Year of Graduation
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MFA: Dance
Directing Professor
Jeffery Bullock
Abstract
This thesis presents a body-based, lineage-informed approach to movement development into dance, honoring both scientific and spiritual knowledge systems. It engages in a blend of qualitative, embodied, and autoethnographic methods—including dance studies, developmental science, phenomenology, and cultural analysis—to examine how movement emerges, evolves, and carries meaning. Grounded in my lived experience as a dancer, mother, and Black woman, this research frames the body as both a site and source of knowledge. I use my own body as an instrument of movement, memory, and identity, positioning my embodiment as a form of inquiry. The thesis is organized in two parts: a literature review that traces biological, cultural, and philosophical frameworks for movement; and a personal reflection that considers how inherited and lived experiences, along with codified dance training, shape my understanding of dance.
Recommended Citation
Parker, Shadidja, "Echoes Before Language: A Written Thesis on Movement, Origin, and Becoming" (2025). Dance (MFA) Theses, Hollins University. 47.
https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/dancetheses/47
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, Hip Hop Studies Commons, Women's Studies Commons