RESEARCH FINDINGS TRANSLATED INTO BALLET!!

[julie gosling]

Here is just one example of the exceptionally creative output from Durham University's Centre For Medical Humanities and surely a wonderful beacon for the rest of us to follow. Read on ....

Ordinary Wars: Transition, Weddings, Wives, Choreography and Research
by Centre for Medical Humanities

http://medicalhumanities.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/ordinary-wars-tra...

Elizabeth Sharp, Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Studies at Texas Tech University and Honorary Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, writes: In November 2012, I had the pleasure of participating in the Times of Transition Workshop, sponsored by the Centre for Medical Humanities and the Institute of Advanced Study. I spoke about timing in single women’s lives, drawing on two of my social science studies examining ever-single women. Taking a life course perspective, I question whether women in my samples were “missing” (passive) and/or avoiding/averting (active) the transition of marriage. The women in the studies were between 25 and 40 years old – often considered “prime family building years.” I brought into focus how the women negotiated their personal desires with societal expectations more generally, and expectations related to timing of marriage and children more specifically.

This work on single women along with another one of my studies (examining weddings and new wives) was the impetus for an evening-length dance performance. Three choreographers examined my qualitative data sets and created dances. We also used portions of the verbatim transcripts as part of the performance. The concert titled “Ordinary Wars” was performed by a professional dance company, Flatlands Dance Theatre, in Lubbock, Texas on March 23, 2013 and in Blacksburg, Virginia on March 27, 2013. Over 200 people attended the performances.

Purpose of the Dance/Social Science Project: “Ordinary Wars”*
The objective of the project was to make public traditionally privatized negotiations of women’s ideologies and experiences of singlehood and marriage. Towards that end, the project asked choreographers to re-analyze and re-present social science data through live dance performance The performance drew on two separate qualitative data sets – one study focused on newly married women transitioning to be wives and the other focused on women choosing to be single and/or childfree. The choreographer used an embodied analysis (see Sharp & Durham-DeCesaro, in press, for more details). The project emphasized bodily knowledge and lived experience as lenses through which to view, interpret, and re-present social science qualitative data.

Audience Response to Ordinary Wars
Preliminary findings from the audience members indicated that the performance itself stimulated thought and greater awareness about cultural expectations related to femininity, as well as emotional reactions. One student at Virginia Tech University reflected after viewing the Ordinary Wars concert:

“The performance did make me really think about the stereotypes of being a woman and what society expects of us. I liked that a lot. I even went home and discussed some of the points that were made last night with my boyfriend, just to see what his views were. Also, with many of my friends getting married soon, it made me really think about what else they have coming besides pretty dresses and a big party."

Other Audience members commented:

“Very moving, especially to see the women's bodies flowing, jumping, dancing, speaking, gesturing on stage. I loved the dancing, and it was made all the more powerful by the overlay of rich qualitative data. I've never seen anything like this before, and found it delightful and shocking--it really shook me up--in a positive and inspiring way