their femininity and what this means when femininity and dance are explored together as performance. This is by no means a comprehensive thesis about the concept of femininity, but it begins to investigate the idea that women perform femininity in different contexts. What are the various ways in which femininity can be performed, including for one’s own self? A video of Suit Up is available at Scripps Dance.

Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, 2003.