Thesis (M.A.)(Hons)--University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Several dancers travel to different cities as their careers performing ballets for audiences nationally and internationally. However, their constant travelling does not allow the dancers to gain a sense of place or form a connection with the cities they visit. The objective of this practicum project is to address this issue by producing an ideal environment that is designed for the dancers needs. This will be achieved by analyzing the role of interior design by proposing a Short Term Residence for Travelling Dance Professionals visiting the city of Winnipeg. The design project is a new typology where dancers coming to Winnipeg have the opportunity to stay in one location that will provide housing, dance rehearsal space, and most importantly an opportunity for collaboration and creative synergy to occur. The theories I will investigate are, the Significance of Place and Community, Collaborative Social Environments, and Performance and the Body in Space.

Several dancers travel to different cities as their careers performing ballets for audiences nationally and internationally. However, their constant travelling does not allow the dancers to gain a sense of place or form a connection with the cities they visit. The objective of this practicum project is to address this issue by producing an ideal environment that is designed for the dancers needs. This will be achieved by analyzing the role of interior design by proposing a Short Term Residence for Travelling Dance Professionals visiting the city of Winnipeg. The design project is a new typology where dancers coming to Winnipeg have the opportunity to stay in one location that will provide housing, dance rehearsal space, and most importantly an opportunity for collaboration and creative synergy to occur. The theories I will investigate are, the Significance of Place and Community, Collaborative Social Environments, and Performance and the Body in Space.

Les informations sensorielles peuvent être atténuées de la périphérie jusqu'au cortex durant le mouvement. Notre hypothèse est que l'information somatosensorielle serait facilitée durant la planification du pas où il serait inopportun de supprimer ces informations cruciales. Nous avons enregistré les potentiels somatosensoriels (SEPs) évoqués par vibration bilatérale des muscles des chevilles afin de stimuler la proprioception.Les résultats montrent que la composante évoquée corticale précoce restait inchangée mais une composante tardive négative était significativement augmentée durant la planification du pas.Pour tester si cette facilitation proprioceptive était due aux contraintes d'équilibre, la même expérience fut effectuée en microgravité où cette facilitation disparut, malgré la restauration d'un cadre de référence spatial.Cette facilitation tardive survint pendant l'imagerie motrice kinesthésique d'un pas planifié, démontrant que l'imagerie mentale intègrerait les contraintes d'équilibre et posturales requises pour la tâche, ceci étant confirmé par la disparition de cette facilitation lors de la planification du pas imaginé en microgravité.Ceci démontre au niveau neurophysiologique, une modulation de la transmission des afférences sensorielles selon leur pertinence pour planifier un mouvement. Cette facilitation résulterait de mécanismes prédictifs reliés à l'importance de contrôler l'équilibre du corps avant l'initiation du pas, car ce processus survint durant la planification d'un pas exécuté ou imaginé. Il serait basé sur un modèle interne de l'action impliquant des lois physiques du mouvement (1-g modèle) car cette facilitation fut supprimée en microgravité. / Sensory inputs can be attenuated from the periphery to the cortex during voluntary movements. Our hypothesis is that the somatosensory information could be facilitated during the planning of a step. It would appear dysfunctional to suppress somatosensory information, which is considered to be of the utmost importance for gait planning. We recorded somatosensory potentials (SEPs) evoked by bilateral ankle vibration to stimulate proprioception. Results showed that cortical early evoked component remained unchanged but a negative late component was significantly increased during step planning. To determine whether this facilitation of proprioceptive inputs was related to gravitational equilibrium constraints, we performed the same experiment in microgravity. In the absence of equilibrium constraints, both components did not significantly differ between the static and stepping conditions, despite the restoration of a body in space reference frame.This late facilitation occurred during kinesthetic motor imagery of a planned step, suggesting that mental imagery would integrate postura and balance constraints required for the task, as it was confirmed byt the lack of this facilitation during the planning of an imagined step in microgravity.These observations provide neurophysiological evidence that the brain exerts a dynamic control over the transmission of the afferent signal according to their current relevance during movement preparation.These processes should be based on internal model of action involving the physical laws of motion (1g-model) as this sensory facilitation was suppressed in microgravity when planning motor imagery.

La ciné-danse est une forme artistique hybride qui entrelace étroitement les propriétés techniques et esthétiques de la danse et du cinéma. Ce n’est pas un genre nouveau: d’une certaine manière, la ciné-danse existe depuis les tout débuts du cinéma. Mais elle est théorisée pour la première fois au milieu des années 1940 par Maya Deren qui propose aussi avec A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) un film-manifeste qui s’est avéré déterminant pour la reconnaissance et le développement decette catégorie la plus transdisciplinaire du film de danse.Néanmoins, c’est seulement à partir des années 2000 etsurtout depuis le début des années 2010 que les festivals spécialisés se sont multipliés et que le genre a commencé à recevoir un éclairage théorique. Cette thèse contribue ainsi à ce tout jeune domaine de recherche que sont les screendance studies en proposant un premier panorama historique de la ciné-danse et en examinant certaines de ses spécificités formelles et dramaturgiques dont beaucoup n’avaient pas encore été analysées.Cette étude prend notamment le parti d’explorer la ciné-danse sous l’angle inaperçu de son hyper-sensorialité et des corporéités originales qu’elle façonne.J’y commence par retracer l’histoire plus large dans laquelle la ciné-danse s’inscrit, celle de la danse au cinéma en général et du film de danse en particulier. Puis,je propose d’esquisser plus spécifiquement l’histoire du genre. Je souligne ensuite la fécondité de l’hybridation artistiquequi définit la ciné-danse en analysant certaines de ses singularités formelles et dramaturgiques. J’examine notamment l’usage sui generis du gros plan dans ces films, la (re)matérialisation des corps à laquelle ils procèdent par un traitement hyper-sensoriel et synesthésique des images et des sons ainsi que les corporéitésétranges qu’ils créent et les implications critiques que celles-ci renferment. Enfin, je me concentre sur un aspect capital de la ciné-danse : les lieux qu’elle investit et les rapports complexes entre corps et espaces qu’elle interroge. Cette thèse brosse ainsi le portrait historique et esthétique d’un art hybride, d’un genre éminemment corporel et sensoriel et d’une pratique in situ. J’y mets au jour des oeuvres expérimentales qui explorent la capacité de ce croisement artistique à mettre en exergue la matérialité des corps ainsi que la sensorialité des films et de l’art chorégraphique. / Screendance is a hybrid artistic form which inextricably interweaves the technical and aesthetic properties of both dance and cinema. It is not a new genre: in a certain sense, screendance has existed since the very beginnings of cinema. It was first theorised, however, in the mid-1940s by Maya Deren, whose film-manifestoA Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) proved central to the recognition and development of this most transdisciplinary category of dance films. Nevertheless, it is only from the 2000s and even more-so from the 2010s onwards that specialisedfestivals have proliferated and that the genre has begun to receive theoretical attention. This dissertation is thus a contribution to the emerging field of screendance studies: it proposes a historical panorama of the genre and examines its formal and dramaturgical specificities, many of which have not yet been the object of in-depth analysis. This examination aims in particular to explore screendance from the previously unconsidered perspective of its hyper-sensoriality and the originalcorporealities it constructs.I begin by retracing the larger history within which screendance has grown that of dance in film and especially that of dance films. I then propose a more specific history of screendace proper. Next, I emphasise the fecundity of the artistic hybridisation which defines screendance by analysing certain of its formal and dramaturgical singularities. More specifically, I examine its sui generis usage of closeups, its (re)materialisation of bodies through a hyper-sensorial and synaesthetic treatment of images and sounds, as well as its strange corporealities and the critical implications they suggest. Finally, I focus on a crucial dimension of screendance: the places it investigates and its complex interrogations of the relationships between body and space. This dissertation paints a historical and aesthetic portrait of a hybrid art, an eminently corporeal and sensorial genre, a site-specific practice; it celebrates experimental works which explore the richness of an artistic cross-over and highlight the materiality of bodies as well as the sensoriality of dance and film.

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