Revising Yeats's rhetorical question, this dissertation asks: "How can we tell the dancer from the music?" In the early twentieth century Isadora Duncan and her barefoot protégées initiated a performance tradition that would later be recognized as American modern dance. They did this, to a great extent, by embodying European "absolute music." Soon, however, choreographers and dancers of this new art form faced modernist calls for medium-specific "absolute dance" that would express movement's autonomy and not the autonomous music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. As John Martin, one of the nation's first dance critics, wrote in 1933, "There is a long, sad story to be told about the use of music for dancing which was never intended to be danced to." Today that story is even longer; contra Martin, it is not sad. As the use of classical music was a primary component in the earliest forms of "free dance" and as it remains in some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful modern dance today, this use is in need of critical and historical attention. Tracing an alternative genealogy from Duncan's then-scandalous embodied empathy with sacralized art music, the central chapters of this study of the use of music in American modern dance focus on the lives, works, and reception of two choreographers: Ted Shawn and Merce Cunningham. Both of these men founded his own dance company and created works where choreomusicality, or the relationship between music and dance, remained especially vital. For Shawn, wishing to go even further than Duncan, this meant creating choreographies where dance followed the music as closely as possible. Indeed, in his "music visualizations" (a term that he coined with his wife and colleague Ruth St. Denis) his goal was to create dances that were perfect translations of the music itself. Such translation is ultimately impossible, and in attempting it, I argue, Shawn ended up revealing more of himself--specifically, his desire to perform a non-conventional masculinity that he normally felt was off-limits--than he did of the music. Reacting against this tradition--the standard history of modern dance goes--was Merce Cunningham, in whose mature choreographies music and dance are united only by their overall duration. Yet Cunningham, under the influence of Cage, created several dances to the music of Satie that provide an illuminating exception to this practice. I focus in particular on Idyllic Song (1944) and Second Hand (1970), both of which Cunningham choreographed to Satie's Socrate. Though created during his artistic maturity, Second Hand provides a link to the earliest self-expressive collaborations with John Cage. As a result, this choreography offers an unusual window into the Cage-Cunningham personal and professional relationship. In examining Shawn's and Cunningham's choreography, this dissertation tracks not only the changing role of Western art music in the relatively young art form of modern dance but also examines these choreographers' responses to contemporary attitudes toward the male dancer, unconventional masculinities, and the relatively new identity of the homosexual. In doing so I demonstrate how the choreomusicalities of these men reflected and refracted their masculinities and homosexualities. In addition to providing choreomusical analysis and interpretation, I revise current understandings of both specific scores and choreographies through intensive archival research (from silent films of Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers, which I have synchronized with their unheard music, to Cage-Cunningham manuscripts ignored or previously thought lost), observation of live and recorded rehearsals and performances, and interviews. Ultimately, "The Dancer from the Music" seeks to establish choreomusicality as an exemplary lens through which to view the meeting of music's ineffability with the realities and identities of listening and performing bodies in motion.

Thesis (M.F.A., Dance)--University of California, Irvine, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 24-25)

The problem of this study was to arrange, develop, and stage creatively a complete dance composition in four parts using the ocean as a thematic source. The five specific purposes relating the theme and the choreography were developed and expressed through the medium of modern dance. A written report including the historical and scientific background of the thematic source and the choreographic process was also submitted. A video-tape recording is also available of the completed dance composition.

This study aims to develop a Daoist movement practice. Based on qi-energy, Daoism, a Chinese ontological study of being, suggests that Dao is the formless changing of in-between being. I explore how the formless nature of Dao informs my own creative practice. I argue that formlessness signifies an uncertain, unexpected, and constantly changing boundary of the self. Improvised movement emerges from within, and as an extension, of formlessness. The improvisational mode considered here is thereby experiential, an expanded way of being, rather than compositional. This thesis presents a somatic practicing process of embodying Dao in emergent movements. Chapter 1 discusses a practice-as-research methodology, which relates the ways in which practice and theory intersect to the relationship of yin and yang from a perspective of qi-energy. In Chapter 2, I discuss the somatic experience of improvised movement arising from qi and rethink the understandings of "practice" in the encounter between movement-based practices and Daoism. In Chapter 3, I borrow Eugene T. Gendlin's theory of a felt sense and explore how the felt experiencing of qi is activated by a holistic awareness and gives rise to movement through the body based on the Daoist concept of the changing self. Then I explore four diverse states of the in-between inspired by the Daoist philosophy of "light" through improvised movement in Chapter 4. Furthermore, in Chapter 5 I develop a sequential transformation of in-between states toward Dao and discuss this process from a Daoist view of the self. A boundary of the changing states is examined in a series of emergent movements as a process of practicing the self in Chapter 6. I finally reflect upon Dao in my developed principle that focuses on an awareness of subtle emergences, and conclude formlessness, as it corresponds to Dao, is an emerging felt sense of being that is constantly changing before interpretation within the self in this movement practice. DVD abstracts: DVD chapter 1: Four states This series of edited videos offers the viewer a flavour of the four in-between states developed over the course of this research (see Chapter 4). Some of the videos are supported with poetic words. Filmmaker Lotti Gompertz's footage uncovers the subtleties of the energy and emergent movement in the four states. DVD chapter 2: Sharing a practice This video consists of documentary material recorded by a still camcorder during a five-session workshop conducted during this research. The highlights of each stage appear briefly, in sequence, presenting the sense of transformation felt throughout the workshop. Footage of the participant and myself are juxtaposed to reveal the differences and similarities of the movement and energy emerging between us that helped me understand my self and Daoism during the workshop (see Chapter 5). DVD chapter 3: Continuous transformation Drawing on footage shot by Lotti Gompertz, this video presents the highlights of each state of my emergent movement. It provides the viewer with a taste of the subtle transformation of the emergent movement and energy involved in becoming a wu-wei (see Chapter 5). DVD chapter 4: Practicing the self This video documents a session in which the focus was on an awareness of subtle changes and emergences. Documented by a still camcorder, this edited video is composed of footage of a guest participant and myself working in the session (see Chapter 6), allowing emergent movement to unfold. The gradual transformation of a felt sense of the self during the session is revealed through subtitles that capture the words we spoke while moving.

The interpretation and performance of literature is a theatre art in which literary texts are transformed into staged productions. Novelists, poets, playwrights, and essayists use the symbols of written language to create an imagined world for their readers; interpretative performers present their audiences with this world through symbols of both speech and movement. Hence the interpretation and performance of literature incorporates a wide range of literary and performance theory. Unfortunately, little is known about how literary texts can be communicated through symbolic movement. The purpose of this study, then, is to propose principles of stylized movement which would be useful to the interpretative performer of literature. To develop these principles, Martha Graham's choreographic use of classical tragedy was investigated. Using a decriptive methodology based on Aristotle's elements of tragedy, four of Graham's ballets were analyzed in view of their literary sources: Cave of the Heart from Euripides' Medea, Night Journey from Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Clytemnestra from Aeschylus' The Oresteia, and Cortege of Eagles from Euripides' Hecuba and The Trojan Woman. As a result of this investigation, five principles emerged. Stated as descriptions of Graham's work, the principles are: (1) rhetoric shapes the form, (2) movement vocabularies are created, (3) synecdochical movement is expanded over time, (4) stage properties assume multiple meanings through movement, and (5) costumes expose movement and indicate character. By using these principles as guidelines, the interpretative performer may understand, create, and utilize stylized movement that communicates the ideas, images, and actions inherent in the text being staged.

[No Abstract]

Focused awareness in action was designed by the author as a system of movement experiences intended to enhance individual health and self-developmental processes. Drawing on principles of yoga, pranayama, modern dance, movement improvisation, and meditation, with group discussion as a means of integrating the above principles, form components were organized into a methodology for a course of study. The course of study was implemented in a project class and other workshop settings. As a result of these experiences, the thesis describes the structure and implementation of focused awareness in action. Speculations are made regarding its potential contribution to health and self-development. Most significant among the conclusions reached is the role of group interaction and interconnectedness in realizing the potential of the model.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Stockholm, 2005, in "co-tutelle" with l'Université Paris VIII. / Cover title. Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-264).

Thesis (M.A. in Dance)--Shenandoah University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1971. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.