Most typical for the Balkans and Bulgaria is the line dance – dancing in a semi-circle or full circle, just as it was visually depicted in some ancient ritual dances. This circle bonds people not only inside Bulgaria. It stretches out and exerts its bonding strength upon Bulgarians outside this land too. While completing a participant observation of the adult dance group “Rabotilnitsata,” a program of the Bulgarian and Cultural Heritage Center of Seattle, I observed and compared the different values that Bulgarian folk dance might exhibit outside the homeland and how these affect the success of this group. “Rabotilnitsata” attracts participants from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds, ages, and genders, uniting them through the communal experience of dance. By interviewing attendees of the group in the course of my study I gradually dug deeper and deeper into my curiosity about the members’ reasons for participation in Bulgarian folk dancing in Seattle and the ways that their participation in the group affects their own sense of ethnic identity. I monitored how the participation in this folk dance group, more than any other Bulgarian cultural activities that are offered in the community, has built a stronger sense of connection to Bulgarian culture for its participants, immigrants arriving from Bulgaria between 2 and 30 years ago. I recognized that what distinguishes this group is that it offers more than the dances themselves. The participants dance to unique Bulgarian traditional music, with its therapeutic rhythms and melodies, that remind them of the homeland. These are amplified by the expert knowledge of Bulgarian culture offered by the distinguished leader of this group.
 

I am a movement artist interested in the intersection between dance and horses. My primary focus is contemporary and postmodern dance and more specifically in the way that our bodies can become not just the storyteller, but also the story. For this project I am creating a personal movement practice for myself with horses, as well as choreographing a duet for myself with a rider-less horse. I am working with one of my mentors, JoAnna Mendl Shaw, founder of the Equus Projects and with an Arab-cross named Cato. I am spending time in the arena and in the pasture with Cato playing and honing in on my nonverbal communication skills and my ability to partner with him. This communication is accomplished through the use of techniques like send and recall, which is where I ask Cato to move around the arena using intention and directed energy. I will also spend time on my own and with my mentor in a studio coming up with an improvisational movement score to various types of instrumental music and sound scores. These scores are the tools that I will take back to the arena to set my final piece of choreography with Cato. After I set the final duet I plan to film it and create a short dance film detailing the experience. I will also use the tools I learn in the arena with Cato to create a solo to be preformed at the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

The Internet has shaped everyday culture in nearly every facet of life, including the arts. Dance is involved in the net.art and post-Internet art movements and continues to have a presence online in the age of social media. There has been artistic investigation into how dance artists can make use of online technologies and yet little exploration of how audience members relate to online dance as compared to live performance. This paper presents new insights about the relationship between online dance and its viewers from survey data integrated with contextual historical research. It covers what styles of dance are most frequently watched, which online platforms they’re viewed on, how often the viewer watches dance online, whether online, television, or live performance is preferred, and more. These insights are not conclusive proof of universal truths, but are observed correlations that should lead to further investigation and mark a big step toward understanding what is gained or lost when dance is presented online. Such understanding is useful for choreographers, teachers, and performers who want to consider audience interaction or experience as a part of their work. The approach is to take the research to the audience in the form of an online survey, circulated on the very same social media where dance can be viewed. Another important part of this research is the presentation of previous writing and case studies on online dance. Dance media of the last fifteen years is peppered with stories taking note of the cultural shift to Internet-based communication. Studying these alongside current data and the progression of dance in post-Internet art reveals the evolutionary arc that is still in progress. A greater understanding of this will allow artists and educators to more fully participate in the integration of dance into online culture.

With the professional dance world being as competitive as it is, dancers often struggle with a range of physical and psychological stress. While many university programs are making strides to promote healthier dancers, my research looks specifically at how experiential anatomy courses can help dancers inside and outside of the studio. I worked with the students from one university-level anatomy course and analyzed how student perceptions changed over the course of a quarter. Through student responses and in-depth interviews I looked for changes in students' attitudes about injury prevention, self-image and self-acceptance, and approaches to dance technique. Overall, the students in the anatomy course found that a class that was part lecture, part explorative lab was ultimately helpful in allowing them to understand not just the general anatomy involved with dance technique, but also the unique features of their own bodies. While an understanding of anatomically safe and correct technique seems to be helpful for many dancers, my research project brought up bigger issues of human and individual anatomy and where they conflict with traditional dance aesthetics. In my presentation, I will discuss what aspects of the course the students found helpful and why, as well as how these larger issues of anatomy vs. aesthetics might be addressed in the future.

Humans, we seem to be pack animals. We strive to find cohesive community structures that allow us to satisfy and thrive. For humans like me, finding such communities can often be challenging. At times, I resonate deeply with Groucho Marx’s aphorism, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept people like me as a member.” However, my experience with expressive arts, especially interactive movement-based "jamming," has repeatedly given me a forum to untangle from patterns of alienation and isolation. I have become very interested in how to make such resources available to others who need it. As a culmination of my UW dance studies undergraduate major, I drafted a research proposal to explore ways to catalyze the creation of an integrated performance group which would be fully accessible to underrepresented Seattle populations, including people with disabilities. As the research developed, I felt intuitively pulled away from having such a specific and directive goal. I proceeded to engage in 11 conversations with Seattle-based humans about their unique, non-pigeonhole-able trajectory through inclusion, desire, community, and artistic expression. I cast a wide net of invitations, focusing on folk I felt intuitively drawn to connect with (or connect more with), as well as people I didn't know so well who were involved with disability-oriented culture and/or other underrepresented populations. The 11 conversations became themselves poetic duets akin to my interactive movement-based expressive arts experience. I created a blog to document these duets, and to provide important recommendations for anyone interested in creating inclusive expressive arts events. I envision the presentation of my findings at the undergraduate research symposium to be a step in the ongoing development of these conversations.

In his 2004 welcome address, Karl Paulnack, the director of the music division at The Boston Conservatory, claimed that artists are “a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up.” Choreographing Emotion is an investigation into the expression of emotion in dance. Through the use of images and dance philosophy on choreographing empathy, I have worked with nine dancers to investigate the personal integration of dancer stories as literal movement. Some of my other research methods include displaying the same choreography with different sounds/music, anonymous audience surveys, studies on movement and early childhood development, and psychology writings on images that provoke an emotional response. This project strives to discover what spatial patterns, initiation of movements, and music are perceived to be vulnerable, strong, scared, anxious, and happy.