Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2022, Educational Leadership

The enclosed study examines the systemic equity of classical dance training by questioning the existence of implicit bias, its impact on teacher identity, and its role in building pedagogical practices that reflect experiences with implicit bias in ballet training. Motivated by the ongoing conversation about the lack of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), it departs from conventional student deficit-centered reasons. Instead, in it you will find a qualitative, self-reflective, actionable study that focuses on the teacher roles in equity-facing change determined through Critical Action Research methods. The study uses focus groups comprised of ballet practitioners who have experience studying, teaching, observing, and accompanying ballet classes that serve inclusive student bodies. Because of the affective construction of implicit bias; furthermore, the study employs a proprietary conceptual framework, Contemporary Intentional Change (CIC) shaped by pre-data collection, self-reflective examinations of identity undertaken by participants. Focus group participants provided description-rich data that is organized in a resulting Taxonomy of Implicit Bias in Classical Dance Training. As an insightful schema into what comprises implicit bias in ballet training, it will be foundational to further, post-study inquiry to determine long and short-term, equity-facing interventions that foster inclusion, increased student engagement, and organizational change.

Committee: Matthew A. Witenstein (Committee Chair); Rodney Veal (Committee Member); Elizabeth Essex (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Arts Management; Dance; Educational Leadership; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Dance Studies

The Real Theatro de Sao Carlos de Lisboa employed Italian choreographers from its inauguration in 1793 to the middle of the nineteenth century. Many libretti for the ballets produced for the S. Carlos Theater have survived and are now housed in the National Library of Portugal. This dissertation focuses on the narratives of the libretti in this collection, and their importance as documentation of ballets of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, from the inauguration of the S. Carlos Theater in 1793 to 1850. This period of dance history, which has not received much attention by dance scholars, links the earlier baroque dance era of the eighteenth century with the style of ballet of the 1830s to the 1850s. Portugal had been associated with Italian art and artists since the beginning of the eighteenth century. This artistic relationship continued through the final decades of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. The majority of the choreographers working in Lisbon were Italian, and the works they created for the S. Carlos Theater followed the Italian style of ballet d'action. Libretti are documented accounts of choreography of this period and contain important information regarding the style of the ballets produced in Lisbon. The narratives of the ballets in these libretti reveal the style of works produced in Lisbon from the late eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth centuries: the ballet d action that relied on the use of pantomime and gestures to tell stories. The importance of pantomime in ballets of the period covered in this investigation becomes evident in the analysis of several scenarios of ballets produced in Lisbon. This salient characteristic of ballets of the period emerges through the plot developments of the ballets d action produced in Portugal.

Committee: Karen Eliot (Advisor) Subjects: Dance

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Arts Policy and Administration

This research aims to elevate dancers' perspectives of the operational dynamics within a major U.S. ballet company to better understand their working relationship to the Dual Executive Leadership (DEL) team and their role as critical contributors to the development of an arts organization and broader arts policy. Examining the case of Miami City Ballet, this study gathers feedback from dancers on how they interact with the company's DEL team, comprised of the Artistic and Executive Directors, and how these interactions impact their work. The central questions ask how ballet dancers perceive dynamics of communication, trust, value, and respect in their working relationship with company leadership. Using narrative inquiry as methodology, dancers were asked to share their stories of interactions with the DEL team through a survey and interviews. Twelve (12) dancers completed the survey, and of those, five (5) agreed to participate in a follow-up semi-structured interview. Findings suggest opportunities for improving communication practices to foster more connection between dancers and leadership, for developing a work culture that invites feedback and is based on mutual trust, and for reconsidering how dancers are valued as key contributors to decision-making spaces. These findings add an important new perspective to research on leadership and organizational studies in ballet and the arts more broadly.

Committee: Tiffany Bourgeois (Committee Member); Rachel Skaggs (Advisor) Subjects: Arts Management; Dance; Labor Relations; Management; Organization Theory

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Dance Studies

In this historical study, I examine the ballet pedagogy in New York City from the opening of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in 1909 to the founding of George Balanchine's School of American Ballet in 1934. Challenging the widely propagated view that Balanchine is the sole founder of American ballet, I argue that the first generation of American ballet dancers emerged during the research period under the tutelage of numerous Italian and Russian immigrant ballet teachers. I illuminate the individual histories and contributions of these noteworthy yet largely overlooked instructors, whose contributions set the development of American ballet in motion. In addition, I tease apart the context for ballet during this period. I look at the impact of capitalism, commercialism, democracy, and immigration on ballet teachers, their students, and their approaches, and I survey the effects of vaudeville and revue, the burgeoning film industry, and Progressive Era movement trends like aesthetic barefoot dance and the Delsarte System of Expression on ballet, its people, and its pedagogy. Broad theories of nationalism, internationalism, and Americanism undergird my study of this rich and underexamined period in ballet history.

Committee: Karen Eliot PhD (Committee Chair); Melanie Bales (Committee Member); Candace Feck PhD (Committee Member); Susan Hadley (Committee Member) Subjects: Dance

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Music History

German choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009) spent most of her career as the director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal dance company in Germany. She is known for her 1975 production of Le sacre du printemps, and later for her "World Cities" series of works (1986-2009) created during residencies in ten major world cities. In the 1970s Bausch transitioned from producing "ballet opera" (Ballettoper)−that is, works that closely followed the narrative "framework" of the operas they were based on−to Tanztheater ("dance theatre") which shied away from such explicit storytelling. Like most new theatre in West Germany in the 1970s, Bausch's Tanztheater had roots in Bertold Brecht's conception of epic theatre. Bausch became increasingly Brechtian in her use of music and movement as her style developed, as shown in her collage pieces that do not use entire works of music. Bausch's increasing reliance on collage and fragmentation can be best illustrated through her inclusion of opera music. In this thesis I argue that the influence of Brecht's epic theatre on Bausch's Tanztheater is essential to understanding the development of her aesthetic and, more specifically, her use of music. I discuss her two Gluck ballet operas, Iphigenie auf Tauris (1973) and Orpheus und Eurydike (1975), her Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht evening in 1974 featuring Die sieben Todsunden and Furchtet euch nicht, her non-linear take on Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, titled Blaubart − Beim Anhoren einer Tonbandaufnahme von Bela Bartoks Oper "Herzog Blaubarts Burg" (1977), and Cafe Muller (1978), which is based on a collage of arias from Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen as well as Dido and Aeneas.

Committee: Eftychia Papanikolaou Dr. (Advisor); Susannah Cleveland (Committee Member) Subjects: Dance; Music

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2008, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Allied Health Sciences: Nutrition

ABSTRACT Objective: To assess the prevalence of, and association between, eating psychopathology and vegetarianism within a cohort of collegiate ballet dancers at a Midwestern university. Design: Participants were recruited via email and asked to anonymously complete the EAT26 and EDI-3 SC questionnaire as part of a survey regarding dietary preferences, behaviors and anthropometrics. Participants: Members of a collegiate ballet program (n=39) were contacted via email to complete a survey. A total of 29 dancers completed the survey but 4 were removed due to exclusion criteria, leaving a total sample of 25 participants. Methods: Surveys were completed in REDCAP and the data were compiled and analyzed for significant associations. A Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to identify the association between EAT26 scores and vegetarianism. Population means were calculated and compared to determine if ballet dancers presented as at-risk for eating psychopathology and with greater prevalence of vegetarianism than nationally representative samples. Caseness for eating psychopathology was determined by scoring 20 or higher on the EAT26. The prevalence and frequency of compensatory behaviors were assessed using the EDI-3 SC. Main Outcome Measure: Of the 25 participants who completed the study, all were female, most were in their first (n=9) or second (n=9) year in college., with an average age of 19.2 (SD 1.2). Twenty four percent(n=6) reported they followed some form of a vegetarian diet. The mean of the EAT26 scores for omnivores was 9.8 (SD 10.3) while it was 20.2 (SD 12.4) for vegetarians (p-value for group comparison = 0.079). Within this cohort, 28% (n=7) scored 20 or greater on the EAT26 and 12% (n=3) had a prior eating disorder diagnosis, suggesting this population may be at considerable risk for eating psychopathology. Eating disordered behaviors included SIV (n=2), laxative/diuretic/diet pill use (n=2), binge eating (n=9) and excessive exercise (n=1 (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Abigail Peairs Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Sarah Couch Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Nutrition

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Dance

“Classicism and Romanticism in Three Ballets by Frederick Ashton” examines three ballets by the twentieth-century British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton (1904–1988). I tease apart elements of the aesthetic theories of classicism and romanticism as they manifest in Ashton's choreography and consider how those aesthetic ideologies relate to representations of gender in performance. I present three case studies from different periods in Ashton's career: Les Illuminations (1950), The Dream (1964), and Rhapsody (1980). In choosing a selection of ballets across Ashton's oeuvre, my analysis identifies the strains of romanticism that are crucial to deciphering meaning in each work individually and elucidates the continuous undercurrent of romanticism that challenge conventions of classical ballet. I consider Ashton's relationship to the art form's approach to gender and its emphasis of sexual difference through the heterosexual pas de deux, athleticism of male dancers, and perceptions of ballerinas as muses. I demonstrate how Ashton's ballets subtly reject these conventions. I then situate each ballet in its historical moment, to further explicate how the ballets' engagements with discourses of gender in dance also refract concomitant sociopolitical circumstances relating to gender and sexuality. I ground each examination in the dance itself and employ choreographic analysis to substantiate the various claims about romanticism/classicism and gender in each ballet; my examination is further supported by scholarship and archival research in the form of critical reviews and personal accounts from the artists involved. Given the differences in era and context of each ballet, each chapter brings into focus a different set of frameworks for analysis. In the chapter on Rhapsody, I consider notions of virtuosity as they relate to gendered norms and the ballet's reversal of roles in gendering the artist as male and the muse as female. In terms of The Dream, I examine the mal (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Karen Eliot PhD (Committee Chair); Andrew Shelton PhD (Committee Member); Daniel Roberts MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: Dance; Gender; Gender Studies; Performing Arts

M.M., University of Cincinnati, 2020, College-Conservatory of Music: Music History

The 1918 ballet, Parade, and its music by Erik Satie is a fascinating, and historically significant example of the avant-garde, yet it has not received full attention in the field of musicology. This thesis will provide a study of Parade and the avant-garde, and specifically discuss the ways in which the avant-garde creates a dialectic between the expressiveness of the artwork and the listener's emotional response. Because it explores the traditional boundaries of art, the avant-garde often resides outside the normal vein of aesthetic theoretical inquiry. However, expression theories can be effectively used to elucidate the aesthetics at play in Parade as well as the implications for expressability present in this avant-garde work. The expression theory of Jenefer Robinson allows for the distinction between expression and evocation (emotions evoked in the listener), and between the composer's aesthetical goal and the listener's reaction to an artwork. This has an ideal application in avant-garde works, because it is here that these two categories manifest themselves as so grossly disparate. Robinson's theory affirms that while the avant-garde elements of Parade may distort, it does not necessarily follow that this distortion lacks significance. Through these methods, expression theory will provide a fresh aesthetical significance to Parade, and a more consummate understanding of the work.

Committee: Jonathan Kregor Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Stephen Cahn Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music; Philosophy

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Leadership Studies, Xavier University, 2017, Leadership Studies and Human Resource Development

The focus of this ethnographic study is to examine the industry-wide culture of the American ballet. Two additional research questions guided the investigation: what attributes, and their light and dark dimensions, are valued among individuals selected for leadership roles within the culture, and how does the ballet industry nurture these attributes? An understanding of the culture was garnered through observations and interviews conducted in three classically-based professional ballet companies in the United States: one located in the Rocky Mountain region, one in the Midwestern region, and one in the Pacific Northwest region. Data analysis brought forth cultural and leadership themes revealing an industry consumed by “the ideal” to the point that members are willing to make sacrifices, both at the individual and organizational levels, for the pursuit of beauty. The ballet culture was found to expect its leaders to manifest the light dimensions of attributes valued by the culture, because these individuals are elevated to the extent that they “become the culture,” but they also allow these individuals to simultaneously exemplify the dark dimensions of these attributes. Tables providing examples of how both the light and dark dimensions of leadership attributes manifest in the ballet industry are presented.

Committee: Gail F. Latta Ph.D. (Committee Chair) Subjects: Dance; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1981, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Music

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2016, Musicology

The animated statue represented one of the central magical figures in French musical theater of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the period covered by this dissertation, 1661-1748, animated statues appeared in more than sixty works of musical theater of almost every available genre. This number does not include the many works containing statues that demonstrated magical or otherworldly properties through means other than movement or song. Some of the works of this period that feature living statues are well-known to musicologists—e.g. Moliere/Jean-Baptiste Lully's comedy-ballet Les Facheux (1661), Lully's opera Cadmus et Hermione (1673), and Jean-Philippe Rameau's one-act ballet Pigmalion (1748)—while others have received little recognition. This dissertation is the first study to consider the history of animated statues on the French stage during this period, and the first to reveal music as a defining feature of these statues. Over the course of nearly ninety years, music assumed an increasingly important role in the theatrical treatments of these figures that operated in the space between magic and mechanics. At the beginning of Louis XIV's reign, animated statues appeared with some frequency in both public and court spectacles. By the mid-eighteenth century, the animated statue had become the central focus of many works and had transformed into a potent symbol of, among other ideas, the power of music and dance, as most dramatically realized in Rameau's Pigmalion. This dissertation traces the history of this transformation.

Committee: Georgia Cowart (Committee Co-Chair); Francesca Brittan (Committee Co-Chair); Susan McClary (Committee Member); Elina Gertsman (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Dance; European History; Music; Theater

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

Abstract The purpose of this research was to investigate whether the required behaviors and abilities learned in the training of serious ballet dancers are transferred into their academic subjects, allowing them to achieve higher academic achievement. This study examined what factors are needed to achieve a successful career as a professional ballet dancer through the participants' identification and rationalization of behaviors and other characteristics learned in their ballet training. Some of these behaviors included self-discipline, critical thinking and time management skills. A mixed-methods approach using quantitative and qualitative research methods was conducted on 54 female students, ages 15 to 22 years of age. Half of the students were serious ballet students that trained a minimum of 10 hours per week, the others were non-dancers that did not participate in dance studies. For the quantitative section, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was performed on student's GPA and SAT scores. A significant difference was not found in the participants' GPAs but a higher significant difference was found in the ballet participants SAT scores. An independent t-test for two samples assuming equal variances was also conducted on survey questions that produced significant findings in the ballet participants. For the qualitative section, a grounded theory approach was conducted on data collected from focus groups and personal interviews which after analyzed revealed significant findings in the ballet participants' behaviors and abilities that were learned and developed in their ballet training that produced those needed for high academic achievement. The results and direction for future research are discussed.

Committee: Marvin Berlowitz PhD (Committee Chair); Vanessa Allen-Brown PhD (Committee Member); Shellie Cash MA (Committee Member); Linda Levin PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Dance

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Arts and Sciences : Psychology

Postural control typically must be coordinated in a way that is functional with regard to the control of ulterior actions. This entails the formation of coordinative structures that are appropriately flexible and, in general, the incorporation of contributions from the vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive systems. Ballet dancers are known to exhibit heightened proprioceptive awareness and enhanced levels of postural control. However, it is not known if these are related, and the coordination of dancers' body segments during balance has never been examined. The present study utilized a visual tracking task in which participants tracked the fore-aft motion of a virtual target, by standing on one leg and swaying so as to maintain an equal distance between their head and the target at all times, at frequencies of 0.20 and 0.60 Hz. Mean and SD relative phase between the ankle and hip joints were used to index coordination stability during task performance. Coordination stability during this task is generally believed to depend on proprioceptive coupling of rhythmic excursions about the ankle and hip. A joint-position matching task was used to assess proprioceptive awareness for the ankle, knee, and hip joints of both legs. An eyes-closed, quiet-standing task was also employed. Results showed that the dancers exhibited greater proprioceptive awareness in their lower limbs, and were also less variable in their ankle-hip coordination during the dynamic postural coordination task. Additionally, dancers exhibited lower determinism in the coupling between ankle and hip oscillations than controls. These results demonstrate that dancers are more sensitive to proprioceptive information in their lower limbs, and this may be an underlying mechanism driving their increased coordination stability. Dancers, through training and experience, may have become proficient at optimizing the constraints that enable them to perform complex balance tasks.

Committee: Michael Riley PhD (Committee Chair); Sarah Cummins-Sebree PhD (Committee Member); Timothy Hewett PhD (Committee Member); Kevin Shockley PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Behaviorial Sciences; Dance; Experiments; Psychology; Sports Medicine

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2010, Curriculum and Instruction Cultural Studies (Education)

This study is a narrative analysis of one man's life story. He is an anomaly in the rural Appalachian state of West Virginia. He lives his life to go to the barre.' Notice this is a ballet barre', not a drinking bar. The mention of West Virginia conjures up images of drinking hillbillies. This man however lives among the indigenous residents as one of their own. This is because he is a native son. Rose is a hometown boy that chose or was chosen by fate to dance in the new outdoor drama “Honey in the Rock” in the 1960s. This set his path for the rest of his life. He quickly advanced from dancer to choreographer, to dance ambassador abroad. The problem is trying to understand how this particular man escaped being victimized by the hegemonic social structures of a traditional rural setting and became all these things. It is important to investigate his identity imaging and how it came about. Once his image took hold the next issue of knowing is discovering his place within the context of his surroundings. The participant's stories are told not in a linear or chronological fashion, but gently guided by sub-categorical themes under the research questions. There are resonating themes that appear to imply how Rose managed to be a dancing man among mountaineers. One instance is the fact that Appalachians historically do not trust outsiders due to past transgressions against them. The implications for this study reveal that even though there are still views toward men in tights in Rose's state, that are not conducive to overwhelming acceptance, with innovation and fortitude situations can change for the better.

Committee: Francis E. Godwyll PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Education

PHD, Kent State University, 2008, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

Part One is a ballet based on a short story by George MacDonald, best known as a nineteenth-century Christian apologist and writer of children's tales and other stories. One of these is typical of his adult writings, which tend toward the macabre, allegorical, supernatural, and Christian symbolism. The Castle is a fairy tale underscoring the waywardness of the universal Church in relation to the Lord. As a fantasy, the short story lends itself to the versatile medium of dance. The Castle ballet is scored for large orchestra with percussion, set in eight movements: Overture, Contemplation, Family, Rebellion, Evening, The Party, Lament, and Redemption. It portrays the rebellion of a family against the authority of an eldest brother and sister when insisting on having an extravagant party in the confines of a vast castle. A storm breaks up the party at its height, freeing the brother and driving off the guests. Family members are terrified and repentant as they wait for the brother's judgment. The sister intervenes and the brother shows mercy. The music is programmatic and integrates representative elements such as themes, motivic development, polymeter and polyrhythm, and harmonic variation. Part Two applies traditional tertian approaches to chromatic harmony as a basis for analysis and composition by extending the principle into the third and fourth octaves above the root. It is felt provable that resonant overtones may be reinforced by what are normally considered dissonant chromatic tones with the intention and/or result of an extended consonance. Called “hyperextended tones,” these include the raised fifteenth, raised nineteenth, and raised twenty-third, which are justified in the harmonic resonance of a single fundamental tone, and in the individual tones that make up any given chord. Historical support is found in popular, classical, and jazz styles. Studies in physics have also shown that the mechanics by which timbre, harmony, beat waves, and roughnes (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ralph Lorenz PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Frank Wiley DMA (Committee Co-Chair); Thomas Janson DMA (Committee Member); Donald Gans PhD (Committee Member); Per Enflo PhD (Other) Subjects: Music

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2011, Music History

The various musical meanings of the polysemous term “apotheosis” have received scattered and uneven attention in musicological discourse. Although some historical instances of musical “apotheosis” have generated a fair amount of research, at least one application of the term has generated only little scholarship: the climactic “apotheosis” in the nineteenth-century ballet, and the surviving legacy of this concept in the music of twentieth-century composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). This thesis investigates the concept of “apotheosis” in the finales of five of Stravinsky's neoclassical compositions: Apollo (1928), Le baiser de la fee (1928), Symphony of Psalms (1930), Scenes de ballet (1944), and Orpheus (1948). Although only three of these finales are explicitly entitled “Apotheose” in the score, the musical restraint generally exhibited in these finales will be shown to form the basis for a modern theoretical conception of the “timeless musical apotheosis” in Stravinsky's music. Chapter 1 investigates conceptions of “apotheosis” in the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt and the ballets of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky as potential historical models for Stravinsky's own conception of “apotheosis.” Chapter 2 explores the antithetical model of a “temporality of timelessness,” a paradoxical frame of reference in which the passage of varying rates of time is juxtaposed with the cessation of time to create a dense temporal web; it is then suggested how such a curious “temporality” might be signified in a passage of music. Chapter 3 applies the historical and theoretical concepts of the previous chapters to Stravinsky's music; it is argued that the reception history of these works has led to a conception of the “timeless musical apotheosis” that ultimately has little immediately in common with Stravinsky's own understanding of “apotheosis.”

Committee: Marcus Zagorski PhD (Advisor); Eftychia Papanikolaou PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2007, Music Ethnomusicology

The Yucatan Peninsula has been a favorite vacation destination for decades. Outside of the resorts of Cancun, Cozumel, and the Mayan Riviera, visitors are able to travel throughout the peninsula in search of mestizo (mixed) gems: Yucatecan cuisine, artisan crafts, music, and ruins. The largest of these exotic destinations is the capital city, Merida, which sits on the ancient ruins of T'ho. Founded in 1542 by Francisco de Montejo, Merida rapidly became a cosmopolitan area with Spanish, Maya, and later mestizo peoples who crafted a hybrid of Spanish and indigenous culture. Today, almost five hundred years later, the Yucatecans are proud of their heritage. They have the opportunity to learn Mayan or perfect the colonial dances, called the jarana, through the help of the municipal government's assistance. With tax dollars, the Ayuntamiento de Merida, a branch of the city's municipal government, opened schools thirty years ago throughout the city, encouraging students old and young to preserve and share their musical history. Through this unique governmental support, music and dance survive and are seen as important icons of the region. The strength of the schools during the past thirty years has led to nightly performances in outdoor venues in the historical city for natives and foreigners alike. Researchers in the past rarely focused on the performance and tourist aspects of the jarana and its importance, and there has been no interest generated on the schools that maintain this strong tradition. This thesis is the first work to focus on the school, its history, and its relationship to the Ballet Folklorico, a semi-professional club of dance that perform each week. Using the concept of “musicking” as developed by Christopher Small, I explore the many forces at work in the performance and teaching of the jarana and other arts of the Yucatan.

Committee: David Harnish (Advisor) Subjects: