Year of Graduation
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MFA: Dance
Directing Professor
Jeffery Bullock
Abstract
This thesis aims to interrogate systematic approaches to organization(s) and our innate desire for control to achieve a balanced “rhythmic” flow of life to ultimately preserve a sense of security. This investigation challenges the comforts of habits, routine, and order to push up against the binding effects of these predictable cycles that remain structured for reassurance. This research also considers what happens when one doesn’t have the choice to bind themselves TO safety but are otherwise bound BY rhythms of which they have no control. Taking into account our anatomical existence, the ecological systems in which we operate, and life’s pursuit of belonging, this exploration and research reveals that true harmony requires dissonance, discomfort, disruption, and emergence from these passive cycles in order to thrive. The creative performance is a direct response to the researcher/author’s personal experiences with her dependency on rhythm and her desire to break free from the cycles that have led her to be complacent within the once comforting, now binding, systems she lives by.
Recommended Citation
Hailu, Tessa, "Rhythms that {Bind}: Emerging through Dissonance" (2024). Dance (MFA) Theses, Hollins University. 37.
https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/dancetheses/37
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, Modern Art and Architecture Commons, Performance Studies Commons, Psychology Commons