Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore is a novel that tells the story of two protagonists who never meet, Kafka and Nakata. They are on a journey across Japan in order to escape an Oedipal curse and elude the authorities for a murder that they both are connected to yet have no recollection. I am drawn to this story because it proposes the significance of self-awareness for the sake of cohesive understanding of oneself and, as a result, to those perceived as alien. My presentation takes the form of a nine minute solo performance of an inspired original enactment of Kafka’s clash with his conscious inner self, Crow, on the topic of the socially constructed reasons that motivate Kafka to return to Tokyo in order to clear matters with authorities as opposed to simply rejecting the arbitrary constructs that perpetuate the idea of duty. The narrative applies the theories of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment, supplemented by research into ideology and discourse, in order to establish the relevancy of discourse, a particular way of talking or thinking, which ideology, a system that maintains and reproduces the social relations of the prevailing social order which imposes on individuals a conception of themselves, is ingrained in, as a constructed condition. Because discourse is in language, a mode of communication, and ideology is ingrained in discourse, art, a series of coded signs manipulated to communicate a message, must also have associated ideology. Through the creative process of composition, the experiment attempts to fuse different modes of artistic disciplines in order to expose both the resonant and dissonant qualities of multiple ideologies colliding. The result of the experiment serves to evaluate the effectiveness of specific compositional tools in developing material based on the clarity and effectiveness of the delivery of the performance’s key concepts.

Do we embody our social identities? It is well known that men and women are taught to speak differently, but they also learn to move differently. Like in spoken language, differences exist between both individuals and groups of people in how they communicate non-verbally. Men and women have generally distinct sex differences which result from acculturation; how much is a result of biological factors and how do these overlap? I will undertake research that examines how sex is perceived based on movement alone. Using Kinect technology to document subjects performing movement prompts in the form of gender-ambiguous animations, I will solicit responses from viewers of the animations to determine how accurately the viewer judges the sex of the mover. I will measure the accuracy of their perceptions against several factors, which might influence gender performance including: the dance-experience of the mover, the music played for the mover, the movement prompt, and whether the mover is actively trying to embody a particular gender. This research will contribute to research on non-verbal expression of identity and inform representations of gender in the performing arts.

   The stereoscopic image has risen and fallen in commercial popularity since its concepton in the late 19th century, but recent advances in computing and image technology have extended the medium's accessibility and popularity once more. At the UW, in the DXARTS department, I have spent the last year and a half examining the technical and aesthetic properties in stereoscopic pictures. My research and experiments have approached issues in projection surfaces, methods of compositing, graphics, and editing, and technical solutions for live-action stereo-photography. In addition to these practical issues, I also aim to fit my practice into a longer lineage of art-tradition, citing artists who have found the medium to be a fertile ground of expression. Today, my own efforts culminate into a single project as I plan a new work in stereo, and I hope to share video and still images of my experiments and completed works with the students at the University.

A dance, a piece of art that is naturally ephemeral, is very difficult to preserve. Though it can be partially captured through film or notation, neither of these two-dimensional forms of archiving fully encapsulates the experience of a dance for either audience or performer. The only way to truly bring a dance to life is to perform it. Because a dance is at once a living participant and observer of the cultural context in which it was created, as well as a work of art, by researching and performing historical dances we can reach a more complete appreciation of culture past and present. A great part of the research done to better understand the historical role and importance of a dance will in fact come through the act of meticulously recreating the art work in the present day. This year the Chamber Dance Company researches and performs eleven works of dance by choreographers Ethel Winter, Helen Tamiris, Mary Wigman, Ruth St. Denis, Jean Erdman, Susan Marshall, and Louis Falco. We look for insights that elucidate historical issues of the time through embodying the movement. For example, in St. Denis' work we see cultural appropriation of Orientalism; in Tamiris we look at how and why a white Jewish American woman made dances about African American oppression; and in Wigman's work how dance was able to slip through the iron fist of Nazi censorship. This presentation will be a preview of the choreographed works to be performed by the Chamber Dance Company in October 2012.

Little is known about the 19th Century painter Francois Leupalle and his 1832, oil on canvas painting, Marie Taglioni and Joseph Mazilier in the First Scene of La Sylphide. Despite Leupalle’s obscurity, many Romantic Ballet history books reproduce the painter’s La Sylphide as visual evidence for Romantic Ballet. Leupalle’s painting, then, represents not only La Sylphide but also the Romantic ballerina. In the 19th Century, the ballerina usurped the danseur and reached celebrity status. Through her pointe work, Taglioni helped to facilitate this radical shift. If her pointe work symbolized this sea change, why then does Leupalle illustrate Taglioni barefoot? Lithographs of this period predominantly portray dancing ballerinas, framing their pointe work; yet Leupalle’s barefoot ballerina kneels beside a kilted Scotsman, who slumbers in an armchair, surrounded by a vista of mist, light and foliage. This paper examines how Leupalle’s choice to portray Taglioni as barefoot affects scholars’ use of the painting as visual evidence for Romantic Ballet. Through analysis of the painting and archival documents, this research critiques the use of this image as visual evidence of the Romantic ballerina using male gaze and visual pleasure.

"...And earlier today she had us dancing!" enthused a young teen, who had previously been sullen and uncooperative.  Now she reassured the new-comer that the Secure Crisis Residential Center (SCRC) they now inhabited, was not really that bad.  While working as a counselor at this SCRC, I came to suspect that teaching dance led to improving the attitudes of its residents.  An SCRC is not an incarceration facility.   Police or case workers bring teens to the centers when there are no charges against them, but they are nonetheless unable to return home for whatever reason, i.e. no adult is home or accessible, they are homeless/run-away, they have been kicked out of their parental, group, or foster home etc.  The facility provides safe, temporary transitional room and board for up to 15 days. It also offers residents services addressing housing, educational, family, health, legal, and other needs.  This facility's ability to deliver services depends directly upon cooperation between residents and staff.  Multiple studies have demonstrated dance programs' benefits in inner city school rooms.  This study addresses the question: does providing dance classes in this SCRC, reduce the number of reported incidents and/or improve cooperation?  The study consists of teaching two classes per week for ten weeks.  I will compile data from both the facility's current measures regarding the number and severity of incidents, and also from brief questionnaires of staff members about levels of cooperation experienced on their shift.  Data will be compared between dancing and non-dancing days.  I hope and anticipate that my research will generate much needed support for the survival and expansion of dance programms in faclilities like this one, thereby strengthening benefits delivered to the at-risk youth they serve.

A profound irony underscored the Cold War-era U.S. government’s clandestine support of American dance and film; the main innovators in these forms were Russian immigrants themselves. One of these was Maya Deren, a largely unacknowledged avant-garde filmmaker, theorist, and creator of the “dance for camera” genre. She was born Eleanora Derenkowsky in Kiev, Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. in 1922. Defying mainstream Hollywood trends, which followed linear, cause-and-effect story arcs, Deren created unique “dance for camera” films that emphasized the movements of the dancer and the camera. Her films created dances that could not exist in a live performance by utilizing film’s ability to cut instantly between scenes and play footage in reverse. Deren viewed film as “an art which makes its statement in terms of time and movement. This medium is not so much concerned with any single instant as with the change from instant to instant.” A dancer would begin a movement in one scene and complete the same movement in a different space entirely. In a single moment, the dancer could traverse space and time. By using such film tools, Deren expanded the limits of the human body.  Though many films today reflect her influence, mainstream film theory histories ignore Deren’s contributions. By analyzing Deren’s A Study in Choreography for the Camera (1945) using her own writings as well as contemporary film theory, I attempt to recuperate Deren to film theory history.

 Like Picasso and other modern artists of the time American choreographers, Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham, have been accused of culling much of their work from the “exotic” sources of India and Africa. While this artistic borrowing, in the case of works like Picasso’s Demoiselles D’Avignon, has been explored and analyzed, similar artistic endeavors like St Denis’ 1913 Bakawali Nautch and Graham’s 1947 Night Journey have gone relatively uninvestigated in terms of their significance within the fields of dance and cultural studies. The re-examination of these influences and the analysis of their cultural specifics would go a long way toward an effort to restore the significance and cultural implications of dance in their respective cultures as well as in the work of St. Denis and Graham. This research aims through the critical historical context and formal analysis of these pieces to assert that there is much to be gained from understanding these works as not merely having occurred in reaction to outside cultural sources, but rather that they sit at the crossing of a multitude of influences. They are a result of and in turn the catalyst for innovation across cultures.