Writing Embodied Ballet: An Interdisciplinary Embodied Methodology for Writing About Ballet Performance

The lives of ballet dancers are complex, both on and off the stage. Is there a way for researchers to write about a ballet performance without completely detaching the person from the body on stage? This project aims to do just that, using interdisciplinary methods, I first take a critical examination of the narratives on ballet dancers created by the literature by feminist dance critics. I then construct the embodied methodology by integrating the findings on embodiment and phenomenology from feminist theorists, dance scholars, and historians. The final product is a methodology that frames the experience of the ballet dancer inline with the researcher with the hopes of producing written scholarship that presents a more nuanced narrative of ballet dancers' experiences.