Lauren Bramlett
Major/Minor: BFA Dance Performance; BA English Literature, Rhetoric, and Cultural Studies
Title: Movement Matters: The Rhetorical Power of Dancing Bodies
Abstract: This project observes examples of protest art in concert dance choreography during the latter half of the 20th century. The study seeks to understand choreographers’ usage of bodily movement as a form of activism, observing how and why bodies act as rhetorical agents. Using Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism in conjunction with the theory of new materialism–specifically as it is situated by Laurie Gries and Rosi Braidotti–the project takes a joint methodological approach to rhetorically analyze dance pieces with a focus on dialogic relationships, affect, spatiality, and temporality. Through both analysis of dance artifacts and embodied practice of movement, the project questions where rhetorical power exists within the dance and the dancer’s body. Movement research Further, the project asks how the dancer’s body interacts with its surroundings and how such interaction produces meaning, observing the dialogic relationship between all material present in the situation. The movement of dancers functions to contribute to the movement of social change, revealing the human body as an accessible and effective vehicle of rhetorical power.
