Date of Submission

Spring 2013

Academic Program

Dance

Project Advisor 1

Peggy Florin

Abstract/Artist's Statement

All artists are necessarily involved in an unceasing dialogue with the surrounding world, which shapes, molds, informs, and influences all creative productions, no matter the type. I seek to embrace this dialogue, to incorporate it as fully and completely as possible. When art is divorced from its natural environment, the work becomes isolated and separated from human experience. But dance is an art form instantiated by the movement of human beings and their bodies—both of which are inextricably connected with human experience. Thus, the relationship between human experience and art emerges as a vital aspect of modern dance.

Dancing in the Dialogue: Abstraction and Interconnectivity in Art, investigates the relationship between modern dance and the body from a first-hand perspective. Additionally, this paper endeavors to examine and inspect how such an art form (dance) and its tool (the body) intersect with concepts like abstraction and the artistic dialogue, illuminating the ways in which art consistently interacts with the contiguous environment.

In Seeing and Nothingness, choreography is utilized as a means for addressing the difficulties inherent in all attempts to abstract physical, corporeal forms. Named for Sartre’s famous text, Being and Nothingness, this dancework investigates themes common to existentialist philosophy, such as meaninglessness and choice. Props, speech, music, and film are all incorporated within the choreography, which attempts to bridge the gap between the physical and theoretical realms.

(physical) Graffiti investigates the relationship between artistic creations and our current world, positing the impossibility of creating completely original and uninfluenced work. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, the choreography incorporates everything from chance procedures and text-based movement, to Harry Potter and pop music videos. By integrating several disparate elements into one cohesive whole, the piece revels in the existence of this artistic dialogue, embracing and encouraging its presence.

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