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This thesis investigates the lives, movements and performances of dancers in a Romanian urban folk ensemble from an anthropological perspective. Drawing on an extended period of fieldwork in the Romanian city of Timisoara, it gives an inside view of participation in organised cultural performances involving a local way of moving, in an area with an on-going interest in local and regional identity. It proposes that twentyfirst century regional identities in southeastern Europe and beyond, can be manifested through participation in performances of local dance, music and song and by doing so, it reveals that the experiences of dancers has the potential to uncover deeper understandings of contemporary socio-political changes. This micro-study of collective behaviour, dance knowledge acquisition and performance training of ensemble dancers in Timisoara enhances the understanding of the culture of dance and dancers within similar ensembles and dance groups in other locations. Through an investigation of the micro aspects of dancers’ lives, both on stage in the front region, and off stage in the back region, it explores connections between local dance performances, their participants, and locality and the city. It draws on multi-layer concepts of local belonging that interact with notions of continuity and visibility, local cultural norms, and performance aesthetics. This thesis follows the dancers through their ensemble lives, starting from their apprenticeship when they learn local dance moves and acquire a sense of belonging to the ensemble. It examines the role of the key choreographers as pseudo-parents within their ensemble family and the authorities that provide time-depth and stability through the maintenance of local cultural norms within ensemble life and in performance aesthetics. It examines the dancers’ involvement in local event organisation during the performance process, and concludes that the continuity of local dance, music and song is dependent on its local and translocal visibility.

Dance performance that is inclusive of dancers with differing corporealities has the potential to generate positive societal change with regard to perceptions of physical difference. Dance is a valuable site for exploring the placement of the physically disabled body in contemporary society, and for disrupting existing perceptions of disability as transgressive. This can come about through the embodied presence of both dancer and viewer, entering into a relationship grounded in intersubjectivity, without having to rely on symbolic signification. This thesis examines the placement of disabled bodies in dance performance from the intersecting perspectives of Critical Disability Studies, Performance Studies and Interpersonal Neurobiology in order to formulate a framework for theorizing perceptions of disability, the act of viewing dance and the impact of choreographic intent on viewers’ perceptions of physical difference. In the first section, the sociopolitical placing of disabled bodies in western society is interrogated and a historiological study of both disability identity and the emergence of integrated dance is critically analysed. The second section provides detailed analyses of three dance performances that are inclusive of dancers with physical disabilities: GIMP (2009), Heidi Latsky, Diagnosis of a Faun (2009) Tamar Rogoff, and water burns sun (2009) Petra Kuppers. Each represents a specific understanding of disability, creating an evolutionary framework for conceptualizing different perceptions of disabled bodies as either monstrous freak, heroic victim or corporeally diverse. The third section creates connections between new knowledge in interpersonal neurobiology and viewers' perceptions of disability that are activated through viewing dance performance, thus providing an understanding of the mechanisms of discrimination and marginalization of people who embody difference, as well as uncovering mechanisms that have the potential to be reparative. The application of neuroscientific knowledge to Performance Studies can be modulated and expanded by considering the interpersonal communicative dimension of dance performance that is inclusive of differing corporealities. A theoretical approach that encompasses the neuroscientific conceptualization of intersubjectivity in creating empathic attunement between viewer and dancer, can offer a means of understanding the innate potential of dance performance to bring about societal change.