Dance Commons^™

The Space Between Writing And Dancing: Dancingwords/Wordsthatdance, Lara Dorling

Theses : Honours

This practice-led research investigates the figurative space between writing and dancing through a looped feedback cycle. The project explores the ‘conversation’ between writing and improvisational dance and how it forms a responsive process named dancingwords/wordsthatdance. Conducted in sessions lasting 30 minutes at a time, this project asks: how can writing and dancing intersect to create a broader and clearer understanding of embodied knowledge, improvisation, creative research process and personal practice? This research project involved solo studio investigation and an hour-long interview with dancer, writer, researcher, and choreographer Dr Jo Pollitt, who is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the ECU School …

Mindfulness, Recovery-Stress Balance, And Well-Being Among University Dance Students, Peta Blevins, Gene Moyle, Shona Erskine, Luke Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Dance students face many physical and psychological stressors in their training and daily lives, therefore methods for coping with stress are essential for performance enhancement and general wellbeing. This study aimed to investigate the relationships between mindfulness, stress, recovery, and wellbeing among university level vocational dance students. Seventy-two dance students at two Australian universities completed online self-report measures of mindfulness, recovery-stress states, and affect. Correlation coefficients indicated a significant positive relationship between mindfulness and positive affect, and significant negative relationships between mindfulness and stress, and mindfulness and negative affect. MANOVA revealed differences between high mindfulness and low mindfulness groups on …

The Dancing Between Two Worlds Project: Background, Methodology And Learning To Approach Community In Place, Anindita Banerjee, Shaun Mcleod, Gretel Taylor, Patrick L. West

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This article recounts the history to date of the Dancing Between Two Worlds (DBTW) project, which was initiated by a team of artist-scholars at Deakin University in 2018. DBTW’s brief was to engage the Indian community living in the western fringes of Melbourne in a project on civic belonging, cross-cultural artistic identity, and the performance of outer-suburban Indian diaspora. Working with the creative and community energies that are activated at the intersection of the creative arts and demographically inflected place, the Deakin researchers collaborated with local artists with an Indian background on a major performance in late 2019: …

Isolated Joint Block Progression Training Improves Leaping Performance In Dancers, Paige E. Rice, Kiisa Nishikawa, Sophia Nimphius

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a 12-week ankle-specific block progression training program on saut de chat leaping performance [leap height, peak power (PP), joint kinetics and kinematics], maximal voluntary isometric plantar flexion (MVIP) strength, and Achilles tendon (AT) stiffness. Dancers (training group n = 7, control group n = 7) performed MVIP at plantarflexed (10◦) and neutral ankle positions (0◦) followed by ramping isometric contractions equipped with ultrasound to assess strength and AT stiffness, respectively. Dancers also performed saut de chat leaps surrounded by 3-D motion capture atop force platforms to determine center of …

Weather Bodies: Experimenting With Dance Improvisation In Environmental Education In The Early Years, Jo Pollitt, Mindy Blaise, Tonya Rooney

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper reports on insights gained from incorporating dance improvisation into a broader early years environmental education ethnographic research project. Findings are reported from a two-day workshop where a dancer was invited to work with young children to attune to the weather through their bodies. In these workshops, the practice of dance improvisation was used as a deliberate interference to disrupt the disconnected and disembodied ways in which weather is often taught to young children. The paper argues that when children attune with weather through the embodied and relational practice of dance improvisation, this challenges the common practice of learning …

Student And Teacher Attitudes Towards Overtraining And Recovery In Vocational Dance Training, Peta Blevins, Shona Erskine, Gene Moyle, Luke Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Elite performance in dance is the result of many years of training, during which dancers face high physical and emotional demands. There is little empirical evidence addressing dancer training behaviours in the context of overtraining and in response to training demands; however, underlying dancer attitudes that affect training behaviours must first be understood to truly determine the drivers of dance training behaviour. This study explored the attitudes held by vocational dance students and their teachers in relation to stress and recovery during vocational dance training. Using Q methodology with a sample of 86 students and teachers, six viewpoints were identified …

Préface (English Translation), Jonathan W. Marshall

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

A discussion of the role of pain and suffering in butoh and in the work of renowned butoh photographer and artist Nourit Masson-Sékiné (author of the landmark text Butoh: Shades of Darkness, 1987)

Finding Your Balance: An Investigation Of Recovery–Stress Balance In Vocational Dance Training, Peta Blevins, Shona Erskine, Luke Hopper, Gene Moyle

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Professional dance careers require years of intensive training. Stress experienced during training must be balanced with adequate recovery to prevent overtraining and burnout. Little is known, however, about how dancers achieve recovery–stress balance. This study examined dancers’ recollection of stress and recovery during their vocational dance training to identify potential stressors and recovery behaviors in vocational dance training. Twelve current and ex-professional ballet (n=4) and contemporary dancers (n=8) participated in the study. Four general dimensions, based on the extant overtraining literature in athletes, were identified: dance culture, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and situational factors. Cultural norms, health factors related to injury and …

Su Dansi. A Dance Film – And – Dancing Elements: The Making Of Su Dansi - A Dance Film. An Exegesis, Johanna Omodei

Theses : Honours

This research project titled Dancing Elements explores choreographic conversations between the body and natural elements, specifically water on film. I question how natural elements when viewed in relation to the dancing body, can begin to be seen as a dancing entity. This research is divided between scholarship and the creation of a new dance film, su dansi which is Turkish for ‘water dance.’ su dansi is a collaborative and explorative outcome that plays with the dancing body and water through the art form of film. Drawing from author Sylvie Vitaglione (2016), I have adopted her term “natural elements’’ in reference …

Dancing Through It: Enhancing Psychological Recovery In Dance, Peta A. L. Blevins

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Achieving elite level performance in dance requires intensive training and physical demands that may put dancers at risk of underrecovery and overtraining if not balanced with adequate recovery. Dancers have been shown to be susceptible to overtraining and burnout (Koutedakis, 2000), however, little is known about how dancers balance training and non-training stress with recovery to counteract negative training outcomes. This thesis investigated psychological recovery among vocational dance students, using a mixed-method study design to examine dancer experiences of stress and recovery, and the effectiveness of a mindfulness intervention in enhancing psychological recovery in vocational dance training. Study 1 explored …

An Analysis Of The Foot In Turnout Using A Dance Specific 3d Multi-Segment Foot Model, Sarah L. Carter, Alan Bryant, Luke S. Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Introduction: Recent three-dimensional (3D) kinematic research has revealed foot abduction is the strongest predictor of standing functional and forced turnout postures. However, it is still unknown how the internal foot joints enable a large degree of foot abduction in turnout. The primary purpose of this study was to use a dance specific multi-segment foot model to determine the lower leg and foot contributions to turnout that female university-level ballets use to accentuate their turnout. Methods: Eighteen female dance students (mean age, 18.8 ± 1.6 years) volunteered for this study. Retro-reflective markers were attached to the dancers' dominant foot. Each dancer …

The State Of Dancingness: Staying With Leaving, Jo Pollitt

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Borrowing from Cixous’ ‘State of Drawingness’ (1993), this article proposes a ‘State of Dancingness’ as method of inhabiting the practice of writing as dancing. Understanding the dancing body as a place of virtuosic attention, the practice of writing is activated as a ‘continuation’ of dancing; neither as creative response or description but as frame for housing (staging) emergent content. The work proposes that the dancer begin on the page from the vantage and experience of entering the stage as solo improvising performer. These words come with this body tucked and pressing inside them. Pressing. The State of Dancingness …

Writing As Dancing: The Dancer In Your Hands , A Novella <>, Joanna Tollemache Pollitt

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

With the premise to ‘write like I dance,’ Writing as dancing investigates new methods of accessing and revealing choreographic thinking in three distinct ways; writing as a soloist, writing for the ensemble and writing responsively in collaboration. Resulting iterations have variously emerged in the form of performance, novella, play, artist-book, exhibition and long form poem; the novella The Dancer in Your Hands, being the primary solo work presented alongside this exegesis.

The research posits engagement with solo dance improvisation practice as a dynamically charged, and tangible way of thinking that is transferable to the practice of writing. It draws …

Creative Awareness At Link Dance Company 2017, Lauren Ebony Sherlock

Theses : Honours

LINK Dance Company at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) offers postgraduate students the opportunity to bridge the gap between graduate level studies in dance and professional practice. Students gain company experience whilst being able to further their research interests in dance throughout their pre-professional year. LINK Dance Company also encourages students to contribute to the choreographic process where possible to enhance professional practice. Using the Company in 2017 for an exploratory case study, the aim of this research was to investigate the presence of creative awareness in the choreographic process between choreographers and dancers. The research methodology …

Remnants Of Us: Collective Dance-Making As Multi-Art Form Praxis, Lucinda Coleman

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The Australian dance theatre collective, Remnant Dance, was established with a vision to ‘create, make, connect’ through artistic practice and performances. Remnant Dancers have generated unexpected social networking and community development whilst exploring connectivity through dance in the collective environment. In particular, during 2015/2016, Remnant Dance ventured into ambitious creative territory by inviting 22 artists from the fields of music, contemporary dance, and visual/multi-media arts to collaborate in response to fragments of literary texts, matched with wines. The project, winery psalms–the mixed half-dozen, generated six short, multi-art form pieces which were installed/performed on site at a winery, inviting audiences to …

Cognitive Imagery Training In A Dancer’S Deliberate Practice: Skills Development, Confidence And Creativity, Sasha Brampton

Theses : Honours

Cognitive imagery training is an effective tool in improving skill learning, technique, confidence, anxiety and arousal management, recovery, rehabilitation, and performance in dancers. Multiple studies (Abbott & Collins 2004; Hall 2009; and Nordin and Cumming 2006, 2011) have established the positive influence imagery can have on dance and sport, and numerous researchers in these fields promote the incorporation of cognitive imagery training into ‘deliberate’ practice. Cognitive imagery, in relation to dance, is the detailed imaging of the execution/performance of movement in the mind. This thesis will outline imagery use: such as the types of imagery and how it can be …

The Interaction Between Postminimalist Music And Contemporary Dance, Azariah Felton

Theses : Honours

This dissertation examines the manner in which postminimalist compositional techniques such as phasing, polymeter, etc., can be used to aid the creation of music for dance. Music presented with dance generally serves at least two crucial roles: providing the dancers with a framework and impetus to aid movement; and reflecting the concept and meaning, where applicable, of the choreography. Many composers writing for dance must find ways to unite these goals in a way that best suits the total work, and find a balance between supporting the concept and assisting the dancers. This dissertation discusses the relationship between choreography and …

Kinematic Repeatability Analyses Of Multi-Segment Foot Motion In University-Level Ballet Dancers, Sarah Carter, Nahoko Sato, Luke Hopper

ECU Posters

Background:

Dancers are susceptible to overuse foot and ankle injuries, however there is a lack biomechanical studies examining foot mechanics to explain the causality of these injuries. The purpose of this study was to determine the intra and inter-assessor repeatability of a modified Rizzoli Foot Model (RFM) for ballet dancers.

Methods: Six university-level ballet dancers performed the following trials in randomized order, natural stance, turnout plié and stance, and two dynamic trials; turnout rise and flex-point-flex movement. A twelve-camera motion capture system were used to track fourteen reflective markers and one triad on the following segments: shank, entire foot, hindfoot, …

The Reinvention Of Tradition: Transformation Of Chinese Water Sleeve Dance And Tai Ji In Contemporary Performer Training And Performance Making, Min Zhu

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The aim of this practice-led research was to investigate the nature and characteristics of the notion of reinvented tradition in China through the examination of dance practices. First, this research focused on the continuity of tradition demonstrated in the development of Chinese classical dance. Second, it concentrated on the malleability and applicability of two representative Chinese cultural dance practices, water sleeve dance and Tai Ji, in contemporary performance and performer training.

The central concept behind this research was the commonly held perception in China that “tradition is a river” (P. Huang, 1990) in the context of the Chinese dance …

Tracing The Ancestral Roots And The Flow Of Pedagogical Practices In The Development Of Ballet Teaching From 1950 To 2016 In Perth, Western Australia, Diana C. M. Beck

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In the history of dance, that of ballet is but a fragment. The art of ballet is affiliated with the arts of music, literature, and those of the visual arts: its international history covering some 500 years. This thesis spotlights Perth, the capital of Western Australia (WA) and one of the world’s most geographically isolated capital cities. Throughout its balletic history of less than a century, Perth has seen rapid growth in this art form. As in all the arts, pedagogic rules act as guidelines for the teaching of traditional ballet vocabulary; consequently, in order to understand this development and …

Lower Leg And Foot Contributions To Turnout In University-Level Female Ballet Dancers: A Preliminary Investigation, Sarah Carter, Alan R. Bryant, Luke Hopper

ECU Posters

Functional turnout in ballet involves maximal external rotation through the lower limb kinetic chain. Hip external rotation, is considered the primary contributor of functional turnout. However, dancers will tend to increase their functional turnout angle through additional tibiofemoral external rotation and pronation of the foot/ankle complex. Hip external rotation measures in functional turnout has received extensive examination in dance science. However, the relationship between the ‘below the hip' assessments with functional turnout is poorly understood. We hypothesis that dancers with greater passive external tibiofemoral rotation (pTFR) and/or pronated stance will have a greater functional turnout angle.

Nineteen female university-level classical …

Edges Of Resting And Going: The Possibilities And Limitations Of Recovering From Chronic Fatigue Syndrome In A Dance-Training Environment, Daisy Sanders

Theses : Honours

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a common but poorly understood condition that includes limited exercise tolerance. Exercise undertaken via a balanced, holistic approach in which exertion is balanced with rest is recommended in recovery from CFS. This research project investigated how a contemporary dance-­‐training environment can/cannot support recovery from CFS. This investigation is significant given that fatigue, burnout and overtraining are prevalent in dance-­‐training environments. The project drew on the fields of exercise physiology and somatic inquiry to design a purpose-­‐built program of Graded Exercise Therapy and implement it within a tertiary dance-­‐training environment. The project was undertaken as practice-­‐led …

Choreographing Intimacy: The Making Of ‘[They] Slipped Briskly Into An Intimacy From Which They Never Recovered’ – A Dance Film, Antonio Rinaldi

Theses : Honours

In this investigation, I have utilised a practice-led research methodology to capture ‘intimacy’ in film, specifically, the medium of dance film. The exegetical work is divided into the written research with an accompanied dance film component; however they should be viewed as an integrated thesis. The aim of my research was to develop my choreographic practice through a film that is a sensory and evocative exploration of intimacy. I argue that the film components of dance film (directing, cinematography, editing and the like) uniquely capture an intangability of dance and the complexities of human intimacy in a manner that is …

Comparison Of Body Composition, Neuromuscular Characteristics And Anaerobic Endurance Between Novice, Semi-Professional And Professional Ballet Dancers, Penelope Blanco Ochoa

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Study 1 Comparison of body composition, neuromuscular characteristics and anaerobic endurance between novice, semi-professional and professional ballet dancers.
The purpose of this study was to compare selected physiological fitness parameters including: body composition, neuromuscular characteristics and aerobic endurance were significantly different between novice, semi-professional and professional ballet dancers. The secondary purpose was to establish which parameters were best discriminators between these dancers. Thirty-five classical ballet dancers (male: n =11 and female: n =24) divided into three different groups according to their dance skill level: novice (n=12) (age: 16.6 ± 1.5 y; height: 1.7 ± 0.1 m; weight: 58.0 ± 13.0 …

Enter The Movement: Generating Stimulus From Sceneography And Proposing 'De-Sign' As A Tool For Choreographic Invention, Helene Gee Markstein

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this study was to provide the notion of ‘de-sign’ as a proposed aid for movement composition and is the core framework of my research, which is aimed at empowering the dancer/choreographer with a multi-disciplinary aesthetic and a focus for dialectic discussion and experimentation with all material enclosed within the scenographic. De-sign is a method for decoding scenography (as a deconstruction tool to extract the components of composition classified as elements and principles). The play on words is a deliberate acknowledgement of the ‘design’ in the scenographic environment which, in this study, takes into account that all forms …

Skipping Against Hegemony: Where Are States Of Lightness In Contemporary Dance-Making?, Margaret J. Phillips

Research outputs 2013

Dance relies on physical ideas born out of human experience. Changes in what we “do” and “transmit” in the context of pedagogy should follow the shifting and informed perspectives of the time, reflecting scientific, sociological, and imaginative advancements and practices. One day, while a young girl skipped down a university pathway, that principle was brought into question. This innocent protagonist’s skipping provoked a search for explanations of the erasure of a complex “foundational” action from the grounds of adult knowledgeable behaviour. Could this dismissal of a physical idea bear any correspondences with a limited range of contemporary dance compositional modes …

Uncovering A Genre : The Integration Of Suspended Aerial Apparatus And Contemporary Dance Practice In Australia, Catherine Ryan

Theses : Honours

Genres in the performing arts are constantly shifting and changing, with many artforms evolving into new spheres of performance. It is not uncommon for creators to employ tools and techniques from various disciplines to support their artistic vision and enhance their work. A number of contemporary dance artists have begun to explore movement in the air by adapting skills or equipment from other disciplines and industries to suit their needs. At the same time, some circus artists and aerialists have been lowering their apparatus to incorporate ground-based movement into their work. It is this cross-pollination between art-forms that has formed …

Capturing Dance: The Art Of Documentation (An Exploration Of Distilling The Body In Motion), Kasey J. Lack

Theses : Honours

This research paper is an exploration of documenting and capturing live dance performance in regards to three artistic mediums, Notation, Photography and Film. This piece of writing discusses practitioners who have contributed to the development of these processes such as: Ann Hutchinson Guest, Rudolf von Laban, Eadweard Muybridge, Lois Greenfield, Ted Shawn, Norman McLaren and Sue Healey. In conjunction with historical and current day research the secondary document provided alongside this thesis describes the practical investigation undertaken. The reflections included define first-hand discoveries of how these three mediums of documenting interconnect to describe a contemporary dance solo. Thoughts, findings and …

The Synergy Of Visual Projections And Contemporary Dance, Hannah Molly Timbrell

Theses : Honours

Projections are becoming an increasingly common part of contemporary dance performance, however, I believe that choreographers do not always integrate the media to form a dependent synergy. My research addresses the principal question: What are the factors that indicate that there is a critical relationship (synergy) between projection, including art work, moving images or light and the dancer in a contemporary dance performance? A brief history explains the background and development of lighting technology, through to film and more recently motion capture technology. Through sources of pre-existing literature and my interpretation of video excerpts of contemporary dance, I explore various …

Intimate Encounters: A Study Of The Interaction Between Dancer And Observer, Caitlin Mackenzie

Theses : Honours

This paper explores the world of intimate performance, looking at the effect intimate spatial relations have on the connection between performer and audience. The constraints and unspoken formalities of traditional theatre conventions are examined, with a focus on the resulting relationship between the individual audience member and the performer. Comparisons of performances respecting traditional conventions, and those which are site-specific, one-on-one and involve audience interaction, will provide the basis of the examination of the nature of intimate performance and the audience-performer relationship. Performance interaction is compared to nonverbal social interaction and what the blurring of these phenomena means. Essentially I …