ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Dance
- Creators: Dyer, Becky
Connection, isolation, and female empowerment are not often explored nor analyzed together, yet often coexist harmoniously. Through processes of improvisation and dance making informed by feminist perspectives, the research investigated the intersections of empowerment, voice, knowledge construction and embodiment. It focused on women's ways of understanding their embodiment, the relationship between choice-making and meaning-making, processes of reflecting upon lived experiences, and exploring how experiences are expressed through the body and body attitudes. The research study explored and analyzed not only my own meaning making about connection, isolation, and female empowerment, but also the perspectives of fourteen young women between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three. Using the themes of connection, isolation, and female empowerment as fuel for creative expression and movement development, my dancers and I collaborated on making an evening length work that reflected our findings based on connection, isolation, and female empowerment and as well as embodied values.
The research documented in this thesis may be methodologically described as a case study and the data collection methods were qualitative. Due to IRB limitations, the data set draws only from biweekly journal entries from a class of eleven students, in addition to the researcher’s observation of students. Data streams from student journal entries were analyzed and interpreted using common protocols. Guiding questions for the research study included: How do students currently understand and perceive partnering? How do leader and follower roles play a part in dance partnering? What commonalities of partnering exist between different dance forms? Data gathered from the research revealed that each individual student’s understanding and definition of dance partnering changed over the course of the semester and students found increased meaning in their partnering interactions.