Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Choreography. Gender identity in dance'

Three dances, On This Day, Panties and Pathologies , and Naked Spotlight Silver were choreographed and performed in fulfillment of the requirements to complete an M.F.A. degree in dance. The performances took place at the Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater located on the campus of California State University, Long Beach. On This Day premiered October 2012, Panties and Pathologies premiered March 2013, and Naked Spotlight Silver premiered October 2013.

This thesis examines how each project investigates choreographic approaches used in concert dance to communicate issues of gender and sexuality as well as participate in a discourse on identity politics. The three dance pieces attempted to confront themes of marriage equality, representation and the marketing of femininity, and queer identity representations in performance. Each piece was unique in its methodologies and served as an explorative approach to political communication and artistic development.

In questioning the complexity of human identity, the multiplicity of the self is uniquely grounded within embodied experience. Unearthing edges : constructing gaps is the result of creative research centered on investigation of the following questions: What can practices of collaborative movement making bring to the process of illuminating, excavating, and perhaps reconciling these alternate versions of the self? In practices supporting the development of individual movement vocabularies and physical agency what can be learned of the complications of the self and identity? What can be revealed of self and community in collective movement practice and in sharing solo practice? How can improvisational work, practiced in the realm of rehearsal and performance, engage with these ideas? Through studio practice utilizing a range of methodologies, this project seeks to contend with ideas of the self, identity, alternate reality, spontaneity, empathy, agency, and community.

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Atlanta, this study analyzes how transnational practices of, and discourse about, flamenco dance contribute to the performance and embodiment of gender, ethnic, and national identities. It argues that, in the context of the flamenco studio, women dancers renegotiate authenticity and hybridity against the backdrop of an embodied “exot-ic” passion.

“‘Am I Sexy Yet?’: Contextualizing the Movement of Exotic Dance and Its Effects on Female Dancers’ Self-image and Sexual Expression” looks at exotic dancing in three contexts––a pole fitness studio, a strip club, and a college dance concert––and how the movement is experienced by the dancers in each space. It questions how the movement changes meaning for the dancers, audience, and mainstream culture based on the context and location, even with similar content. Specifically, it analyzes how the experiences of the dancers affect their self confidence, sexuality, and sexual expression. Then, it applies Audre Lorde's “Uses of the Erotic” to their experiences to show how this movement can be looked at through a different lens as deeper, more freeing, and more transgressive than it is usually thought to be.

This thesis examines the intersection between masculinity and risk in educational settings. It draws on an intensive examination of the field of dance-education in Scotland and an extended period of research with YDance, Scotland’s only state-funded dance education company. Data was gleaned from a combination of qualitative and ethnographic methods including unstructured interviews, planned discussion groups and participant observation. The thesis synthesises the work of Ulrich Beck and with micro-level approaches popular in studies of gender and education through Bourdieu’s meso-level theories of society and social actors. It uses Bourdieu in new ways, both to reconcile these concerns of structure and action and to overcome key problems that have been identified with the work of authors like Butler and Connell. Substantively, the thesis draws attention to the risks which so-called ‘feminised’ activities like dance pose to young masculine identities and the role played by schools in reproducing and tacitly authorising inculcated assumptions about dance, gender and sexuality. The thesis also investigates the various ways in which dance educators attempt to challenge these reified associations and considers some of the unintended consequences of these practices. Despite ostensibly challenging gender stereotypes, many of the steps taken in order to engage boys in dance at school result in the reproduction of strong versions of masculinity and femininity. In attempting to recode dance as a ‘acceptable’ activity for young men, dance educators often disavow the contribution of gay and effeminate men to the art form, downplay the merits of genres like ballet which is perceived to carry particularly strong associations of femininity and homosexuality, and engage – albeit subtly – in misogyny and homophobia. Dance educators are often therefore unintentional agents of the reproduction of inculcated masculinities and gender inequality.

Dance
Ph.D.
Mark Morris is deeply engaged with dance traditions and the classics, but he transforms them into modern, eclectic pieces. He often dissolves the distinctions between reality and fantasy, and good and evil, emphasizing reconciliation and love. Morris sculpts his own story and characters from musical elements within the overarching musical structure, portraying the characters and their emotions through detailed variations of movement quality. Characterizing Morris' dual attitudes as ambivalence, this study aims to highlight the dynamic structure and complexity of meaning in his works. I suggest that Morris' ambivalence is related to his perspective, the way he sees the world.
Temple University--Theses

Queer Transgressions: The choreographing of a male homosexual presence with reference to selected choreographers explores queer identity and in particular representations of a male homosexual presence in dance. Within the methodological framework of dance studies and queer theory I explore the ―self fashioning‖ of my male homosexual presence in dance. This is achieved by critically deconstructing my choreographic process when making choreography. Therefore this thesis is informed by both academic research and my self-reflexive experience of choreography and dance performance. The deconstruction of my autobiography and choreographic process is discussed with reference to both international and South African queer choreographers. This means that by accounting for my own experiences and approaches toward representing a male homosexual presence in dance, I explore the history and engagements of other queer choreographers also creating such representations. I therefore examine the works of selected choreographers and chart the development of the representation of a male homosexual presence in dance. By exploring the choreographic process of other queer choreographers I identify choreographic tactics that queer choreographers are using when making work. From this point of departure I shift the focus away from international queer choreographers and provide insight into the choreographic processes of South African queer choreographers. By accounting for the works and choreographic processes of South African choreographers, I provide a context in which my choreographic explorations on the subject matter can take place. This choreographic exploration manifests itself through a self-reflexive/autobiographic account on the research and practice of my choreographic process. During my choreographic exploration I set the challenge to both engage with and explore further, established ―queering tactics. This is done with the intention to reveal and create representations of a male homosexual presence in dance.

In my essay I explore the theories on performativity by Judith Butler and her book Gender Trouble and apply her theories from the early nineties on today’s Web 2.0 and YouTube. By giving homemade dance videos as an example to show how the division between strong gender identities have softened and are not as important as they were twenty years ago. I also critique some of Judith Butler’s ideas on how to trouble gender and claim that her ideas are perhaps slightly small thinking and narrow-minded if we see on how the gender roles have developed in social media today. She uses drag and transgender as examples to go to the extreme and to act in a way of parody to be able to alter the gender roles. My reply is that although it helps to act in an extreme manner, behaving stereotypically will probably enhance the gender roles further and put drag in a category of its own kind. By presenting information from YouTube such as “likes” and comments we can see that performances which before could be questioned in a gender aspect are now more accepted and that the gender plays a small role in the act of displaying the Self, at least online. Although gender is always present since it is deep-rooted in our daily lives, it should not decide our performance or how we behave depending on what biological sex we are born with. It is the performance that is the important aspect and not the gender the performer is displaying.
En titt på hur könsrollerna speglas i dans och musik idag, elva år efter Judith Butler myntade uttrycket Gender Trouble. En jämförelse om Web 2.0 och utvecklingen i att användaren blev skaparen inom social media kan ha någon påverkan på klyftan mellan könsroller idag.

This thesis examines the performance of Indian classical dance in the contemporary 'diaspora space' (Brah 1996) represented by the city of London. My aim is to analyse whether and how performances of "national" art, assumed to represent an equally "national" culture, change when performed in transnational contexts. Drawing upon theories of postcolonialism, multiculturalism and diaspora, I begin my study with an historical analysis of the reconstructed origins of the dance in the intertwined discourses of British colonialism and Indian nationalism. Using this analysis to ground my ethnography of the present-day practice of the dance, I unearth its relation to discourses of contemporary multiculturalism and South Asian diasporic identity. I then demonstrate specific ways in which the relationship between colonial and postcolonial artistic production on the one hand and contemporary performances of national and multicultural identity on the other are visible in the current practices and approaches of diasporic and multicultural Indian classical dancers. My thesis advances the scholarship that has demonstrated the link between the construction of Indian classical dance and the Indian nationalist movement by highlighting particular ways in which historical narrative, national and religious identities, gendered ideals and racialised categories are constituted through, and help produce in turn, contemporary Indian classical dance practices in the diaspora. Locating my study in the UK while still accounting for the Indian nationalist aspects of the dance, my contribution to the scholarly literature is to analyse its performance in relation to both Indian and British national identity. My research demonstrates that Indian classical dance is co-produced by both British and Indian national discourses and their respective cultural and political imperatives, even as the dance contributes to the formation of British, Indian and South Asian diasporic politico-cultural identities.

Dans cette étude, nous analysons les évolutions des modèles contemporains de féminité dans le cadre des débats sur l’identité de genre à travers l’étude de la danse orientale. Nous envisageons la danse orientale à la fois comme un terrain de confrontation, de partage et d’hybridation de différentes conceptions et vécus du corps et comme une possibilité d’exploration empirique et conceptuelle de différentes identités de genre, culturelles et esthétiques. Ce sujet d’étude nous permet de réfléchir sur l’imaginaire du ventre féminin comme symbole genré, depuis les Orientalistes jusqu’à la pratique d’aujourd’hui dans les cours de danse parisiens. Le corps dansant et ses ressentis ont été traités comme les moyens expressifs à partir desquels structurer notre réflexion incarnée sur le féminin. Une enquête de terrain dans le milieu des cours de danse parisiens actuels nous a permis d’analyser les formes de partage culturel qui s’y produisent. Cela a mis en lumière les changements que la pratique de cette danse produit dans les relations des femmes à leur intimité physique et sexuée et les influences occidentales des hybridations multiples de cette danse avec d’autres styles de danse. Dans le milieu de cours de danse orientale, les femmes qui la pratiquent sont amenées à expérimenter dans des espaces clos et exclusivement féminins la stratification de conceptions traditionnelles du corps et de différents systèmes philosophiques et esthétiques. La danse orientale modifie-t-elle donc en Occident les catégories et les formes du corps désirable ? Qu’est-ce que les femmes recherchent dans cette pratique aujourd’hui ?
This study traces the evolution of contemporary models of femininity in virtue of the mindset and self-perception of contemporary French women. My work focuses on the practice of oriental dance with respect to the question of gender identity. I intend to look at oriental dance as the catalyst of cultural confrontation and hybridization of Eastern and Western concepts of the body. Because this dance is primarily designed for women, I consider it an empirical vehicle for exploring issues of gender identity (notions of what is female, feminine, and femininity) through the investigation of the belly and the pelvis. Incorporating a qualitative survey among women practicing oriental dance today in Paris, my work seeks to understand how this dance influences the relationship a women has with her body and intimate self as well as how the Western outlook has altered and influenced oriental dance. What do contemporary dancing bodies in Paris share between themselves in the practice of this dance? How does oriental dance influence or become altered by the predominant dance forms in French culture? How do these different aesthetic concepts of the female body influence each other through Oriental dance, and how does this dance form modify the idea of what is the desirable female body? What are women searching for through the practice of Oriental dance today?

Berlin is heralded worldwide as being a city that is open, innovative and diverse: a true multicultural metropolis. Music plays a central role in the city’s claim to this title. Go to any one of Berlin’s many notorious alternative nightclubs and you will hear techno, house and electronic dance music blasting out to hoards of enthusiastic partygoers. Many of these clubs and their participants claim that these parties represent diversity, acceptance, equality and tolerance: Spaces within which social divisions are suspended, difference is overcome and people are united. This ubiquitous discursive assertion is referred to in this thesis as a “diversity discourse”. This “diversity discourse” will be deconstructed and situated within a wider political context, with a specific focus on perceptions of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender. Engaging with theories of intersectionality, post-colonial theory (looking specifically at Jasbir Puar’s important work on homonationalism) and employing qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews and autoethnographic inquiry, it will be argued that the “diversity discourse” works as a mask to conceal a reality of social segregation. Far from being sites of equality and diversity, it will be suggested that access to these nightclubs is premised on the possession of societal privilege. That being said, it will also be argued that research into EDM nightclub participation refrain from viewing these clubs within a binary framework of “good” or “bad”; Rather, they should be seen as complex sites of ambivalence, within which multiple identities are acted out and explored. The project contributes to the current body of work within the (post-) discipline of intersectional gender studies, arguing for the need for theorisations in the field to encompass notions of intersecting privilege and disadvantage.

A TALK ABOUT ROLES IN A SETTING (2015) is a performative work by the artist Johan Lundin. A choreographed presentation is performed for 12 participants in a scenography describing public and private environments. The production process and performance of the work is describing how roles and circumstances change when an environment is observed through a perspective where fiction is allowed to be used as methodology to engineer new reality images. Through the terms role and setting this publication is focusing on describing how the visual image of the body and its movement has an influence on how identity and gender is constantly formed in relation to the place's historical, social and cultural contexts.
A TALK ABOUT ROLES IN A SETTING (2015) är ett performativt verk av konstnären Johan Lundin. En koreograferad presentation framförs för 12 deltagare i en scenografi som beskriver offentliga och privata miljöer. Verkets process och framförande skildrar hur roller och förutsättningar ändras när en miljö observeras genom ett perspektiv där fiktion tillåts användas som metodik för att iscensätta nya verklighetsbilder. Genom termerna roll och setting sätts i den här publikationen fokus vid att beskriva hur den visuella bilden av kroppen och dess rörelse har inflytande för hur identitet och genus ständigt formas i relation till platsers historiska, sociala och kulturella sammanhang.

ISBN: 978-91-982605-0-2 (Print) ISBN: 978-91-982605-1-9 (Digital) Print / Tryck: Johan Lundin, Stockholm, 2015

abstract: Personal histories are deeply rooted into my way of existence, far before my brain became ready to challenge such notions. While Americans have been witnesses to the splintering effects of colonialism and patriarchy on socialization, I ask two questions: (1) Where to stand within a society that promotes the marginalization of both women and brown bodies? And (2) how to combat these harsh realities and protect those most affected? Being both Black and woman, I decided to embark upon a quest of self-actualization in this document. “Ain’t She Sweet: A Critical Choreographic Study of Identity & Intersectionality,” tracks the creative process and concept design behind my applied project for the Master of Fine Arts in Dance. Developed in extensive rehearsals, community engagement, journaling processes, and lived experiences, the physical product, “Ain’t She Sweet,” explored concepts such as identity, socialization, oppression, decolonization, sexuality, and civil rights. The chapters within this document illustrate the depth of the research conducted to form the evening-length production and an analysis of the completed work.
Dissertation/Thesis
Masters Thesis Dance 2019

碩士
國立臺灣大學
外國語文學研究所
93
The gendered representations in appearance and in sexuality of butch-femme couples have been distinguishing them as a specifically contentious lesbian identity category since the late 19th century. On the one hand, butch’s outward deviations from gender normality make the butch-femme union a visible symbol which unmistakably signifies lesbian existence to the heterosexual public. On the other hand, however, such a gendered role play between butch-femme seems to implicate a certain physical and sexual complementarities, which from time to time make either butches or femmes’ lesbian identity doubtful when they are taken into consideration respectively. As to femmes, in contrast to butches’ masculine inclinations, femmes generally follow feminine codes in appearance, mannerism, and sexuality, the fact that makes femmes undistinguishable from heterosexual women except for being companied by butches. Femmes’ physical invisibility, her ability to pass, and the subsequent doubt of her genuine sexuality have been broadly discussed in lesbian criticism. Moreover, as to butches, though being a significant mark of lesbian for her gender deviation, in the aspect of sexual practice butches’ sexuality is often criticized as dependent, even dysfunctional, because when assuming the masculine role in bed, butches usually identify themselves as active pleasure givers who either refuse to be touched or rely their sexual satisfaction mainly on how well they can please their femmes. Thus, what does it mean to be butch or femme respectively? What constitutes femme when not in relation to butch and butch not to femme? Is it possible for butch or femme to be a sexually and physically integral lesbian subject if the mutually-defined complementary bonding is disintegrated? These are the questions I intend to answer to in this thesis. In fact, in my thesis I would like to argue that it is possible to establish the respective sexual and physical autonomy of butch and femme subjects. Chapter One will focus the discussion on the possibility of butch’s sexual autonomy. I would argue that the doubts about butch’s sexuality are partially based on the heterosexually-constructed view that only through vaginal intercourse are biological female subjects able to attain sexual satisfactions. In theory, beside vaginal intercourse, there should be still numerous ways of practicing sex and sexual pleasure could be enjoyed through physical contact of any part of our bodies. And in reality, numerous butches, even those who insist untouchability, do testify that they enjoy and get satisfied in sex. Therefore, I would begin my argument with the concept of “butch’s untouchability,” the most stigmatized sexual practice that renders butch sexually dependent on femme, exploring the various degrees of butch’s refusal in physical and sexual contact and how differently being untouchable means among butches themselves. We may find out that the general understanding of butch’s untouchability as complete denial of sexual pleasure is somewhat misleading. Through the personal testimony and interviews, we see that when being untouchable means refusing even to undress to one butch, it means refusing to be penetrated to another butch, and still other butches don’t recognize their practice as untouchable at all. Also, the claim to have enjoyed sexual pleasure is pervasive in butch personal statement. Employing Groszian model of desire that displaces orgasmic satisfaction from genital contacts onto any possible contact between two bodily parts, I argue that despite the various forms of butch untouchability, butches still fulfill their sexual desire in the sexual pattern they choose to practice, and thus serve as a sexually independent and autonomous subject of desire. Chapter Two deal with femmes’ autonomy in her claim of independent lesbian identity. In order to sustain the authenticity of femme lesbian identity with her feminine inclination, I would try to argue how femme actively demonstrates her femme agency by manipulating her bisexual potential and passing ability to construct an autonomous femme image with her specific gender and sex representations. First I would go through historical, literary and theoretical discourses to demonstrate how femme femininity is haunted with spectre of straightness which reduces her lesbian desire as traitorous bisexuality and renders her lesbian identity dependent on her butch lover to avoid submersion into heterosexual women. Subsequently, reviewing the lesbian critics’ effort to differentiate lesbian femme from bisexual femme by situating femme sexuality exclusively in butch-femme eroticism in order to authenticate femme desire as specifically lesbian, I argue that such theoretical move contradictorily defers femme’s lesbian subjectivity, when with butch-femme complemtarity femme identity is subject to and dependent on butch masculinity, which is privileged as the heroic signifier of lesbian gender and sexual difference. Therefore, proposing a re-evaluation of femme bisexuality and passing, I argue that when femme’s bisexual and femme passing potential stands on lesbian/heterosexual borderline, rather than passively and traitorously wavering between the two, femme actually self-consciously manipulates their bisexuality and femininity as border identity to signify their femme queerness and actively creates an autonomous femme lesbian subjectivity with her specific gender and sexual representation. Chapter Three explores the alternative butch-butch, or femme-femme eroticism that is constantly ignored when butch-femme complementary coupling dominates lesbian discourses. Despite the fact that in reality the majority of the lesbians who perform gendered codes tend to form butch-femme unions, there were still butch-butch or femme-femme couples being witnessed on street, and some of butches indeed testified their desire for other butches and femme to femme when we examine the historical and autobiographical records of butch/femme lesbians. I argue that taking butch-femme combination for granted is complicit with the heterosexual naturalization of gender-sex connection which equates masculine with active and feminine with passive. When such connection is denaturalized, the task which has done by many feminists, it supposes that the masculine doesn’t always attract the feminine, neither does the butch always desire the femme. Moreover, if both butch and femme are established as sexually and physically autonomous lesbian subjects, the butch/femme will no more need to complement each other and form a compulsory match. Therefore, at first I argue that all the lesbian configurations are more or less socially and culturally constructed and thus heterosexually infected, which leads to the notion that butch and femme naturally form an erotic dyad remaining unchallenged even among lesbian critics. Moreover, following the threads of postmodern denaturalization of heterosexual connection, I further argue that when butch-femme complementary roles were too ideologically conditioned to escape in the 1950s, at the beginning of 21st century the postmodern cultural atmosphere should open for theoretical articulation for butch-butch and femme-femme eroticism. Therefore, butch-butch and femme-femme unions, though comparatively of a small numbers, are possible alternatives to dominant butch-femme coupling and not only help disintegrate butch-femme complementarity but also further challenge and shatter the heterosexual dominance both in theory and in reality.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2008.
Advisor: Suzanne Sinke, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of History. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed July 16, 2008). Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 250 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

In this study I investigate the variegated and complex ways in which music and movement can interact in works that involve both media, such as ballets, modern dance works, music videos, and dance films. My dissertation centers around analyses of pieces in diverse styles and genres; each analysis focuses on different aspects of human movement or movement analysis tools. Some of these concepts – Effort, Space, Body, and Shape – are sourced from Laban Movement Analysis, while others – synchronization, body language, kinesthetic empathy, and form – do not belong to a cohesive system. Taking an intersubjective approach, my analyses highlight instances in which watching co-occurring movement affects my musical perceptions, or vice versa. I also examine conscious interventions on perception, where deliberate changes in perspective, theoretical frameworks, or prioritization of my embodied responses affect the way I hear and see the works. I aim not only to account for structural complexities in movement-music interactions, but also to examine ways in which those interactions participate in articulating identities and politics or in suggesting narrative interpretations. I aim to provide a versatile toolkit that would facilitate the analysis of many different kinds of music-movement interactions. Each chapter outlines two analytical tools and then demonstrates how the tools can be used in an analytical example. In the first chapter, I investigate the role of body language and movement-music synchronization in a hip hop music video by the rapper Tyler, The Creator. I argue that Tyler’s movements fail to synchronize to the music in straightforward ways and fail to convey the cool confidence that his lyrics purport to. As a result, the movement-music relationship helps to articulate a version of masculinity that can be read as non-normative and politically charged. In the second chapter, I examine the role of kinesthetic empathy in the perception of choreographic and musical form in the “Rose Adagio” from Tchaikovsky’s and Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty. While both character and performer inhabit a single onstage body, the observer’s empathetic embodied responses to the dancer may diverge depending on whether she is read as character or performer. This perceptual contrast depends in part on the ballet’s narrative world. The two possible empathetic alignments yield, in turn, divergent analytical observations about the relationship between music and movement. In the third chapter, I offer an analysis of “Duet” from Lar Lubovitch’s Concerto 622,which is set to the Adagio movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major K.622. Examining Lubovitch’s choreography helps me to arrive at a more sensitive hearing of the music than I initially expected. Also, in comparing two phrases whose music is nearly identical but which feature different choreography, I find an especially compelling case in support of the proposition that dance affects musical perceptions. In the final chapter, I consider the role of Body and Shape in Nijinsky’s and Debussy’s Jeux. Movement-music analysis provides support for an interpretation of the ballet that acknowledges a pervasive, yet ultimately unfulfilled sexual desire. Movement-music analysis also sheds light on the ever-changing and moment-focused nature of Debussy’s musical form. Motives are not developed nor organized by a large-scale formal design, but instead give rise to ever new musical ideas, unprepared and unresolved. The ballet’s choreography often helps these rapid and abrupt transitions to cohere.

abstract: In this study, the researcher develops a documentary-driven methodology to understand the ways four women in the United States use their involvement in the belly dance phenomenon to shape their ongoing individual identity development. The filmmaking process itself and its efficacy as a process to promote self-understanding and identity growth among the participating belly dancers, are also investigated phenomenologically. Methodological steps taken in the documentary-driven methodology include: initial filmed interviews, co-produced filmed dance performances, editorial interviews to review footage with each dancer, documentary film production, dancer-led focus groups to screen the film, and exit interviews with each dancer. The project generates new understandings about the ways women use belly dance to shape their individual identities to include: finding community with other women in private women's spaces, embodying the music through the dance movements, and finding liberation from their everyday "selves" through costume and performance.
Dissertation/Thesis
Ph.D. Anthropology 2012

This dissertation looks at adolescent male dance students who challenge the dominant perceptions of masculinity by participating in dance, an art form which has been subjected to feminine and homosexual stereotypes. With a multi-methodological approach—qualitative, arts-informed, autobiography, interviews, videotape, and performance—this research investigates and explores the largely unknown realities regarding adolescent male dance students; why they decide to take dance; what makes them continue or stop dancing; how their perceptions of dance are transformed over time; how they feel when they are dancing; the realities they embody in studio and on stage; their message to the public about who they were, who they are, and what they want to be in and through dance. The researcher challenges the socially constructed epistemology that dance is merely an entertainment while exploring the relationship between mind and body; gender, race, and identity; literature and literacy; physical education and dance; the professional and the novice; the hows and the whys; female and male dance educators; dance pedagogy (theory) and curriculum delivering (practice); and the association of homosexuality and heterosexuality in the context of dance and its effect on adolescent male students’ willingness to dance. This study shows that families, friends, teachers, school administrators, dance class environment, media (So You Think You Can Dance), and technology (internet) have all created various levels of impact on adolescent males’ decision to participate in dance at a high school. Data and implication from this research can serve as a catalyst for future studies on adolescent male dance students. Findings can also be applied to dance programs at all levels, curriculum development, and teacher education. This electronic dissertation encompasses graphs, photos, audio and video clips, webpage links, and even a full-length documentary movie to enhance the research finding and maximize the power of a multimodal design (Jewitt & Kress, 2003).