Ecokinetics : A Dance Film Inquiry
Date of Award
8-2020
Document Type
MSU-Only Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
College/School
College of the Arts
Department/Program
Theatre and Dance
Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair
Kathleen Kelley
Committee Member
Trebien Pollard
Committee Member
Apollinaire Scherr
Abstract
For my MFA thesis project, I created a series of three dance films— Plastic Virus, Single Use, and Fly —that explore ecological themes. In Plastic Virus, I dance in a costume constructed from more than a hundred plastic bags and suggest how plastic pollution, like a global pandemic, has contaminated us inside and out. With Single Use, I continue the theme of plastic pollution, and the use of the plastic-bag costuming, while dancing on city streets and in a wooded landscape. With Fly, I employ the technique of stop-motion animation to investigate how my dancing body can echo, extend, and interact with elements of a landscape. All three films sprung from a new dance inquiry that I developed called ecokinetics that concerns the relationship between the moving body and environmental systems. Ecokinetics may be employed as a generative tool for dancemaking that engages with climate change.
File Format
MOV
Recommended Citation
Sperling, Jody, "Ecokinetics : A Dance Film Inquiry" (2020). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 587.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/587
PDF file of thesis
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Comments
The performance videos are restricted to the Montclair State University community but the PDF file of the thesis, which is located at the bottom of the screen, is available to anyone interested in reading it.