In the past decade there has been a resurgence of experimental dance artists in the United States using nakedness—especially utilizing their own nude bodies—in choreography. In an effort to discover why this trend is reemerging now and how nudity is functioning in new ways in the world of twenty-first century avant-garde American dance, this thesis critically investigates five works of choreography as case studies. The first chapter introduces my main ideas, gives a brief history of nudity in avant-garde dance and outlines the format for the rest of the thesis. The second chapter investigates grotesque and carnivalesque uses of nakedness in Ann Liv Young's Cinderella. The third chapter investigates two radically different ways of relating the bare female body and environment through analyzing Anna Halprin's Returning Home: Moving With the Earth Body and Noémie Lafrance's Home: the Body as a Place. The fourth chapter focuses on how male dancers refute, transgress and move beyond the cultural taboo of male bodily exposure through studying Miguel Gutierrez's myendlesslove and Eiko Otake Yamada and Takashi Koma Yamada's Naked. Finally, the thesis closes by posing some potential political, economic, cultural and scientific reasons why nudity has been reappearing in choreography over the past ten years and highlighting a new use of nudity as a mediating tool in the five aforementioned works / A Thesis submitted to the School of Dance in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011. / Date of Defense: April 1, 2011. / Nudity, Nakedness, Dance, Miguel Gutierrez, Takashi Koma Yamada, Ann Liv Young, Anna Halprin, Noemie Lafrance / Includes bibliographical references. / Tricia H. Young, Professor Directing Thesis; Jennifer Atkins, Committee Member; Gerri Houlihan, Committee Member; Sally R. Sommer, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_168212 |
| Contributors | Gay, Patricia L. (authoraut), Young, Tricia H. (professor directing thesis), Atkins, Jennifer (committee member), Houlihan, Gerri (committee member), Sommer, Sally R. (committee member), School of Dance (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
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