Cleveland State University
Central Washington University
Portland State University
CUNY Graduate Center
Saint Mary's College of California
De La Salle University Integrated School (Manila)
Virginia Commonwealth University
Indiana State University
Claremont Colleges
Towards Designing And Performing Biological Sex: Explorations Of The Cyborg And The Inanimate,
2026
Macalester College
Towards Designing And Performing Biological Sex: Explorations Of The Cyborg And The Inanimate, Beja Puskas
Theatre and Dance Honors Projects
While gender has been largely debunked as a form of performance, biological sex remains an irreducible point of departure. This essay challenges biological sex as a category through the Foucauldian lens of bio-power and technologies of the self. It merges findings from interviews surrounding intersectionally marginalized experiences with menstruation with trans and disability studies. Utilizing Mel Chen’s theory of animacies, and Margrit Shildrick’s human-technology amalgamation theory, this essay blurs the biological-artificial binary. While there are obstacles, limiting what is biologically possible for humans, the body can be significantly augmented through imagination, body modification, and the invention of newly gendered practices.
“Retalhos De Mim Costurados Por Nós” (A Patchwork Of Me, Stitched Together By Us),
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
“Retalhos De Mim Costurados Por Nós” (A Patchwork Of Me, Stitched Together By Us), Marjorye Graves
MFA in Dance Theses
This document represents the culmination of my thesis project "Retalhos de Mim Costurados por Nós" (A Patchwork of Me, Stitched Together by Us), a choreographic project integrating scholarly perspectives from Dance and Social Justice, Phenomenology, and Somatics courses. Employing both dance film and solo live performance, the research interrogates the complexities of identity within the overlapping contexts of immigration, domestic violence, and motherhood. Through an embodied praxis, the project addresses the intersection of adversity and resilience, highlighting the transformative potential of community, cultural inheritance, and spirituality in my healing process.
Spirals Of Light: A Healing Journey Through Somatics, Dance, And Pedagogy,
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
Spirals Of Light: A Healing Journey Through Somatics, Dance, And Pedagogy, Jessica Batha
MFA in Dance Theses
This thesis investigates dance as an embodied practice of healing, attunement, and belonging through phenomenology, somatics, and environmental engagement. Grounded in Sondra Fraleigh’s eco-phenomenological framework, the research weaves personal narrative, artistic inquiry, and interdisciplinary scholarship to examine how thresholds of birth, injury, and recovery shape sensory orientation across the lifespan. Drawing from lived experiences as a dancer, mother, educator, and researcher, the study explores tone, breath, light, and movement as formative forces in identity and resilience. Central to the inquiry is a knee injury and subsequent surgical recovery, which catalyzed a somatic practice aligned with circadian rhythms, sunrise ritual, and …
Machine (Un/Re) Learning,
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
Machine (Un/Re) Learning, Jordan Shadley
MFA in Dance Theses
This thesis document is an exploration of the interaction between live performance art and digital content creation such as Generative A.I. In this work, I draw from several courses I completed during my time in Saint Mary’s College of California MFA in Dance and Creative Practice program, including Dance and Social Justice, Phenomenology, Somatic Movement Seminar and Dance and Performance Studies. Each offers a throughline of my scholarly explorations and embodied research into the spheres of adapting and challenging how concert dance spaces respond to digital information and creation. I utilized live movement collaboration and distorted videography through Generative A.I. …
D-Entangled,
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
D-Entangled, Macy Yu
MFA in Dance Theses
This thesis investigates the choreographic, somatic, and cultural significance hair holds in dance through identity and belonging. Hair is more than merely a visual or aesthetic marker, it is a lived, identity-bearing, and sensory archive of the body. To say that hair is merely just for aesthetics in lifestyles and in dance is not acknowledging its full impact. Hair functions as both a cultural and sensory archive as well as embodied resistance and a site of identity. I identify as a multi-ethnic woman, dancer, educator, and choreographer. This paper analyzes hair through the examination of four different methodologies including a …
Kinesthesis: A Choreographic Study Of The Somatic Effect Of Fascial Intervention,
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
Kinesthesis: A Choreographic Study Of The Somatic Effect Of Fascial Intervention, Mira Larsen
MFA in Dance Theses
This master’s thesis was a choreographic study that experimented with the somatic effects of fascial intervention practices, culminating in a final performance in June of 2026 at the LeFevre Theatre at Saint Mary’s College of California. Each chapter of this document investigates the topic of fascial awareness supported through somatic practice and its effect on creating impactful emotional and physical connections in ballet choreography and pedagogy. This document offers the conceptual framework for the choreographic process of the thesis project, titled Kinesthesis. Through the lenses of phenomenology, somatics, social justice, and performance studies, the research goal involved the utilization of …
Colonization To Commodification To Codification: The Salimpour Method,
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
Colonization To Commodification To Codification: The Salimpour Method, Suhaila Salimpour
MFA in Dance Theses
This thesis examines how colonization and commodification have shaped the codification of belly dance though the Salimpour Method. Codification here refers to the process of naming, categorizing, and organizing of movement into a teachable system. While codification inevitably transforms tradition, it also serves as a method of preservation. As the inheritor of the Salimpour lineage, I trace how my mother, Jamila Salimpour, first codified belly dance and how I built on her work to create a comprehensive pedagogical system that situates belly dance within artistic and academic contexts. This study argues that the Salimpour Method is a strategy of preserving, …
“A Beautiful Mess: Rebirthing Through Earth, Dance, And The Divine”,
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
“A Beautiful Mess: Rebirthing Through Earth, Dance, And The Divine”, Mikayla Douglas
MFA in Dance Theses
A Beautiful Mess: Rebirthing Through Earth, Dance, and the Divine by Mikayla Douglas is a culmination of research, creative practice, and lived experience that was developed during her time at Saint Mary’s College of California in the MFA Dance Program. This thesis investigates the shared dialogue between eco-somatics, eco-phenomenology, motherhood, nature, and the BIPOC birthing body. Through the use of outdoor somatic practices, personal reflection and stories, Mikayla Douglas explores how nature can serve as a site of healing, embodiment, and reclamation for Black and Brown birthing bodies. The research of this thesis work is grounded heavily in both scholarly …
Under Open Skies: Black, Queer, And Ascending,
2026
Saint Mary's College of California
Under Open Skies: Black, Queer, And Ascending, Skyler Zakaar
MFA in Dance Theses
This thesis explores personal healing and community building through dance, rooted in my lived experience as a Black Queer man in America. Stemming from research in Phenomenology, Critical Dance Pedagogy, and Dance & Social Justice, I interrogate the impact of white supremacy and systemic racism both within and beyond the queer community. My choreographic process centers intersectionality and collective agency, seeking to resist the fragmentation of identity and to affirm the wholeness of self. Through performance and comprehensive study, my intentions are to foster empathy, connection, and belonging, while advocating for equity and transformation within dance and broader cultural discourse. …
Drawing As Continuance: What Insists On Being Heard,
2026
University of Lethbridge
Drawing As Continuance: What Insists On Being Heard, Darlene St. Georges
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
This article extends She-Hero through an inquiry into drawing as a creation-centred practice of continuance. Five drawings are engaged as aesthetic encounters through which relational and perceptual shifts become perceptible, allowing inner authority to emerge as a cultivated capacity to remain responsive to what is unfolding. Drawing is approached as a site of metramorphic reconfiguration where imagination, memory, and embodied sensing participate in the decolonizing of perceptual habits and the restoration of relational ways of knowing.
Showing It! Art Matters. But Why? How?,
2026
Williams College
Showing It! Art Matters. But Why? How?, Holly Edwards
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
This article addresses the agency of art with reference to an exhibition entitled “The Nature of Spirit”. That show appeared in the local public library, resonating strongly with notions of “heartwork”. My first Artizein publication was written in response to 9/11, and this one maintains comparable urgency, seeking solace in art precisely when the world seems to be sliding into lunacy. The prose explores the powers of art in traumatizing times with words, while the images offer the reader insight and support energetically.
Text/Ures,
2026
Nipissing University
Text/Ures, Kathy Mantas
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
By entwining the voices of other co-creators, text and images, I share a brief site-specific photo-reverie of my life-long allure to trees—in this instance, by attending to the trees near my home. This offering is rooted in peripatetic aesthetic practices that embrace a slower creative approach and more spellbinding ways of living, learning and knowing. In essence, this is an invitation to have an artful encounter with text/ures of trees.
Attending The Way Of The Crane: Centring Our Lives Through Creative-Centred Work,
2026
University of Alberta
Attending The Way Of The Crane: Centring Our Lives Through Creative-Centred Work, Alexandra Fidyk
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
A dreamscape using pastiche is used for reflecting upon the value of creative-centred practice and research. Attending to the image through reflection and circumambulation offers entry to a centring practice. In holding both, a new image emerged. The dreamscape—an unexpected scene of cranes in joyous dance—unfolds as actual dream and offers a metaphor for understanding an arc within the dreamer’s life. In this condensed yet nuanced rumination, personal and professional, poetic and haptic, participating and witnessing blur. This practice, the way of the Crane, is timely because it introduces relational pedagogy and testimonial teaching for our times—while touching the pulse …
Mapping The Legacy Of Cinnabar Mining In California's Santa Ynez River,
2026
Concordia University
Mapping The Legacy Of Cinnabar Mining In California's Santa Ynez River, Lorrie Blair
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
This essay is a reflection of an artist residency focused on the environmental legacy of California’s cinnabar mining. The mineral cinnabar is a primary source of mercury that was used to mine gold in California in the 1800s, and is still used globally. For this residency, I asked, “How can I creatively map the emotional and sensory landscapes of Cinnabar mining sites?” “How can art making serve to expose elements of an ecological crisis?” To answer these questions, I created cyanotypes made in and with the Santa Ynez River, which flowed through two abandoned cinnabar mines. Cyanotypes are made by …
Teaching The Eye To Slow Down: Attentive Noticing As Ecological Practice,
2026
University of Victoria
Teaching The Eye To Slow Down: Attentive Noticing As Ecological Practice, Sara Ko
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
This visual essay unfolds through acts of careful noticing. Drawing from materials encountered through repeated walks across forested landscapes on Vancouver Island, it translates moss, soil, plant matter, and animal traces into immersive digital environments. Working through atmosphere, texture, and shifting forms rather than fixed representation, the project explores how perception is shaped by time spent with what is often overlooked. Digital processes are used not to stabilize or explain, but to hold uncertainty, fragility, and partial presence. The work invites readers to slow their looking and consider how learning, relation, and meaning can emerge through sustained attention.
Red Thread Projects For Placentary Peace,
2026
The University of British Columbia
Red Thread Projects For Placentary Peace, Nané Jordan
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
Red Thread Projects are aesthetic expressions of my placental, eco-birthing philosophies as an artisteducator- scholar with lifelong roots reclaiming midwifery, and compassionate mother-centred birth care. Uplifting “birth” within embodied, feminist epistemologies, I aim to re-vision with the Mother, writ large and small. Since 1997, I have been creating textile artworks with red thread, activating these through performances in nature, where artwork, body, and place become interwoven texts, gifting gratitude to and with Mother Earth. My arts-centred research contributes to community education that empowers birth-givers, while advocating for the embodied, love-infused potentials of birth for human thriving.
Moving Forward: The Pulse Of Arts-Centred Research [Editorial],
2026
University of Lethbridge
Moving Forward: The Pulse Of Arts-Centred Research [Editorial], Darlene St. Georges
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
Editorial
Artizein Editorial Team: Movements And Transitions,
2026
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Artizein Editorial Team: Movements And Transitions, Barbara Bickel
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
Editorial overview of movements and transitions taking place with the Artizein editorial team.
About The Cover Art: Pulsing Renewal,
2026
University of Lethbridge
About The Cover Art: Pulsing Renewal, Darlene St. Georges
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
“Pulsing Renewal,” featured on the cover of this issue, is part of River’s Invocations, a creation-centred inquiry exploring River's ecologies, relationality, and creation. The painting was chosen for its close affinity with the issue theme, The Pulse of Arts-Centred Research. The visual language of Pulsing Renewal—its movement, rhythm, and emergence—echoes the vitality, responsiveness, and ongoing renewal evident across the articles, artworks, and conversations assembled in this volume. The work is presented here as a thematic point of entry into the diverse inquiries that follow.
Full Issue_Artizein Arts And Teaching Journal,
2026
University of Lethbridge
Full Issue_Artizein Arts And Teaching Journal, Darlene St. Georges, Barbara Bickel
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal
Full Issue
