Dance Commons^™

Who Can Dance If They Want To?: Intersections Of Dance, Gender, And Political Control In Late Archaic And Early Classical Athens, Adeline P. Strickler

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This thesis investigates the evidence for women's public choruses in the polis of Athens and the wider Greek world prior to the 6th century BCE and their decline in Athens following the Kleisthenic reforms of 509/508 BCE. Emphasising analysis of visual sources through Athenian fabric vases in the Beazley archive, and supporting literary evidence, this research seeks to establish a base of evidence for a neglected area of dance and women's research in the classics. Additionally, by analyzing the significance of choral dance in polis social and political life, this research seeks potential reasons for the lack of a culture …

My Body Is Bad, Daintry Tennapel

Dance (MFA) Theses

my body is bad is an integrative endeavor that critically examines cultural and theological teachings within the Evangelical Church, focusing on the rise of Purity Culture and its connections to a broader history of patriarchy and white supremacy in America. This work investigates the psychological, emotional, sexual, and spiritual impact on women raised within Purity Culture, analyzing its core teachings and the systems that perpetuate them. By exploring the intersection of political, societal, and religious ideologies, this work interrogates how these forces—manifested through Purity Culture narratives—shape women’s identities, self-worth, and sexual agency. This work combines scholarly research, survivor testimonies, and …

Holy Body/Monstrous Body: The Life And Practices Of Saint Catherine Of Siena., Melissa B. Miller

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research examines the violent misogyny and contempt for the female body in, but not limited to, Western Christian environments using as a lens the life and practices of Catherine Benincasa, a mystic and tertiary Dominican sainted in 1461 as Saint Catherine of Siena. Further, the research looks at the use of the abject and grotesque in performance, as well as transformative storytelling, as a means of making lived experience visible, and is explored as a liberatory response to such systems of domination and violence. Though this research is framed in a religious context, contempt towards female-presenting bodies is not …

Letters To Medusa, Maiya Redding

Theses and Dissertations

This context paper for the MFA thesis dance film Letters to Medusa connects the mythology of Medusa as a narrative of trauma. Engaging #metoo and Micaela Coel’s I May Destroy You and Misfits, Redding discusses the power of art to serve as a vehicle for healing and forgiveness.

Self-Efficacy Development In Elementary-Aged Learners Through Dance As An Algorithmic Thinking Tool, Niva Shrestha

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the effectiveness of a transdisciplinary approach in teaching computational thinking through dance to elementary-aged learners, with primary attention to females. With limited literature available on how pre-adolescents begin to construct conceptions of computer science and other engineering domains, including potential career pathways, the incentive of this project was to leverage a day camp for about 20 rising 3rd - 5th-grade learners to assess their identity development in computer science. Modules that teach computational thinking through dance paired with Unruly splats (block-based programmable electronic gadgets) were implemented. By conducting pre-and post-surveys and a …

Women Of The Dalit Unrest: Rewriting Bodies, Reinforcing Resistance, Suddhadeep Mukherjee

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

The paper aims to take the scholarship on corporeal feminism and Dalit Studies forward by focusing on the Dalit woman’s body. The body is not treated as an inert surface in this paper but is considered as a transformative medium that can alter its embedded codifications and significations through transgressive performances in the face of systemic and systematized caste violence. In doing so the gendered body not only challenges to rewrite the Dalit epistemology from the vantage of resistance but also initiates a rethinking of Indian feminism. The paper begins with a discursive discussion on the importance of the gender …

Healing Through Mother Earth, Taylor A. Russell

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis deals with mental health, with a focus on Black women. Historically, Black women are often so compromised, being constant caregivers and helping everyone else, that they forget to help themselves, not having the time and financial means to do so. If we go back in the time of slavery, many Black women were taking care of slave owners' children and suckling the white women’s babies instead of their own. By the time they got home and after diligently caring for other people’s children they were focused on their own children, who they had been away from for hours …

Cultural, Political, And Choreographic Developments Of Feminism In Classical Ballet, Lydia Mariya Wirth

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This thesis was an exploration of how the female ballerina can be better represented in the culture, aesthetics, and politics of ballet. Despite the patriarchal and misogynistic traditions that this artform is steeped in, women have made significant strides in reclaiming ballet as a tool of female empowerment, rather than of suppression or objectification. A disparity of leadership positions, a traditionally disempowering training system, misogynistic ballet narratives, and patterns of abuse and harassment all combine to create a world which disempowers female dancers on multiple levels. Despite these realities, women have been at the forefront of narrowing wage and opportunity …

Development Of A Method For Utilizing Oriental Belly Dance Rhythms To Deepen A Client’S Understanding Of Their Emotions After Experiencing Trauma, And Move Towards Healing, Jenny Nehir Eish-Baltaoglu

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

A workshop was offered to local women in North Eastern Ohio who have experienced trauma and are facing uncomfortable emotions or unpleasant memories as a result. A guided body scan, Focusing Oriented Art directives, and improvisational movement explorations were employed to deepen awareness and understanding of the emotions and memories participants wished to have better control over. Three movement rhythms, which are central to the ancient feminine dance form popularly known as belly dance, were explored through improvisational movement both as a group and independently. These movement rhythms included staccato pops and locks, fluid figure eights, and vibratory shimmies. Participants …

Because Of Thy Exceeding Faith: A Choreographic Portrayal Of Women In The Book Of Mormon, Wendy L. Bone

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a choreographic exploration that illuminates and defines moments in the lives of women who are mentioned in the Book of Mormon. These women are Sariah; the wife of King Lamoni and Abish, her servant; and the Ammonite mothers of Helaman's two thousand stripling warriors. It is through these stories that their faith was evident. By understanding the roles these women played in the history of the Book of Mormon, we can use their example to strengthen our own testimonies.
It was discovered through this process that, although one can read about the life of another, a deeper …

Bazi-Ha-Ye Nameyeshi: Iranian Women's Theatrical Plays, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Iranian women's comic improvised traditional theatre is a rich and important, but little-known, source of performative and textual material that has been rarely documented or discussed by serious students of folklore and dance, either in Iran or in the West. I argue that this amateur theatrical form performed and created by women for other women is the single most important source representing the multivocality of traditional Iranian women of all classes. Both in content and performance, these theatrical plays or games are a unique form of expression that needs several analytic approaches to elucidate its meaning and place in women's …

Quilters

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1992 performance of Quilters by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek, with music and lyrics by Barbara Damashek.

Quilters is a musical of a mother and her six daughters on the American frontier. Through music and quilts they explore the life of a woman from childhood to death.

The Effect Of Gamma Rays On Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1985 performance of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds tells the story of a dysfunctional family of a single mother and two daughters and their struggles as the mother tries to keep her daughters from succeeding.

Somebody Stole My Stuff

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1984 performance of Somebody Stole My Stuff compiled and arranged by Dr. Jessica Rousselow.

Somebody Stole My Stuff is an original choreopoem, a dramatic expression that combines poetry, dance, music, and song. This original arrangement explores the identity of women in society, drawing from the concepts of feminist philosopher-theologian Mary Daly.

The Trojan Women

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1974 performance of The Trojan Women by Euripides.

The Trojan Women tells the story of the fates of four women after the fall of the city of Troy.

The Taming Of The Shrew

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1973 performance of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare.

The Taming of the Shrew follows the courtship and marriage of Petruchio and Katherina, a headstrong shrew and how Petruchio "tames" her.

Hedda Gabler

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1965 performance of Hebba Gabler by Henrik Ibsen.

Hebba Gabler is the story of newlywed Hedda Tesman and her reunion with a former lover and how she manipulates events to secure and create a life for herself with her husband.

The Trojan Women

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1960 performance of The Trojan Women by Euripides.

The Trojan Women tells the story of the fates of four women after the fall of the city of Troy.

The Taming Of The Shrew

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1927 performance of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare.

The Taming of the Shrew follows the courtship and marriage of Petruchio and Katherina, a headstrong shrew and how Petruchio "tames" her.