abstract: The intention for the dance production Story was to develop and explore a collaborative creative process to communicate a specific narrative to an audience. The production took place in the Margaret Gisolo Dance Studio at Arizona State University on November 18, 19, and 20, 2011. The purpose of my thesis work was to investigate how my personal inspiration from classical ballet, balletic movement vocabulary, fantasy narrative (an imaginative fictional story), supportive lighting, set, costumes and expressive sound might merge within a collaborative dance-making process. The final choreography includes creative input from the participating dancers and designers, as well as constructive feedback from my thesis committee. My reflection on the creative process for Story describes the challenges and personal growth I experienced as a result of the project. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.F.A. Dance 2012

abstract: My thesis, Asian American and dancing in Arizona; A reflection on the politics of choreographing migration and citizenship in a Red State is a written document that reflects on my creative process of making You don’t belong here, a site-specific, multimedia dance theater piece which I conceived, choreographed, and directed in partial fulfillment of my Master in Fine Arts in Dance degree (MFA) at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, Arizona. I write this reflection from the corporeal perspective of my Asian body. My story comes from my cells that contain the memories of my ancestors, including the recent traumas of my parents that escaped war in China. I am writing from my feminist body, my fleshly archive. I am writing from a historically marginalized perspective. I write this reflection to provide my kinesthetic narrative for those that may not know that I exist at ASU. I consider the conservative political ethos of Arizona as an impetus to discover what it means to be Asian American and dancing in the desert. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Dance 2017

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling was, for many Millennials, a defining literary and media experience. The popularity of the series has spawned many fan-made parodies. Meanwhile, in recent years, the classical Petipa story ballet style has begun to give way to more modern structures of choreography. The Marauder’s Son, the culmination of a yearlong choreographic endeavor, is a story ballet that strives to introduce new audiences to classical dance through the use of the first book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The full production is available for viewing in the Scripps College Dance Department and on YouTube.

This thesis examines how art can support and stimulate personal and social change. It addresses the natural and ever-present existence of conflict and analyzes how using the body as a tool for communication can viscerally represent themes of disagreement and resolution. The work of Israeli choreographers Yasmeen Godder and Hillel Kogan are analyzed in a case study to explore different methods of choreographing conflict. Both works successfully, yet contrastingly, demonstrate how the body adds power and emotion to an idea. Parallel to the research component of this thesis is the original choreographed work, Ecotones. The creative method behind Ecotones drew from the research and led to a unique compilation of approaches to choreographing conflict. This process and the resulting choreography highlight the potential impact of creating, dancing, and watching art about resistance, struggle, and connection.

abstract: "beautiful secrets," a movement art piece engaging the audience in the art-making, exists in the in-between, an indeterminable place, fluid like the water of Kiwanis Lake. The performers sang, danced and built an architectural environment with the help of the audience to create a transformational place betwixt here and there, day and night, death and life; an in-between land where the language is mystical and symbolic, and the water of Kiwanis Lake served as a symbol of transformation. Beneath the art was a method called Somatic Yoga Dance in which the performers trained in preparation for the performance. Below the method was a blessing in which beautiful secrets took root --- a prayer for peace. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Dance 2017

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This thesis examines the principles and policies underlying the need for transformation within the Playhouse Dance Company (PDC) in Durban and the actualities of implementing these visions and procedures. It is proposed that artistic structures, ideals and processes cannot remain impervious to the climate of change. Alterations in the political arena demand radical permutations within arts councils and their concept of repertoire, educational programmes and training. Transformation is linked to the problem of identity and it is suggested that the company is in the midst of a journey towards "becoming" rather than "being". Chapter One comprises an overview of changing trends in the arts globally and the impact on South Mrican art forms and processes. There is also an examination of the past, the establishment of arts councils and the colonial heritage of the dance companies within these councils. The formative years of the NAP AC Dance Company and the strategies formulated by former artistic directors have, it is suggested, hampered the transformation process. Chapter Two focuses on the PDC's endeavours to transform between the years 1993 and 1997. Lack of funding, conservative public tastes and training processes are. all' issues confronting management, choreographers, educators and performers in attempting to provide a clear direction towards transformation. The company walk a tightrope as they struggle to balance the heritage of their artistic past while giving birth to a new heritage for the future. Chapter Three discusses two areas that reveal measurable attempts at transformation. Hawkins offers re-inventions of the classics which encourages innovation, and Siwela Sonke was conceived to draw on dance forms located in Kwazulu-Natal in the search for a South Mrican dance aesthetic. Chapter Four investigates whether transformative visions are becoming a reality and suggests how the company could extend the process further. This chapter concludes with .. ideas about the nature of culture and how this informs,the exercise of transformation. This thesis proposes that transformation within the PDC is occurring even though it has its shortcomings. The main thrust of the research is to investigate, identifY and document factors that are contributing to current dance trends in Durban.

This mini thesis proposes that the Dance Factory in Ne'Ntown, Johannesburg, is a site of resistance. Its source and motivation are the personal, artistic and socio-poIiticaI sites ofresistance to mainstream forms of dance with nationalistic tendencies and to dominant ideological hegemonies that enforced apartheid or nationalism. Therefore, these sites or resistance are examined prior to and after the democratisation of South African culture. An analysis of the dances choreographed in this period of transition and changing hegemonies reveal shifts of resistance. These are traced within the development of the Dance Factory. Chapter one explores the notion of resistance as a form of power and the notion of site, where the operations of power evoke resistance. Three sites of resistance within South African dance culture are identified and examined. These are the Dance Factory, the artistic site of dance and the site of the dancing body. The chapter reveals the development of these sites in a changed culture and notes a re-orientation of resistance within dance, namely Afro-fusion, and the subsequent development and emergence of 'alternative' sites of resistance. These reveal new expressionistic tendencies, body politics and the feminist strategies of 'new poetics' and 'ecriture feminine'. The codified mainstream forms of dance, subject to nationalistic strategies of dassicism and its inherent Iogocentricity are challenged and destabilised by the emergence of these altemative resistant forms of dance. Chapter two examines the artistic policies of the Nationalist Govemment, the African National Congress and the Dance Factory from 1983-1997. It notes the effects of the changes in the artistic policies on sites of resistance in dance, performed at the Dance Factory. The chapter desaibes the development of the Dance Factory, its policies of diversification as a strategy of resistance, its promotion of praxis, its resistance to nationalism and the ramifications thereof. It also explores the effects of a governmentalisation of culture and the role of the organic intellectual within the Dance Factory. An analysis of the alternative dance work 'Torso-Tongue" in chapter three furthers the argument that the Dance Factory maintains and encourages the changing sites of resistance in dance. This analysis demonstrates the resistant aspects of dance as discussed in chapter one and thereby confirms the aims and missions of the Dance Factory. The thesis examines the role of the Dance Factory as it develops, nurtures and responds to the shifts in resistance and changes in culture and dance. Most importantly the thesis exposes the resistance to and the effects of an imposition of a nationalistic ideology on dance. The resultant resistance to this form of domination is explored in dance within the site of the Dance Factory, thus supporting the premise that the Dance Factory is a site of resistance.

How Belly Dance practitioners in England construct a sense of self-identity, social-identity and identity-in-practice in a border-crossing Belly Dance ethnoscape is of interest for this research project. What kinds of identities-in-practice do Belly Dancers in England construct in order to authenticate their performance? By applying social theories of education and identity formation, in particular Holland et al’s “figured worlds” (2001), it is possible to critically frame the development of a practitioner’s Belly Dance identity over a period of time. The research presents the case that Belly Dance in England has an identifiable past and present practice, one that continually wrestles with ownership of what is apparently a Middle Eastern cultural export. Drawing from a literature based case study of two pioneering artists in the early 1980s, Hilal and Buonaventura, the research describes a distinctive English Belly Dance tradition and identities. There is an explanation of how the English Belly Dance form has since competed on the global stage. The research also describes how current inheritors of that tradition −Anne White, Caroline Afifi and Siouxsie Cooper are taken as case studies− appropriate and signal Egyptian Belly Dance as the dominant reference point from which to authenticate their dancing practice; whilst at the same time subverting the Orientalist paradigm underpinning the Belly Dance trope. Identifying “narratives of authenticity” enable the current generations of English Belly Dancers to form distinctive Belly Dancing identities-in-practice. Drawing from both social theories of education and identity formation and reflexive ethnographic modes of inquiry, Walk like an Egyptian examines Belly Dance in England as a translocated dance form, and the mechanisms which allow its authenticity are analysed. In answer to the research question it is possible for an English practitioner of Belly Dance to produce an authentic Belly Dance performance through the production of various narratives of authenticity, narratives which both borrow from and resist pre-existing narratives of authenticity.

abstract: Places That Shape You documents the development and experience of composing and presenting Places That Shape You, an evening-length dance performance examining the relationship between culture and urban spaces, inspired by the physical parameters that cities provide for our lives. In the performance, a blend of postmodern contemporary movement vocabulary, text, projection, a mattress, 12 phonebooks and an overhead projector were used to a tell a story through the contrast of objects both obsolete and current. Musical collaborator, Austen Mack, created an original score that worked in partnership with the movement, advancing the unfolding of concepts about public and private spaces, community, memory, expectation and abstraction. In collaboration with six dancers, the choreographer conducted movement and archival research investigating personal stories, urban theory, somatic experience, place-making, and memories left in the spaces people inhabit, culminating in an evening length performance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Dance 2019