Matching Items (27)
Description
This thesis document encapsulates the findings of my research process in which I studied my self, my artistic process, and the interconnectivity among the various aspects of my life. Those findings are two-fold as they relate to the creation of three original works and my personal transformation through the process. This document encapsulates the three works, swimminginthepsyche, applecede and The 21st Century Adventures of Wonder Woman, chronologically from their performance dates. My personal growth and transformation is expressed throughout the paper and presented in the explanation of the emergent philosophical approach for self-study as creative practice that I followed. This creative-centered framework for embodied transformation weaves spiritual philosophy with my artistic process to sustain a holistic life practice, where the self, seen as an integrated whole, is also a direct reflection of the greater, singular and holistic existence.
ContributorsDeWitt, Inertia Q.E.D (Author) / Mitchell, John D. (Thesis advisor) / Dyer, Becky (Committee member) / De La Garza, Sarah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this document I detail the inception of the community service learning program, Flashback, that I created for Actor's Youth Theatre of Mesa Arizona. I first provide the organization's history and then expound upon my beliefs and how the ASU theatre for youth program, along with the needs of AYT, led me to create the program. I then describe the goals and processes of implementing the community based project. I also define service learning and why the program was designed around its principles. Finally, I describe the program's curriculum, devising process and Flashback's first trial run, and then continue, evaluating the performance and reflecting upon the process. The appendix includes the devised script, photos of the performance and interaction with the community, some of the planned curriculum and portions of my journals written during the process.
ContributorsEllsworth, Marcus (Author) / Sterling, Pamela (Thesis advisor) / Bowditch, Rachel (Committee member) / Woodson, Stephani Etheridge (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
During the design of interactive dance performances, dancers generate a strong relationship to the responsive media after they are given information about how to use the system. This case study observes a dancer's experience of improvising in a responsive audio system (RAS). A triangulated analysis and conclusion is formed from Laban Movement Analysis in conjunction with post-experience discussions relating to Optimal Flow. This study examines whether or not providing information about how an audio system responds to movement affects a dancers ability to achieve a heightened state of Embodied Flow while improvising in a RAS.
ContributorsAkerly, Julie (Author) / Dyer, Becky (Thesis advisor) / Coleman, Grisha (Committee member) / Ziegler, Christian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study intended to identify what children's perceptions and experiences are with contact improvisation and how these experiences relate to their education; their understanding of being an individual within a community; and their physical, social, and intellectual development. An interpretive phenomenological research model was used, because this study aimed to understand and interpret the children's experience with contact improvisation in order to find meaning relating to the form's possible benefits. The research was conducted over the course of ten weeks, which included classes, interviews, discussions, questionnaires, and journals. This study showed that contact improvisation empowered the children, opened the children's awareness, developed critical thinking, and created a deeper understanding and trust of the self and relationships formed within the class. The experiences found through teaching contact improvisation to these children showed that there are benefits to teaching children the form.
ContributorsCrissman, Angel (Author) / Schupp, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Dyer, Becky (Committee member) / O'Donnell, Timothy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
"Recontextualizing Music for Social Change" proposes alternative ways through which the traditional setup of a vocal recital may be transformed into a multidisciplinary performance with a specific social purpose. This task might be achieved by the conscious use and merging of elements such as innovation, ritualistic significance of music, and hopes for social change.
Rather than exclusively analyzing the nature of these three elements, this document seeks to exemplify the artistic use of these tools through the description of two doctoral recitals. These performances focus on the portrayal of two specific social issues concerning gender identity: the femme fatale, and sexual identity.
The first performance, "Defatalizing the Femme Fatale: The Voice behind a Stereotype," reflects on the negative connotations of the French femme fatale stereotype. This dangerous image has been perpetuated through popular and mass media since the nineteenth century. The femme fatale has achieved an iconic status thanks to her appealing, damaging, unrealistic, and hypersexualized traits. Nevertheless, this male-constructed stereotype was actually conceived as a parody of female emancipation. "Defatalizing the Femme Fatale" seeks to create awareness of this image through a staged approach of Shostakovich's Michelangelo Suite, feminist poetry and prose, and euphonium music.
The second performance, "Un-Labelling Love: A Scientific Study of Romantic Attachment in Four Seasons," analyses the biological nature of love. According to this perspective, "Un-Labelling Love" transforms a vocal recital into a scientific lecture. This lecture examines four developmental stages of romantic love through the performance of art songs and the inclusion of a narrator, who describes the biological and psychological changes experienced by two research subjects--the performers--during these love stages. Through a plot-twist at the end of the performance, "Un-Labelling Love" also questions the patriarchal assumption that heterosexual kinship represents, by default, the unmarked category of adult pair-bonding. In summary, and based on scientific facts, this vocal performance seeks to encourage social assimilation of non-heterosexual kinship systems.
Rather than exclusively analyzing the nature of these three elements, this document seeks to exemplify the artistic use of these tools through the description of two doctoral recitals. These performances focus on the portrayal of two specific social issues concerning gender identity: the femme fatale, and sexual identity.
The first performance, "Defatalizing the Femme Fatale: The Voice behind a Stereotype," reflects on the negative connotations of the French femme fatale stereotype. This dangerous image has been perpetuated through popular and mass media since the nineteenth century. The femme fatale has achieved an iconic status thanks to her appealing, damaging, unrealistic, and hypersexualized traits. Nevertheless, this male-constructed stereotype was actually conceived as a parody of female emancipation. "Defatalizing the Femme Fatale" seeks to create awareness of this image through a staged approach of Shostakovich's Michelangelo Suite, feminist poetry and prose, and euphonium music.
The second performance, "Un-Labelling Love: A Scientific Study of Romantic Attachment in Four Seasons," analyses the biological nature of love. According to this perspective, "Un-Labelling Love" transforms a vocal recital into a scientific lecture. This lecture examines four developmental stages of romantic love through the performance of art songs and the inclusion of a narrator, who describes the biological and psychological changes experienced by two research subjects--the performers--during these love stages. Through a plot-twist at the end of the performance, "Un-Labelling Love" also questions the patriarchal assumption that heterosexual kinship represents, by default, the unmarked category of adult pair-bonding. In summary, and based on scientific facts, this vocal performance seeks to encourage social assimilation of non-heterosexual kinship systems.
ContributorsVázquez Morillas, Mario (Author) / Norton, Kay (Thesis advisor) / Reber, William F. (Thesis advisor) / Kopta, Anne (Committee member) / Bowditch, Rachel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The intention for the dance production Story was to develop and explore a collaborative creative process to communicate a specific narrative to an audience. The production took place in the Margaret Gisolo Dance Studio at Arizona State University on November 18, 19, and 20, 2011. The purpose of my thesis work was to investigate how my personal inspiration from classical ballet, balletic movement vocabulary, fantasy narrative (an imaginative fictional story), supportive lighting, set, costumes and expressive sound might merge within a collaborative dance-making process. The final choreography includes creative input from the participating dancers and designers, as well as constructive feedback from my thesis committee. My reflection on the creative process for Story describes the challenges and personal growth I experienced as a result of the project.
ContributorsAllen, Karryn (Author) / Dyer, Becky (Thesis advisor) / Murphey, Claudia (Committee member) / Gharavi, Lance (Committee member) / Piver, Harper (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Every body holds a story. Those stories are rich with physical movements to be expressed, and through the physical expression comes self-awareness and transformation. A partnership between Arizona State University and Arcadia High School was the vehicle in which I implemented a curriculum built around somatic experiences and communal beliefs and values. The framework for this investigated curriculum teaches students' embodiment of self, tolerance and acceptance in collaboration, life skills through applied constructivist principles, and increased critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. This research involved somatic exercises enabling participants to have insight into natural moving patterns, how such patterns relate to others and outside environments. Research concluded with collective dialogue around individual and shared experiences. I worked twice per week with a choreography class with a four unit curriculum. From varying modes of assessment (e.g., one-on-one interviews, group discussions, journals, surveys, ongoing observations) students' responses to this type of curriculum ranged from excitement and curiosity to frustrating and provoking. Although these areas of research are not necessarily new to the field of dance and education, gaps in dialogue, published work, and reliable resources prove these theories and methods are still valued and necessary. This research demonstrates the imperative demand in dance education for deeper connections of self-discovery.
ContributorsYourse, Katie R (Author) / Dyer, Becky (Thesis advisor) / Vissicaro, Pegge (Committee member) / Johnson, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
My dissertation topic engages in the trajectory of Roma/Gitano culture and flamenco and its implications for Chicanx culture in New Mexico. New Mexicans have the reputation amongst US Chicanx as referring to themselves as Hispanic and aligning culturally with a Spanish sensibility. Historically in the larger US Chicanx community this type of popularity for flamenco would be described as typical of New Mexico’s wavering Chicanidad that yearns to be connected to a Spanish colonial past more than to its indigenous Mexican roots. However, I believe the reality is a bit different. What makes New Mexican Chicanx different from the larger US Chicanx community is that they utilize flamenco and its Gitano roots as a cultural example of their Chicanidad. There is scant research on how Chicanidad as a historical movement has been influenced by the flamenco culture that exists in New Mexico. This dissertation will begin a conversation that places flamenco and the precarious identity of Chicanx, Gitanos and Nuevomejicanos in dialogue through the body, the art form, and the cultural stylings of flamenco rooted in the Flamenco Festival Internacional de Albuquerque (FFI).
ContributorsAcevedo-Ontiveros, Erica (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Bowditch, Rachel (Committee member) / Hayes, Michelle H (Committee member) / Lopez, Tiffany A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Our lives are full of possibilities but also of self-imposed limitations. For some, finding their purpose in life and their place in the society is instinctive, but for many of us it requires a deliberate search. For the latter, self-discovery is a journey; an intentional path of many turns and twists, ups and downs, some surprises. It requires a person to slow down and assess oneself. What has been so far, what is right there on the surface, what is hidden deep down, and what is it that one strives for? Now, imagine narrowing down that path even more, and try to answer the question: Who am I as an artist?
ContributorsBlasko, Tanja (Author) / McMahon, Jeff (Thesis director) / Bowditch, Rachel (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The goal of this study was to look at touch and dance from different views to gain a better perspective on the benefits of touch, mainly when used in dance and also perhaps in broader contexts. Part of this investigation also looked at the stigmatized view of touch in the American culture and in turn the lack of knowledge about, and comfort with touch in our society. A personal research component involved the creation of a solo reflecting about the question of why I connect with touch so intensely. The bulk of the study involved facilitating touch experiences in two introductory level dance classes for high school students. Daily journal entries were collected from each of the eighty students that focused on their personal experiences with touch in a series of six movement sessions. The study shows that bringing touch to the dance classroom has multiple benefits, including promoting a greater understanding and acceptance of the sense of touch, a positive impact on students' views about dance, and a break down of preconceived notions about the mind and the body.
ContributorsSteinken, Brigitte Rose (Author) / Fitzgerald, Mary (Thesis director) / Amazeen, Eric (Committee member) / Dyer, Becky (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Dance (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2013-05