Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: Washington, D.C.- native Melvin Deal formulated African dance through teaching and performing in the District in the late 1950s and early 1960s while still a student at Howard University. Deal came by his earliest versions of traditional dance through Caribbean immigrants (namely Dominicans and Cubans) to the area. Though Deal thought he was learning a traditional form of African dance, he was really exposed to African dance through a Caribbean filter. This exposure helped him to initiate and later capitalize on what would become a growing trend in popular culture as well as dance—to identify with African iconography and celebrate cultural heritage through the language of dance. This presentation examines the dance legacy of Melvin Deal and Deal’s contributions of African dance forms to Washington, D.C. dance scene.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: This essay explores how discourses of difference uphold the separation of people with disabilities from the world of art, especially dance. Through the efforts of one mixed ability dance company, Dancing Wheels challenges mind/body assumptions as members perform a counter-narrative of disability. Dancing Wheels, located in Cleveland, OH, is the first modern dance company to integrate professional stand-up and sit-down (wheelchair) dancers. Mary Verdi-Fletcher, President and Founding Artistic Director, a pioneer in the field of integrated dance, started the company in 1980, and for more than a quarter of a century, Dancing Wheels has performed, taught and inspired children and adults of all abilities around the world. Additionally, Dancing Wheels provides innovative employment opportunities by supporting artistic collaborations between individuals with and without disabilities. My ethnographic portrayal is based on my experiences as an individual with a disability engaging in fieldwork with a mixed ability dance company. I explore narratives performed in daily routines and collected through in-depth interviews with dancers and audience members as well as document analysis. I am interested in the ways how the dancers perform a counter-narrative of disability which allows the company to (re)inscribe dance and (dis)ability.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Hanya Holm is best known as a successful choreographer of Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady, but she first emigrated from Germany to New York in 1931 as a leading representative of European modernism. Weimar-era concepts of the metropolis and the dangerous effects of modernity shaped Holm’s theory of “America,” and her initial experiences in New York reinforced her assumptions. For her, New York was a crossroads, a place of possibility, danger, and seduction: she was fearful of the commodification of bodies that she saw in American dance forms, yet fascinated by their energy and vitality.

In the mid-1930s, Holm began traveling West, specifically to Colorado, and her experiences there inspired her to re-shape her practice and theory to embody the “American spirit.” She sought a genuine American folk culture, from which she would midwife a true American dance. Though this vision was never fully realized, Holm did profoundly shape American modern dance, particularly as it is still taught in higher education programs. This paper will examine how Holm’s theories of dance as folk culture stood at the crossroads of European modernism and Americanist dance.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: What role does media-generated emotion play in youth creativity? Is it an assessment tool? Does it alter the kind of attention given to a problem? Does it foster or impede the flow of ideas? Is it energizing physically or mentally? By varying the levels of arousal associated with low, medium and high levels of exertion in Dance Dance Revolution, and inducing a positive or negative mood, this study offers evidence that media-generated emotion significantly affects creativity through the interaction of arousal and valence. Faced with the cognitive demand of creativity, lower arousal levels resulted in higher creativity scores when coupled with a negative mood. At high arousal levels, a positive mood resulted in greater creativity. The results of the study are evaluated in light of theories of emotion as a prime, as information, as a moderator of attention, and in relation to cognitive capacity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Mathematics and Dance

If mathematics is a study of pattern, then dance choreography can be described using mathematics. Dance choreography often displays pattern symmetry types such as reflection, rotation, translation and glide. Students explore mathematical patterns and use them to create dance choreography.

In the past year, I worked in collaboration with the dance department to choreograph a piece for our spring dance program. We used Pascal’s triangle as a choreographic tool, as well as, algebra and geometry. The pattern of Pascal’s triangle, 1, 1,1, 121, 1331 gave us the number of dancers on stage. The formula ‘length of segment’ = t +1.5, where t was the length of the first stage of the dance. The patterns formed onstage were geometric, triangles; two triangles – or square. What resulted was a lively dance enjoyed by the dancers, as well as, the audience.

Dance choreography can, also, be used as a teaching tool in a mathematics class. To choreograph a dance the choreographer must count the number of phrases in the musical score and note what time signature the music is in. From there, the choreographer can make a rule, use a math pattern or a combination of both to build the steps of the dance.

Why use dance to teach math? Students who are art majors find an outlet for their creativity. Non-art majors enjoy the team work and the kinesthetic approach to learning. All students like being able to build something that is all their own.