The communicative power of laughter in modern dance

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Title The communicative power of laughter in modern dance
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Fine Arts
Department Modern Dance
Author Sun, Wenting
Date 2015-12
Description Laughter is a physiological and psychological response when people perceive something as funny. In my choreographic thesis work "float away," I explored how laughter can create intimacy between audience, performer, and dance artist. Physical humor derived from dance brings the artist, dancers, and audience together in a shared experience that is conveyed through the human body. I believe that the audiences' experience of the emotive expressivity of the performers' physical body has the potential to deeply connect them to one another. Through my own dance experiences, I believe that humor and the act of laughter can allow audience members to emotionally open up, creating more receptivity to choreographic themes and creative work. This thesis will consider how humor explores and can be elicited through relationships of the performers on stage, as well as the relationship between performers and audience. As a non-native speaker, jester, and dance artist, I choreographed the piece "float away," which served as an exploration of humor in modern dance, and questioned whether or not it is an effective tool for connecting the audience to the performers on stage. "float away" was choreographed for my thesis and shown at the University of Utah 2014 Fall Graduate Concert.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Choreography; Communication; Dance; Laughter
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Master of Fine Arts
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Wenting Sun 2015
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 27,149 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/4045
ARK ark:/87278/s6fn4fhq
Setname ir_etd
ID 197595
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6fn4fhq
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