Year of Graduation

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MFA: Dance

Directing Professor

Jeffery Bullock

Abstract

Western perceptions of intelligence in correlation with Cartesian Mind/Body Dualism can have a detrimental impact on the way students receive and are affected by information. In collegiate settings where students participate in Western concert dance technique classrooms and dance academic courses, a student’s reputation for excelling in one area or another can influence the teacher’s perception of the student’s abilities. This can cause instructors to presume a generalized understanding of what a student is capable of and encourage an unbalanced engagement with the student’s abilities within one type of classroom versus another. This work considers the author's experience within dance classrooms and the negative repercussions of her distorted self-perception centered on a first-person experience of the mind and a third-person experience of the body. In conjunction with reflection on personal experience, this work considers feminist, progressive, critical, and somatic pedagogy to inform communication methods to, about, and around students. The work culminates in offering careful communication to navigate dialogue within the classroom, as well as the author’s personal No Manifesto serving as an emphatic, evolving document that reinforces ideas of care, clarity, and intentionality within the dance classroom.

Download

Performance Access Statement

If you wish to see the creative piece or performance that accompanied this thesis, please complete the Request Form, and you should receive a response from the Dance Department within two weeks.

Included in

Dance Commons

Share

COinS