abstract: The piece WAKE UP BREATHING holds personal significance as an investigation of thought-provoking issues of breathing through film installation, video and live performance. This research specifically addressed how breath training exercises enhance dance performance and improve a dancer’s control of their body, as well as how these exercises can function as material for choreographic inquiry. During the creation of the concert, the choreographer employed breath building exercises and applied different breath techniques with a cast of nine dancers. The choreographer and dancers worked collaboratively to develop creative material, enhance performance and help members of the audience understand why breathing in dance is so meaningful. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Dance 2019

DYSPHONIA is a music and dance work, for violin soloist with a live chamber orchestra, including multiple laptops and a custom-built gesture detection system worn by a dancer. The piece was choreographed by Professor Charlotte Adams of the University of Iowa Dance Department and premiered at the Faculty Graduate Dance Concerts in February of 2015. This piece is inspired by ongoing research into computer programming, gesture and music-making, artificial intelligence (AI), and creative algorithms. While the actual algorithms I developed for use in this piece are far from sentient, it is my hope that this piece may bring about discussion and further interest in creative AI. In our initial discussions, choreographer Charlotte Adams and I discovered that we both have witnessed a large number of people buying into immersive technologies without questioning the total cost to their well being, without questioning whether the technology has a positive impact on their lives, and without an understanding regarding the complex changes being wrought in our society due to the mass adoption of such technologies. Thus we designed this piece around the technology itself, so that the union between the dancer and the prosthesis is brought about by the movement and action that takes place in the piece. The intent was to create a scene where the audience suddenly becomes aware that something new is happening, namely that the dancer’s glove has started to make noise and there is a new connection made between the music and the dance.

The interdisciplinary field of Dance Studies as a separate arena focusing on the social, political, cultural, and aesthetic aspects of human movement and dance emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Dance criticism integrated Dance Studies into the academy as critics addressed the social and cultural significance of dance. In particular, Jane Desmond created an integrated approach engaging dance history and cultural studies; in the framework of her findings, dance is read as a primary social text. She emphasizes that movement style is an important mode of distinction between social groups, serving as a marker for the production of gender, racial, ethnic, and national identities. In my work, I examined the ways in which the African American identity articulates and constructs itself through dance. Norman Bryson, an art historian, suggests that approaches from art history, film and comparative literature are as well applicable to the field of dance research. Therefore, as my main critical lens and a theoretical foundation, I adopt the analytical approach developed by Erwin Panofsky, an art historian and a proponent of integrated critical approach, much like the one suggested by Bryson; specifically, his three-tiered method of analysis (iconology). I demonstrate that Erwin Panofsky's iconology, when applied as a research method, can make valuable contributions to the field of Dance Studies. This method was originally developed as a tool to analyze static art pieces; I explore to which extent this method is applicable to doing a close reading of dance by testing the method as an instrument and discovering its limitations. As primary sources, I used Katherine Dunham's original recordings of diaspora dances of the Caribbean and her modern dance choreography titled L'Ag'Ya to look for evidence for the paradigm shift from "primitive" to "diaspora" in representation of Black identity in dance also with the aim of detecting the elements that produce cultural difference in dance.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, The Divinity School, June 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This essay is an attempt to analyze, understand and reconstruct the Swedish Ballet's last work Relâche (1924) based on Richard Wagner's term Gesamtkunstwerk. Gesamtkunstverk in this case above allmeans the cross-border collaboration of artists and art forms in between, which leads according to Wagnerto a whole which is presented here as The Gesamtkunstwerk. The purpose of this essay is to take part in a work that literally no longer exist, and to try to understand itscultural-historical value. All that remains from the Swedish Ballet, is everything but the dance itself. Still we can take part of the Ballet through the artistic synthesis through innumerable collaborations shown in the sets, costumes, posters and musical compositions. I will in the analysis based on four points, try to find the tones indicating that the work is, on the basis of Wagner's definition, a Gesamtkunstwerk. The essay is also an attempt to show the innovation of this Company and to provide redress to which, according to me, is too forgotten in Swedish historiography. The thesis shows both the Swedish Ballet's historical background which includes previous works built by the same principles of collaboration presented. In this section I will also address something, according to me, important; The Swedish homophobia, mainly in the tabloids during the period in which the essay deals with, and the consequences for the company in question. Then I will analyze Relâche on the basis of the four theses, which, according to my investigation shows that the work is a Gesamtkunstwerk.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Fine Arts / Master / Master of Philosophy

This dissertation aims to investigate an extended notion of site within site-specific dance theatre. Using multiple theoretical frameworks, which include second wave feminism and its recognition of the body as a site of/for struggle (Goldberg, 1987) in conjunction with site-specific performance theory (Kaye, 2000; Kwon, 2004), Foucault's (1979) notion of 'biopower' and cultural studies, this dissertation seeks to engage site-specific dance theatre as a mode of social and cultural production. Multiculturalism (Schechner, 1988/1991) and interculturalism (Bharucha, 1996; Schechner, 1991) in performance theory and practice, are also engaged to solidify debates around performance as instances of cultural production. These frameworks are engaged in relation to the contemporary production of site-specific dance theatre in Durban, South Africa. Local dance practitioner and academic Jay Pather's site-specific/installation works CityScapes, Durban (2002) and Home, Durban (2003) are used as case-studies for interrogation and investigation in relation to the chosen theoretical discourses. CityScapes and Home provide two instances of site-specific dance theatre that have emerged from within post-apartheid South Africa. The two works are engaged in close relation to the post-apartheid South African context, and its promotion of a 'rainbow nation' in the 'New South Africa'. CityScapes provides a platform to engage ideas of access to and ownership of dance forms and the spaces which they occupy - prompting critical questioning around the impact of South Africa's historical segregations and their influence upon contemporary (South African) society/societies. Similarly, Home provides a platform to engage notions of 'homespaces' as these relate to access to and ownership of private and public spaces, and how this impacts cultural inter(re)actions in post-apartheid South Africa. Both case-studies provide instances of critical performance practice, which allows for meaningful theoretical inter(re)action in relation to the two chosen performance works. In this light, this dissertation also provides an instance of much needed academic enquiry into the local, South African contemporary dance-scape. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

All that pushes and pulls is a modern dance work that investigates the blurred relationship between individuality and conformity in Western society. The ensemble piece explores the influence of trends of individuality - social movements that emphasize individualism in an attempt to break from the conformity of mass society yet eventually become adopted into mainstream norms. Through an emphasis on personal movement styles, manipulation of uniform choreography, and explorations of group dynamics and spacing, the piece illustrates how individuals navigate these trends in a society where individual expression has become a requirement rather than a suggestion.

The primary focus of this work is the Interwar years (1919-1939), a time when dance came to the forefront of Australian consciousness, not only as an expression of worldwide modernity, but in terms of a new kind of local professionalism. Using dance as window through which to analyse Australian culture, this thesis explores notions of the dancing ‘body’ in Australia. For this research, the term dancing ‘body’ is used to indicate a kind of artistic identity that incorporates various elements of the mind, the physical being, the conscious and unconscious idea of ‘self,’ and the external perceptions and stereotypes about dancers. Importantly, perceptions and understandings about the dancing ‘body’ were not static during the Interwar period. They changed physically, emotionally, environmentally, socially, politically, and dynamically, depending on the genre of dance being analysed. This thesis identifies four main types of dance that became popular in Australia during the Interwar period—ballroom, physical culture, modern dance and classical ballet —recognising that each type presented a slightly different dancing ‘body’ to the world and was perceived accordingly. These types were differentiated by their dynamic, environment, relationships between dancers, level of professionalism, accompanying music, and societal or political purpose, yet all share an emphasis on the corporeal form, an element of performance or spectacle, and an association with femininity. / Additionally, and most importantly, each of these four dancing ‘bodies’ was primarily associated with one or more cultures other than Australian, including American, Russian, English, and German. As a result, the dancing ‘body’ in Australia remained a foreign concept, connected to a variety of overseas cultures and ‘performing’ those associations through movement. While it is true that individual Australians danced, choreographed, taught and lobbied for their art-form, the sense remained in Australia that dancing was not an inherent national activity and thus, simply could not resonate with traditional notions of national identity. It leads us to ask this very complicated question: considering the varied cultural associations of the dancing ‘body,’ was there such a thing as an Australian dancing ‘body’? Did dance ever fully articulate an Australian national experience, aesthetic or ethos? / This research shows that local insecurities about the abilities of Australian dancers and dance-makers was closely related to dancing being an imported activity, introduced through films, magazines, recorded music, and in the bodies of foreign dancers. Moreover, it was often those foreign associations of dance, associations believed to be strong enough to ‘infect’ an Australian dancer, that caused concern over the power of the dancing ‘body.’ The tensions between the four dancing ‘bodies’ of the Interwar period, and the almost mythological stereotype of the national Australian ‘body’ are explored in this research, differentiating it from other contemporary works on the history of dance. Rather than focusing only on professional tours, this research seeks to understand the dancing ‘body’ in relation to Australian notions of physicality, identity and modernity. / Using dance as a ‘window’ through which to explore aspects of Australian culture during the Interwar period, this thesis argues that societal perceptions about dance and dancers were fundamentally related to the differences between behavioural expectations of Australian men and women, and dance’s inherent association with foreign cultures. This research looks closely at these cultural associations, and analyses various attempts by Australian dancers to legitimise their artform during an era of rapid technological, political and social change.

Thesis (M.M.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 93 p. : col. ill. Includes bibliographical references.