Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item FLYING UP AND FALLING DOWN: QUEER PHENOMENOLOGY, CYBORGS, QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT, AND TENSEGRITY IN MATERIAL BODY 01 + PULSE: AN ANTI-DISCIPLINARY PERFORMANCE OF DANCE AND TECHNOLOGY(2024) Ford, Mary Kate; Portier, Kendra; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines Material Body 01 + Pulse, a live performance merging dance and technology through the lenses of queer phenomenology, cyborg embodiment, tensegrity, and quantum entanglement. By destabilizing and reimagining conventional notions of boundaries, materials, machines, symbols, and ecological systems the choreography invites audiences to engage with diverse embodiments and perceptions. The integration of elements that blur boundaries between human and machine foreground the cyborg as a site of transformation and active engagement in systemic surroundings. The choreographic manipulation of tension embodies the dynamic equilibrium of tensegrity, generating interconnectedness. Through analysis of the choreographic process, this thesis highlights how Material Body 01 + Pulse intersects contemporary dance with emergent technologies and theoretical frameworks, offering new perspectives on embodiment, identity, and spatiality in the digital era.Item Finally, Fairies!: A Study in Hauntological Choreography(2022) Koepke, Tristan; Portier, Kendra; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Finally, Fairies!: A Study in Hauntological Choreography” is the written thesis that documents the creative research, development, and critical reflection of my dance production Finally, Fairies!, a requirement of the M.F.A. in Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park. Finally, Fairies! premiered March 11-13, 2022, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's Dance Theatre. In outlining the process from ideation to performance, I illuminate my personal history and artistic lineage in dance performance and choreography. I consider my choreographic impulses and choices in relationship to hauntology, a concept given name by Jacques Derrida and expanded upon by contemporary theorists such as Mark Fisher, Jack Halberstam, and Merlin Coverley. I explore hauntological moods, methodologies, Vaporwave music, and emergent forms of composition that involve both improvisation and choreography. Ultimately, I offer close readings of Finally, Fairies! to further expose what the performance proposed, as well as develop and trouble formulations of presence and embodiment through an insistence on spectrality and indeterminacy.Item RESPONSIVE WILD: REDISCOVERING, REDEFINING, AND REALIGNING(2021) harris, kristina aurelia; Davis, Crystal U.; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The central question of, what is womanhood? anchors this work. Within that wondering and examination is research into feminism, in conversation with rock and roll and 1980s MTV, gender studies, queer studies, and dance studies. The interrogation of MTV as a superstructure for notions of White femininity operates as a site of exploration for the White heterosexual male gaze. This extends into a rediscovery of rock and roll history, and the Black and Queer women (also considered by this work as ‘original’ feminists) who laid a foundation for rock and roll’s future. Through choreographic practice and Queer methodology, questions of womanhood and femininity, Queerness, and feminism, are explored through movement. Memory, lived bodily experiences, community, and the sensations and desires connected to them, are centered in this creative process. Queer and feminist writers accompany this journey; rock and roll functions as a canvas for the exploration of ferocious and mammoth movement; metaphors of physics facilitate the choreographic research into identity as it shifts and navigates fluidity and transformation. Each of these ideas swirl, collide, and manifest through choreographed movement and writing; leading to a new and realigned question: What is Queer Womanhood?Item RE/LIVING: EQUITY AND INCLUSION, BECOMING(2021) Mata-Ortega, Gabriel; Keefe, Maura; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This document is the graduate research developed from re/living: equity and inclusion, becoming. As a choreographer, educator, performer, and researcher, Gabriel Mata-Ortega develops through a notion and process of decentering, an extension of decolonizing dominant practices in western concert dance. The focus of the research lies in personal experiences, the body of work from Limón technique, and western concert dance. The work is expanded by theories and practices from work by dance writers, researchers, and choreographers in modern dance and disco culture. Engaging the idea of intersectional dialogue, the varying identities of Mata create pathways to connect, bridge, interrogate, and develop.Item Telepathic Maps: A Study in Ongoingness(2021) Gerardo, Renee; Widrig, Patrik; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Telepathic Maps: a study in ongoingness” is the written thesis prepared as research and reflection of the dance performance of “telepathic maps” in January 2021, a requirement for the M.F.A. at the University of Maryland. The process of creating and writing about the dance was undertaken during the CoVid-19 pandemic. Using my own personal experience as a triathlete and dancer, I posit that endurance, usually associated with athletics, can behave differently when explored through the dynamics of dance. The collaborative process and performance of “telepathic maps” are put in conversation, demonstrating how endurance provided multiple entry points to manifest the physical and artistic research. Though the original performance was cancelled due to the pandemic, the writing process revealed answers about the performative nature of endurance; that even with a finish line, the step beyond it is more meaningful than the perceived endpoint. An accessible structure was created, allowing the dance to surpass notions of performance as product and therefore representing the inherent ongoingness of my artistic and pedagogical practice.Item BLACK MADONNA AND MISS AMERICA: IN THE STREETS, ON THE STAGE AND IN THE CHURCH(2020) Anderson, Ronya-Lee; Keefe, Maura; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The black female body is a political body that inhabits the collective imagination of a nation. This body constantly negotiates a multiplicity of meanings that have life and death consequences and in turn teach America about herself. What does it look like for this body to take up space? As the black female body navigates the streets, the stage, the church, both private and public space, what concessions must be made? Black Madonna and Miss America is a choreographic and critical investigation of socio-political happenings in conversation with the positioning of the black female icon in the streets, on the stage and in the church. It is cinematic in nature, employing a familiar series of still and moving images tied to a complex historical canon. Black Madonna and Miss America tackles the tension between the public and private; the doing and being of the black female iconic body. The work confronts the worship of the black female body in popular culture; worship undone in the political and economic treatment of that same body. In the making of the work, theory and practice have been lovers, sometimes in harmony, other times, at odds. The practice of making the work in the body challenged and was challenged by the theoretical work of thinking through and researching related issues; some tangental and others glaringly present. What does the performance protest of Colin Rand Kaepernick have in common with black female bodies engaged in their own political and social choreography on stage? How does #BlackGirlMagic both illuminate the work and threaten its potential potency? What does the work borrow from the Black Church and the Black Lives Matter Movement?Item TIDES(2019) Law, Mariama Kancou; Davis, Crystal; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This document explores the research and inspirations behind TIDES, a dance performance that employs a cyclical structure to incorporate personal experiences of Ama Law, the choreographer and director, as well as the cultural ancestry of its cast of thirteen women of African descent. Law shares her approach to developing TIDES that includes an anthropological perspective to investigate the personal histories of her cast and concepts of historical revisionism to bring awareness to black women on stage. This paper utilizes Knowledge (an important element of hip hop) as a methodology that brings healing to communities. Law also highlights stories of women in urban dance and histories of the African, modern and urban movement styles used in TIDES (Vogue, Chicago house, Dunham technique, movement from West African countries and more).Item EMBODIED HAMLET: DISABILITY, ACCESSIBILITY, GENDER, AND SCIENCE FICTION(2019) Hands, Christine; Widrig, Patrik; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Hamlet” was a thirty-eight minute work of dance art premiered at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland on October 12 and 14, 2018. The work explored four pillars of research through embodied exploration: representation, accessibility, inclusion, and reinvention. These four themes are discussed in the following paper as theoretical points of inquiry. The first chapter discusses representation of peoples with disabilities. The second chapter explores the accessibility features for audience members which were available at the performance. The third chapter considers inclusion and challenges the canon of traditional white, male casting of the role of Hamlet. The fourth chapter discusses the use of science fiction to tie everything together by creating a space of transformative play-acting where people can exercise their imaginations to create a more inclusive and accessible society. Theoretical and scholarly research informs and then reflects the work onstage in “Hamlet.”Item DWELLING: A PERSPECTIVE OF THE IN-BETWEEN(2019) Carlson, Stacey; Keefe, Maura; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Today’s contemporary circus is marked by a merging of embodied practices, including dance, puppetry and clowning. Apart from etymological play on meaning and the corporeal; the mixing, meddling, and swirling of genres not only offers the artist a new way to express sensory experiences, but also engages the artist and the art into a new interdependent relationship with an interactive audience. This research explores how these traditional and contemporary art forms are being interpreted, understood and contextualized. Through a tacit use of phenomenology, the study contributes to a better understanding of the location of embodied practice in dance research and it establishes the interconnectedness between tradition and modernity; past, present, and future; and the exploration of the in-between. Dwelling was an interdisciplinary work performed October 12 and 14, 2018 in the Kogod Theater at the Clarice Performing Arts Center in partial fulfillment of the Master in Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland, College Park’s School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies.Item Dancing Architecture: A Formal Approach to Translating Movement and Dance(2017) Kim, Karen; Ambrose, Michael A; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Dance is an outlet that teaches empathy and inspires people to communicate their stories through body movement. Architecture has the same ability to tell stories. I also contend that architecture made of representational narrative in the use of metaphorical forms and tectonics has the ability to teach and communicate. I believe there is a need for architecture to be more open and educational. Methods and lessons of dance will be applied embodied in ways to induce learning to my architectural thesis. Precedents emphasizing graphic representations of dance movements will support the idea of instructive design. This investigation will entail the work of Étienne-Jules Marey, pioneer of using graphical techniques to depict sequential movement of the human body, and the work of Eadweard Muybridge, an innovator of photographic studies of motion. The work of my thesis will be to conceive of places for people to congregate, where social and cultural intersections will foster an inspiration for movement or interaction.