abstract: The purpose of my creative research was to analyze my choreographic process and answer the research question: how will implementing somatic principles impact my choreographic process? In determining the impact I analyzed the use of choreographic approaches that bring proprioceptive awareness to interdisciplinary somatic themes of bodily systems, sensing, connectivity, initiation and sequencing. These somatic themes were utilized in movement invention and exploration as well as the structuring and performance of my choreography. Additionally, the research involved clarifying my role as a choreographer and my relationship to the dancers in my work. My creative research occurred in three choreographic phases and resulted in the production of B.O.D.I.E.S performed in three consecutive sections titled Discovery, Exploration, and Identity November 5-7, 2010. B.O.D.I.E.S demonstrates how somatics will lead to greater movement possibilities and dynamic range to explore in the craft of dance making. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.F.A. Dance 2011

This Master of Arts thesis is based on research that I conducted on dancers who have the auto-immune disease of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Rheumatoid Arthritis is a long-term autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in the joints and the surrounding tissues. Dancers with arthritis feel pain the joints that can be minor or severe, depending on how they are moving their bodies. This research investigates how dancers with an arthritic body can dance without the experiencing pain in their joints. Arthritis impairs movement because it is a disease that affects the joints. In this thesis, I created movements that could enable arthritic dancers the opportunity to continue dancing. I have identified a movement vocabulary, movement methods, and strategies for arthritic dancers who want and need to move with minimal pain. Movements have been created specifically for the arthritic body. I use my own experiences and challenges as an arthritic dancer to inform this study. My experiences helped me to create movements specifically for arthritic dancers because I am an advocate for those who suffer from arthritis. / Dance

No description available.

This practice-led research employs choreographic and somatic practices, and their mediation through performance and/or technologies, to facilitate critical engagement and apprehension of notions of embodiment. The core concerns are movement, dance and the body, as sites of knowledge and as modes of inquiry, with particular focus on lived experience approached from a nondualist perspective. Central themes are action, attention, bodyscape, tensegrity, improvisation, interactivity, memory, language and gesture. Taking as a starting point the position that knowledge and mind may be embodied, and that the movement habits and stress markers which pattern bodyscape may in turn inform cognition, the choreographic practice seeks to illuminate, rather than explicate or demonstrate, aspects of embodiment. The methodological approaches are (en)active, heuristic and reflective. Dance, as a exemplar of movement, and choreography, as a mode of creative and critical engagement with dance, are the primary research tools. Somatic approaches to practice, performance and philosophy are investigated for their potential to develop or reveal embodied knowing and awareness. Technological mediation is employed to inform and augment perception and apprehension of the embodied experience of dance, from the perspectives of choreographer, performer and audience. The thesis comprises five dance-based performance works and a written text critically engaging the concepts behind and emergent from this praxis.

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

This thesis explores somatic practices as a social movement by focusing on the relationship between embodiment, somatics and contemporary dance practices. It looks specifically to Body-Mind Centering® (BMC®) and traces an ethnographic history of the practice examining it as a post-modern western somatic method forming part of an international social movement. The research is grounded on post-structuralist dance anthropology and analyses BMC® as a “socially constructed movement system” (Grau 1993). Through experimentation, the somatic movement cultivates bodily awareness and an embodied sense of self. The thesis points to the ways in which the emphasis on embodiment may form a key component in this social movement and its relation to British somatic-informed dance. While providing the conceptual and historic context for experimentation in contemporary dance in Britain since the 70s, the thesis illustrates that New, and later, Independent Dance artists drew from BMC® as well as other somatic practices. It argues that the exploration of embodiment as a human attribute and lived phenomenon from a somatic perspective gave rise to a culturally distinct discourse of practice, known today as somatic-informed dance. It works to illustrate the nature of the new pedagogical approach that emerged and, specifically, the way this aspect of contemporary dance evolved as a result of the emphasis on embodiment and the somatic influence. To do so, the thesis identifies and analyses distinct principles and pedagogic tools employed through an anthropological perspective and ethnographic, historical and practice-led research methods. Further illustrating the way the concept of embodiment is understood in somatic informed dance pedagogy, it critically examines the claim that embodiment processes may re-educate dualist perceptions. It, thereby, argues that it is only in the experience of integration in the lived moment that the problem of dualism might be challenged. Through an investigation of lineage, the thesis situates BMC® and somaticinformed contemporary dance practice within the socio-cultural, artistic, conceptual and philosophical context in which they developed. Pointing to the parallel expansion of scholarly and artistic interest in embodiment over the past five decades, it demonstrates a permeability of bodies, places, ideas and culturally constructed movement systems. Overall, the thesis is underpinned by a critical engagement with the position that embodiment and experience form the existential ground for culture and self (distilled in Csordas’ 1994a), offering an analysis of BMC® informed dance practice as another source of data shedding new light to this insight. Capturing a moment in dance history with a synchronic investigation (Sahlins 1998), this research works to further contribute towards an understanding of a diachronic property of the formation of cultures. In line with Csordas’ position, it suggests that given their distinct approach to experientially gained corporeal knowledge and awareness, the emergence of ‘culturally constructed movement systems’ such as BMC® and somatic informed contemporary dance form a potential illustration of the way culture is existentially grounded on embodiment and experience.

This paper stems from my positive kinesthetic learning experience and aims to delve deeper into the process of learning a foreign language through understanding the body-mind connection and its benefits. Divided into five chapters, this paper targets foreign language teachers and is meant to change the ways of thinking of traditional educators. It invites both educators and learners to exploit the body-mind unification, hoping to turn foreign language learning into a somatic, first-person experience rather than the more common rote method of learning from a third-person perspective.

Scientific research is just beginning to empirically prove what people who practice somatic disciplines have known for years. In this thesis, I theorize that it is possible to combine yoga and somatics with modern research into the mind and body in a manner that could facilitate healing in a holistic, beneficial manner. There is an indisputable relationship between a person's overall physical and mental health. The practice of yoga strives to facilitate both physical and mental health, in addition to inner peace and well-being. By identifying similarities between the teachings of yoga and modern kinesthetic research, it is possible to gain a better understanding of why and how yoga makes practitioners feel better.

This mixed methods investigation analyzes the effect of a novel somatics training program on dance skills. Fourteen dancers were divided into treatment and control groups. The treatment group participated in an eight-week workshop on the use of the spine utilizing sensory experiences, mini-lectures, and dance exercises. During entry and exit, all dancers learned two phrases by video containing the same motor-patterns with contrasting choreographic intents; Phrase A fluid, sustained and slow, Phrase B, dynamically enhanced. Participants performed each phrase for the camera, to be scored by a judging panel. Descriptive statistical analysis of judging data suggests the workshop positively affected their execution of skills in Phrase A, over B. Data reduction and interpretation of the participants’ interviews, questionnaires, and journals yielded several themes. This study has vast implications, suggesting combination of dance science and somatics in dance as efficacious for dancers’ experiences and execution of technical dance skills.

abstract: Every body holds a story. Those stories are rich with physical movements to be expressed, and through the physical expression comes self-awareness and transformation. A partnership between Arizona State University and Arcadia High School was the vehicle in which I implemented a curriculum built around somatic experiences and communal beliefs and values. The framework for this investigated curriculum teaches students' embodiment of self, tolerance and acceptance in collaboration, life skills through applied constructivist principles, and increased critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. This research involved somatic exercises enabling participants to have insight into natural moving patterns, how such patterns relate to others and outside environments. Research concluded with collective dialogue around individual and shared experiences. I worked twice per week with a choreography class with a four unit curriculum. From varying modes of assessment (e.g., one-on-one interviews, group discussions, journals, surveys, ongoing observations) students' responses to this type of curriculum ranged from excitement and curiosity to frustrating and provoking. Although these areas of research are not necessarily new to the field of dance and education, gaps in dialogue, published work, and reliable resources prove these theories and methods are still valued and necessary. This research demonstrates the imperative demand in dance education for deeper connections of self-discovery. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Dance 2015