Embodied truths: improvisation, self-discovery, and queer identities in dance making and performance

In this thesis, I researched improvisation in two capacities: its potential as a tool for self-discovery, and its potential as a tool for generating movement for a choreographic work. Over the course of three months, I worked with seven dancers, one of them being myself. This gave me the opportunity to gather information from witnessing movement and from the embodied experience of movement. The dance that resulted from this creative research is entitled I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you I'm Unraveling. It was performed in the Hayes-Christianson Theater at the Marriott Center for Dance on March 28th, 29th and 30th, 2024. You can watch the work by clicking the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNjWRP019ts It is also linked in the body of this paper for those who would prefer to watch it after reading about my research background and creative process. My challenge was to synthesize the embodied experiences of myself and others into a work of art that was representative of my collaborators, fulfilled my own creative desires, and was aesthetically and emotionally interesting to audiences. A collective curiosity about our queer identities in dance emerged throughout the process. Improvisation became a means of personal identity exploration, and performance served as a space to represent and affirm our identities. In this creative process, I found that my approach to dance-making and performance involves more than just the mechanics of the individual body; it encompasses the entirety of each collaborator's human self and the connections that arise between us in improvisational practices and the creative process.

EMBODIED TRUTHS: IMPROVISATION, SELF-DISCOVERY, AND QUEER IDENTITIES IN DANCE MAKING AND PERFORMANCE by Elle Malan Taylor A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The University of Utah In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts In Modern Dance Approved: ________________ Professor Molly Heller Thesis Faculty Supervisor ___ Melonie Murray Chair, Department of XXXX _______________________________ Professor Chris Alloways-Ramsey Honors Faculty Advisor _____________________________ Monisha Pasupathi, PhD Dean, Honors College May 2024 Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT In this thesis, I researched improvisation in two capacities: its potential as a tool for self-discovery, and its potential as a tool for generating movement for a choreographic work. Over the course of three months, I worked with seven dancers, one of them being myself. This gave me the opportunity to gather information from witnessing movement and from the embodied experience of movement. The dance that resulted from this creative research is entitled I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you I’m Unraveling. It was performed in the Hayes-Christianson Theater at the Marriott Center for Dance on March 28th, 29th and 30th, 2024. You can watch the work by clicking the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNjWRP019ts It is also linked in the body of this paper for those who would prefer to watch it after reading about my research background and creative process. My challenge was to synthesize the embodied experiences of myself and others into a work of art that was representative of my collaborators, fulfilled my own creative desires, and was aesthetically and emotionally interesting to audiences. A collective curiosity about our queer identities in dance emerged throughout the process. Improvisation became a means of personal identity exploration, and performance served as a space to represent and affirm our identities. In this creative process, I found that my approach to dance-making and performance involves more than just the mechanics of the individual body; it encompasses the entirety of each collaborator's human self and the connections that arise between us in improvisational practices and the creative process. iii This thesis is dedicated to Cooper, Marlee, Kiya, Abby, Lily, and Charlotte. iv Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge and thank Cooper Sullivan, Marlee Stephens, Kiya Green, Abby Pace, Lily Hammons, and Charlotte Stehmeyer for offering your time and energy to learn and dance with me. Thank you for keeping me laughing, constantly. Thank you to Bly Wallentine for the gift of your music and ever-inspiring self. Thank you to everyone who let me rearrange your room so I could borrow your rug. Thank you to the tech crew at the Marriott Center for Dance for making my scenery and lighting dreams come true and for putting up with an immensity of dusty rugs. Mom, Dad, thank you for your continual support and constant encouragement. To Molly Heller, thank you. After taking my first improv class with you, I knew I would have to keep searching. Thank you for believing in me, keeping me grounded, and for helping me through multiple iterations of this research. To Gwen Christopherson, my dear, thank you for coming to every show these last two years. Thank you for being a witness to my search for myself on and off stage. Thank you for listening to my ramblings and helping me follow my creative thoughts to new places. My dances and my life would not be the same without you, I love you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii BACKGROUND 1 INTRODUCTION 2 PROCESS 4 TOOLS WE FOUND ALONG THE WAY 6 TO BE SEEN 7 ART-MAKING AS WORLD-BUILDING 11 EXPLORING AND ASSERTING QUEER IDENTITIES IN PERFORMANCE 13 CONCLUSION 15 REFERENCES 17 1 BACKGROUND I have studied under the mentorship of Professor Molly Heller for 2 academic years cumulatively. Her previous and continued research of improvisation in creative process, performance, and pedagogy has served as the background for my own research. Under her advisement in the Spring Semester 2023, I conducted an independent study entitled Improvisation as a Healing Ritual: Lessons I Learned and Magic I Found Along the Way. My goal for this study was my personal practices of both improvisation and yoga in order to develop an develop a theory and practice of improvisation as a healing ritual. I connected these forms intellectually through personal reflection as well as reading various texts related to somatic healing, yogic philosophy, and improvisation. I conducted embodied research, focusing on personal practices and reflections. Each week I spent time reading, writing, reflectively walking, and engaging in an improvisational or yoga practice. One of my improvisation practices developed into a choreographic project which I performed at the Marriott Center for Dance in March 2023. In the Fall Semester 2024, Professor Heller was my faculty advisor for an Undergraduate Research Opportunities project entitled Dance Improvisation as a Somatic Healing Tool and Generator of Movement Performance Art. My goal for this study was to utilize the practices and findings of my independent study as the methods for a creative process with four other dancers and three musicians to create a multi-disciplinary performance piece which was performed at the Marriott Center for Dance in November 2023 and at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Provo in March 2024. These two studies provided the embodied background research through which I discovered the foundational principles and practices of this thesis research. 2 INTRODUCTION In my childhood dance education at a private, competitive dance studio, I was taught that the medium of dance is the body. By blocking connections between my mind, body, and spirit, I learned to use my body as a machine. Teachers rewarded me for this skill, as it allowed me to ignore and push beyond my physical and emotional limits. In consistently practicing improvisation, I have been able to reopen and nurture pathways of communication between my mind, body, and spirit. In researching improvisation, I have found that the medium for my dancemaking is not the machinery of the isolated body, but the whole human self of each individual I collaborate with and the connections between us. Peter Levine is a psychologist and prominent researcher in the field of somatic trauma therapy. He researches the ways trauma is held in the body and the tools we might use to restore traumatized people’s nervous systems to equilibrium. The American Psychological Association defines trauma as “any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion or other disruptive feels intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning” (2023). This means that an experience that qualifies as traumatic varies from person to person, depending on life history and physiology. Levine argues that “trauma symptoms are not caused by the triggering event itself. They stem from the frozen residue of energy that has not been resolved and discharged; this residue remains trapped in the nervous system where it can wreak havoc on our bodies and spirits” (1997, p. 19). This means that many people are living their everyday lives holding traumatic 3 residue that impacts their nervous system’s ability to respond and regulate appropriately to stimuli and stress. Levine explains that “allowing the completion of the defensive and orienting responses” of the body, those associated with the “fight, flight or freeze” response, is necessary to move through traumatic experiences. He identifies that this can happen even years after a trauma occurs, with somatic tools allowing his patients to release the traumatic residue that causes prolonged periods of unhealthful patterns in the body and psyche (2010, p.9). Improvisation is a practice of making movement choices in the moment. Movers use their senses to attune to their environment and their own sensory experiences. The body uses this information to make the next choice. In improvisation we can integrate body and mind, using movement to regulate the central nervous system. Improvisation is a practice ground for being responsive to our lives, trusting our choices, and relinquishing control over what will happen next. Improvisation has the capacity to be an incredible tool for the defensive and orienting responses in the body to be fully realized and completed. Simple movement prompts such as “do exactly what you need to do in this moment” (from Molly Heller’s improvisation course in the School of Dance), can be effective tools for me to invite people to discover the instinctive movement and/or stillness needed to process sensory and emotional information. I incorporated meditative and breathing practices in our creative process to encourage nervous system regulation and connection to our inner-selves prior to jumping right in to an improvisational practice. A study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology found that when subjects breathed with an intentional pace as well as tracked their breath, both the insula, (regulates autonomic nervous system and is essential for body awareness), and 4 the anterior cingulate cortex (brain area involved in present moment awareness) were significantly activated (Herrero et. al., 2018). Body scanning and breathing exercises are simple and effective ways to calm the central nervous system, allowing the person to feel safe, aware and ready to engage in movement exploration. The field of psychiatric research clearly shows the benefits of somatic processing, but there is limited information as to how a person might be impacted by artistically performing something created via somatic modalities. For her graduate thesis, Molly Heller researched her own experience of processing trauma through dance performance. By performing a work that had been created through the exploration of past trauma she “felt accepted and nurtured, which is something [Heller] had not experienced prior to this performative moment” (2015, p. 4), Heller proposes that “when our lived experiences are seen, heard and felt in the company of others, healing can occur on an emotional, biological and spiritual level” (2015, p.5). This research advocates for the unique power of performance, evidencing that being witnessed can positively transform one’s process of healing and self-discovery and offer the senses of safety and belonging that are necessary to human wellbeing. PROCESS The space and time of the finished project were determined by production needs, so as I set about creating the work, I knew it would be performed on a proscenium stage, could not be longer than 8 minutes and would be performed during the last weekend in March 2024. Cooper Sullivan, Marlee Stephens, Kiya Green, Lily Hammons, Abby Pace, Charlotte Stehmeyer and I met for two hours weekly to engage in improvisation 5 practices, conversation, journaling and choreography. Some days, we left without analyzing what we did or formally collecting ideas. Other days, we spent time discussing and writing about our movement practices and gathering movement patterns, sensory experiences, imagery, and thematic elements to remember and use as material for the creative project. I participated in some improvisation practices and observed others. In doing so I was able to gather information both from witnessing my dancers and from my own embodied experiences with the tasks. A method I often employed was to capture improvisational moments to be remembered. I would watch the dancers improvise, tracking moments of potency and interest, and then immediately after we would return to those moments together, physically repeating them and verbally describing them. This captured fleeting embodied experiences which would continue to hold some of their original feeling, but would inevitably transform as we incorporated them in remembered movement sequences to perform. Throughout this research, I continually asked the following question of myself and my collaborators: what are the practices and principles we can rely upon to stay accountable to a consistent practice of moving and creating while caring for ourselves and one another in the process? Answers emerged throughout the duration of the project: • Consistency in rehearsal times, space and general structure • Checking in with one another at the beginning of each rehearsal to determine collective energetic, emotional and physical needs • The coexistence of silliness and rigor, taking our silliness seriously 6 • Sharing food and tea before, during, or after rehearsal as a way to nourish ourselves, slow down, and connect • Maintaining a drive to continue creating without the frenetic energy of urgency • As a ritual, saying “I love you” aloud to ourselves at the end of each rehearsal TOOLS WE FOUND ALONG THE WAY In our improvisational explorations, a few tools and improvisational practices emerged that became pillars of the creative work. After discovering them, we practiced them often, discovering the movement, mental approaches, and emotionality that felt collectively important to share in performance. The most significant of these tools were: • • • • Act as if your eyes are a camera lens o Prompting dancers to “act as if ____” is a tool I learned from Molly Heller’s improvisation course. Act as if your eyes are a camera lens prompted us to become present and aware of what we were seeing, employing our eyes as another place to move from. This prompt also brings significance to whatever it is we are looking at; everything is beautiful enough to capture on camera. Act as if you can warp time o This prompt helped us to fully commit to and indulge in different qualities of time. Particularly when trying to move extremely slowly, it was useful to act as if we could actually slow down time. Continuous breath, continuous movement o This practice is an effort to breathe continuously, blurring the moment between inhale and exhale, while also moving the body continuously – parts of the body can stop moving, but some part must be moving at all times. We practiced this in stretches of 3-7 minutes and found that in abiding by the task, new movement patterns and efficient use of the body emerged from exhaustion. It is difficult to overthink your next choice when you must keep going. Fantastical creatures and magic 7 o To get at particular movement qualities, we called upon fantastical creatures like dragons, fairies, and witches. We employed the tool of pretending to do magic to imbue choreographic moments with meaning, significance, and fun. TO BE SEEN The finished work entitled I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you I’m Unraveling and was 8 minutes in duration. We performed the work in the Hayes-Christianson Theater at the Marriott Center for Dance on March 28th, 29th and 30th, 2024. Click the following link to watch the recording of the March 30th performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNjWRP019ts At the beginning of the creative process, I asked each person I was working with what they wanted and needed out of the process and performance, a facilitation tool I learned from Molly Heller’s creative process. I wrote down the answers of each person, and intentionally addressed each in the final work. Abby’s desire was to use performance as a way of doing magic, specifically with hand movement, which we fulfilled by creating a moment for her to cast a spell on Charlotte and I in the beginning of the piece. She wrote down the spell and created hand movements to go with it. Marlee’s desire was to have a moment to emerge and take up space, she and I had conversations about what this meant to her emotionally, and physically fulfilled that desire at the end of the piece with her in the center of the stage doing big, full-bodied circles on the floor. Kiya’s desire was to physically and emotionally perform what it feels like to try something over and over again. Together we created this moment for her toward the beginning of the piece with her repeatedly falling and getting back up. This concept also inspired my use of repetition throughout the piece. Cooper’s desire was to challenge their stamina, so I gave 8 them continuous and challenging movement sequences throughout the piece. Charlotte’s desire was to represent queerness on stage. She and I incorporated this with a kiss at the very end of the piece. Lily’s desire to do something silly and absurd on stage was fulfilled at the end when she poured tea from the pot onto Abby. These were moments for them to physicalize expressed desires and be witnessed by an audience in that expression. Including the voice of each person I was working with also helped me get out of my head in moments of creative frustration. 10 The act of showing up each week to improvise together was itself very important for each of us, but something particularly powerful happens when we constructed these moments into a work of art to be seen. As performers, we get to be witnessed in a state of vulnerability in which personal transformation can occur. In this open-hearted space, there is a tender exchange between performer and audience, during which our shared humanity becomes palpable. The performer and the witness gather together and experience bigness of our feeling selves. I wrote the following poem to accompany the work and care for the exchange between art and audience. It was featured in the show program notes for audience members to read before or after watching: Unravel me There's steadiness in my belly And the bottoms of my feet but I gave up and let my heart break this morning It seems its open (again) And so From the center of my chest I’m unraveling I’m unraveling I don’t have to tell you it’s all too beautiful to bear with these 5 senses, no More More, more, more, more, And I’m only just beginning From the center of my chest I’m unraveling I’m unraveling And somehow it keeps going and I am learning The Something that keeps my heart pounding One day will move on Unraveling onward toward new madnesses of aliveness And I’m only just beginning 11 ART-MAKING AS WORLD-BUILDING Author and activist Ismatu Gwendolyn argues that art-making can be a way to reinforce the status quo, or can be a form of world building -- a way to bring our wildest imaginations and desires for our world into reality. “It’s not just about telling the truth,” she writes, “it’s about shaping truth itself” (2024). When we make art, we have the opportunity to shape what we believe is beautiful, valuable and truthful into a world of our creation. It allows us to expand our imaginations of what is possible, and show it to people. I had the opportunity to create, in collaboration with my cast, a world that could exist for just 8 minutes for three nights in a row. Though we had limited time, I wanted this world to be slow and indulgent, reflecting my belief that taking our time is one of the most rebellious, important things we can do. So, for the first few minutes of the work, we acted as if we could warp time and live in slow motion. I included a tea set, and we took time on stage to drink tea, a pleasurable way to slow down and connect. I wanted the world of our creation to be cozy and aesthetically beautiful, so I borrowed 8 rugs from friends and family to put on the stage for us to dance on. I wanted our dancing world to feel like a home, so we used warm, lamp-like lighting. To reflect my imaginations of a world where people are connected, interdependent, and responsive to one another, much of the choreography relied upon watching our fellow dancers and responding to each other’s cues to do the next thing. I created moments of unison and togetherness to reflect a world where we can feel ourselves as individuals and they ways we contribute to the interconnected whole. 12 Photos by Todd Collins 13 EXPLORING AND ASSERTING QUEER IDENTITIES IN PERFORMANCE Including myself, the majority of the dancers I worked with on this project hold queer identities. Together we had rich discussions about our personal experiences of discovering and embracing our queerness. Bell Hooks defines “queer' not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but 'queer' as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live” (2014). As a collective, we resonated with this definition, and in conversation and improvisation, explored what such a life looks and feels like for each of us. In conversations about the desire to represent queerness on stage, Charlotte and I decided that representing queer intimacy was important to us. At the very end of the piece, she and I kissed until the lights faded out. During this moment, there were many other things happening on stage. Including this moment without making it the centerpiece of the narrative structure was important in normalizing the kiss. We did not make a dance about queer intimacy, but used this moment as a natural expression of connection, joy, and celebration in combination with other simultaneous expressions. The process and performance of the work also offered an opportunity to explore and express gender identity. Both Cooper Sullivan and I are genderqueer, nonbinary individuals and we are constantly being asked to explain and justify our identities with visual cues and words. Queer studies scholar Dana Lynn Nuckolls explains this as they argue that through the eyes of power, “something is only real, and it can only exist if it can be observed, named, measured and quantified through those eyes of power” (2021). They go on to explain the process of discovering one’s genderqueerness as a “process of 14 realizing all of the ways that you have not been seeing with your own eyes, you have not been thinking with your own mind and surely have not been feeling with your own body” (2021). In improvisation, we had the opportunity tap into our own subjective, authentic, embodied experiences of our own consciousnesses. We used improvisation in combination with conversation and journaling exercises to explore beyond the bounds of what we have been told we are meant to see, think, feel and be. Nuckolls asserts that in the moment we place someone within the gender binary upon looking at them, we lose our curiosity. Our subconscious decides the range of emotions that person can feel, the way they should wear their hair and clothing, the way their voice should sound, etc. In exploring our identities through movement improvisation, all seven of us had the opportunity to discover and create the self that exists within or beyond the gender binary and the assumptions that come with it. Moving from this exploration to performance offered a profound moment for me to assert my multiplicitous, undefinable identity to be witnessed and applauded. 15 CONCLUSION This thesis is the culmination of three semesters of focused improvisation research. I have discovered the profound potential of improvisation as a means of selfdiscovery, identity exploration, and as a rigorous, rich method of making dances. Through a collaborative exploration with fellow dancers, the research journey unfolded as a deeply embodied process, weaving together personal narratives, improvisational techniques, and artistic world-building tools. The choreographic work, I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you I’m Unraveling, emerged as a testament to the interconnectedness of humans, transcending mere physicality to embrace the entirety of each collaborator’s being. In performing this work, we had the opportunity to be witnessed in these full, complex versions of ourselves. Audience members had the opportunity to receive an authentic offering of vulnerability, giving rise to a profound exchange of humanity that ripples beyond the moment the lights fade. The work invites audience members and performers to reflect on the role of art-making as a form of world-building—a space where imaginations are expanded, truths are reshaped, and diverse voices find resonance. A focused, rigorous practice of improvisation has been a place for me to learn and feel what it is like to be responsive in the moment rather than holding on tightly what I think should happen next. This has rippled beyond dance into my life. In my other field of study, sustainable agriculture, I feel improvisation influence my ability to respond to the needs of the moment when caring for an ever-changing agricultural ecosystem. When I begin to try to control the flow of my life and my relationships, I turn to the principles and practice of improvisation to remember the balance of letting go and trusting the next choice. Improvisation has taught me to partner with the energies of my own body, other 16 people, nonhuman beings, and the space I find myself in. Though this particular project has come to a close, my research of improvisation as a way to stay curious and present will be lifelong. The following statements emerged as a conclusion to this iteration of my improvisational research. Yes to the magic held in each precious human body, the magic that is the medium of our making Yes to dancing to release the residue of our pain Yes to breathing all the way in and all the way out Yes to vulnerability Yes to rituals of care Yes to experimentation, yes to research Yes to laughter and absurdity Yes to visible queerness, yes to intangible queerness Yes to art that calls for liberation and imagines freer worlds Yes to remembering the rhythms and spirals of aliveness -- life is a dance To those who read this overview of the why and how of I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you I’m Unraveling, thank you. To those who watched it, thank you. I love you Cooper, I love you Marlee, I love you Kiya, I love you Abby, I love you Lily, I love you Charlotte, I love you Elle. 17 REFERENCES “American Psychological Association (APA).” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/. Accessed 28 Apr. 2024. Gwendolyn, Ismatu. “The Role of the Artist Is to Load the Gun.” Ismatu Gwendolyn, Substack.com, 11 Apr. 2024. Heller, Molly. “BECOMING INCREDIBLE: HEALING TRAUMA THROUGH PERFORMANCE.” University of Utah Thesis & Dissertations, Aug. 2015. Hooks, Bell. “Bell Hooks - Are You Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body | Eugene Lang College.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 May 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJk0hNROvzs&t=5226s. Levine, Peter A. In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma. North Atlantic Books, 2010. Levine, Peter A., et al. Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. North Atlantic Books, 1997. Palaestra. Trauma-Informed Teaching Practices for Dance Educators, Jan. 2023, https://doi.org/EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=162718822&site=eh ost-live. “Trauma Informed Teaching | Dr. Meredith Fox | Tedxfieldstonedriveed.” YouTube, YouTube, 12 July 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vbN5CZCEsw. Whitney, Ev’Yan. “Episode 59: Decolonize Your Gender (with Dayna Lynn Nuckolls).” Ev’Yan Whitney, Sexuality Doula®, Ev’Yan Whitney, Sexuality Doula®, 21 Nov. 2021, www.evyanwhitney.com/episodes/episode-59. 18 Name of Candidate: Elle Malan Taylor Date of Submission: May 2, 2024