Since the middle of the twentieth century, American dance artists have presented complicated images of American identity to world audiences, as dance companies traveled abroad under the auspices of the US State Department. This dissertation uses oral history interviews, archival research, and performance analysis to investigate how dancers navigated their status as official American ambassadors in the Cold War and the years following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. Dance companies worked and performed in international sites, enacting messages of American democratic superiority, while individual dancers re-interpreted the contours of American identity through personal encounters with local artists and arts practices. The dancers’ memories of government-sponsored tours re-insert the American artist into American diplomatic history, prompting a reconsideration of dancers not just as diplomatic tools working to persuade global audiences, but as creative thinkers re-imagining what it means to be American. This dissertation begins in the late 1950s, as the State Department began discussing appropriate dance companies to send to the Soviet Union, as part of the performing arts initiatives that began in 1954 under the direction of President Dwight Eisenhower. The dissertation concludes by examining more recent dance in diplomacy programs initiated in 2003, coinciding with the US invasion of Iraq. My analysis considers New York City Ballet’s 1962 tour of the Soviet Union, where the company performed programs that included George Balanchine’s Serenade (1934), Agon (1957), and Western Symphony (1954), and Jerome Robbins’ Interplay (1945) during the heightened global anxieties of the Cuban Missile Crisis. My analysis of Ailey’s 1967 tour of nine African countries focuses primarily on Revelations (1960), which closed every program on the tour. Moving into the twenty-first century, I analyze A Slipping Glimpse (2007), a collaboration between Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and Tansuree Shankar Dance Company, which began as a US State Department-sponsored 2003 residency in Kolkata. To explore each tour, I consider government goals documented in archived minutes from artist selection panels; dancers’ memories of the tours, which I collected in personal interviews conducted between 2007 and 2009; and performance analysis of the pieces that traveled on each tour. / text

BARONTINI, Lúcia Rejane de Araújo. Meditação autobiográfica sobre a arte de viver de Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: aventura, formação, sabedoria e espiritualidade. 2009. 320 f. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Universidade Federal do Ceará. Faculdade de Educação, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza-CE, 2009. / Submitted by Raul Oliveira (raulcmo@hotmail.com) on 2012-07-05T14:44:09Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2009_Tese_LRABarontini.pdf: 7141667 bytes, checksum: c67803630165f3b9e0a5e449fdcab540 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Josineide Góis(josineide@ufc.br) on 2012-07-19T13:44:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2009_Tese_LRABarontini.pdf: 7141667 bytes, checksum: c67803630165f3b9e0a5e449fdcab540 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-07-19T13:44:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2009_Tese_LRABarontini.pdf: 7141667 bytes, checksum: c67803630165f3b9e0a5e449fdcab540 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / This is an autobiographical research, which was originated in the search for my inner self at a moment of personal and professional crisis. I perform an academic adventure experiencing new ways of autobiographical construction. My experiences in the Art of Living of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – a yoga training program, experiential, of self-knowledge, of the potential and spiritualization development – constitute the core-narrative of this research. Living, narrating and reflecting about my attitude towards life are the basis on which rests this self-formation experience, in which the subject and researcher is united in a self-reflexive process. The general objective of this study was experiencing the trainer potential of the autobiographical research as self-formation and self-knowledge. I have sought to interpret and understand the senses/meanings of these experiences in the physical, energy, mental, emotional and spiritual levels, in the realm of my life and building my identity; take awareness of the changes arising in my life and of the resulting design; and yet, discover and understand the Hindu cultural universe implicit in the education/training proposal for adults in the Art of Living. Aiming to contribute in reinventing the multi-shape practices that compose the biographical method, I created an innovative methodology that called autobiographical meditation that consists of a method to access the founding experiences and/or training based on the spiritual practices of the Art of Living (asanas, pranayamas, sudarshan kryia® and meditation). After these practices, in a meditative state of calm and tranquility, the flow of thoughts is observed and transcribed to the paper without judgment or rationalization. The final narrative is structured in three central chapters. In the second chapter, I narrate an unforgettable trip to India where I lived a deep experience of inner peace, I plunged into the Hindu culture and Yoga, I experienced moments of pure spirituality and find the essence of the Self: existence, consciousness and happiness. In the following chapter I say how this spiritual adventure was started, my first contact with the stress control program through breathing and the Sudarshan Kriya® and how the changes began to take place at all levels of my physical, energetic, mental, emotional and spiritual existence. The fourth chapter is dedicated to understand the expansion of my conscience, the obstacles that have made present and the profound changes that have spread to various areas of my life: personal, social and professional. In the last chapter I discuss about how living and acting in the world according to a spiritual ethics can become a teaching purpose for the Self, by the Self and through the Self. The autobiographical meditation was a way of great self-formation potential. In addition to facilitating the writing, it leads into a dive in the history of life itself, which is seen, felt, under the light of a more pure conscience, under the light of super-consciousness; it is a way of improving meditation. Narrating and reflecting on the experiences consisted of moments to recover the ownership of my own story, the story of my life, of my design as a person and as a professional. The writing process stimulated overcoming personal limits regarding low selfesteem, negativity, difficulties of writing and self-discipline; providing a higher understanding about my formative and personal history, and the emergence of a new identity and integration of the various parties of my Self. / Esta é uma pesquisa autobiográfica, que teve origem na minha busca interior, em um momento de crise pessoal e profissional. Realizo uma aventura acadêmica ao experimentar novos caminhos de construção autobiográfica. As minhas experiências na Arte de Viver de Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, programa formativo de Yoga, experiencial, de autoconhecimento, de desenvolvimento das potencialidades e de espiritualização, constituem o núcleo narrativo da pesquisa. Viver, narrar e refletir sobre a minha atitude frente à vida constituem a base em que se assenta esta experiência autoformativa, em que sujeito e pesquisador se unificam em um processo autoreflexivo. O objetivo geral deste estudo foi vivenciar o potencial formador da pesquisa autobiográfica como processo de autoformação e de autoconhecimento. Busquei, ainda, interpretar e compreender os sentidos/significados destas experiências nos níveis físico, energético, mental, emocional e espiritual, no âmbito da minha vida pessoal e na construção da minha identidade; tomar consciência das transformações decorrentes na minha vida profissional e da consequente projetualidade; e, ainda, descobrir e compreender o universo cultural hindu implícito na proposta educativa/formativa para adultos da Arte de Viver. Querendo contribuir para reinventar as práticas multiformes que compõem o método biográfico, criei uma metodologia inovadora que denominei de meditação autobiográfica que consiste em uma metodologia de acesso às experiências fundadores e/ou formadoras com base nas práticas espirituais da Arte de Viver (asanas, pranayamas, sudarshan kryia® e meditação). Após estas práticas, em um estado meditativo, de calma e tranquilidade, o fluxo de pensamentos é observado e transcrito para o papel sem julgamentos ou racionalização. A narração final está estruturada em três capítulos centrais. No segundo capítulo narro uma viagem inesquecível à Índia em que vivi uma profunda experiência de paz interior, mergulhei na cultura hindu e no Yoga, vivi momentos de pura espiritualidade e descobri a essência do Ser: existência, consciência e felicidade. No capítulo seguinte conto como esta aventura espiritual foi iniciada, o meu primeiro contato com o programa de controle de estresse através da respiração e do Sudarshan Kriya® e de como as transformações começaram a se dar em todos os níveis da minha existência, físico, energético, mental, emocional e espiritual. O capítulo quarto é dedicado à compreensão da ampliação da minha consciência, dos obstáculos que se apresentaram e das profundas transformações que se expandiram para os diversos âmbitos da minha vida: pessoal, social e profissional. No último capítulo discorro sobre como viver e atuar no mundo segundo uma ética espiritual podem tornar-se finalidade de uma pedagogia para o Ser, pelo Ser e através do Ser. A meditação autobiográfica mostrou-se um caminho de grande potencial autoformativo. Além de facilitar a escrita, leva a um mergulho na história da própria vida, que é vista, sentida, sob a luz de uma consciência mais pura, sob a luz da superconsciência, é um caminho de aperfeiçoamento da meditação. Narrar e refletir sobre as experiências constituíram momentos de reapropriação da minha história, de mim mesma, da minha vida, da minha projetualidade como pessoa e como profissional. O processo de escrita estimulou a superação de limites pessoais relativos à baixa autoestima, negatividade, dificuldades de escrita e autodisciplina; proporcionado uma maior compreensão sobre a minha história formativa e pessoal, e o emergir de uma nova identidade e integração das diversas partes do meu ser.