Dance dissertations

Bold = direct access to digital copy of thesis

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Alexander, Gilley. 2024. Electronic dance music (EDM) and contemporary dance performance: a somaesthetic investigation of choreomusical aesthetics and audience felt experience, MA, University of NSW

Asker, Don. 1996. The Body in Question: New Dance Production in the 90's. MA, University of Melbourne

Asker, Don, 2001. Personal meanings and artistic processes: a study of multi-modal improvisation, PhD, University of Melbourne

B

Belling, Gareth, 2024. Policy as choreographic act: how the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust shaped a national dance identity, PhD University of Queensland

Bendall, Susan. 2015. Writing and dancing the body: from contradiction to complementarity, MA, University of Melbourne

Bollen, Jonathan. 1999.Queer kinaesthesia : on the dance floor at gay and lesbian dance parties Sydney, 1994-1998, PhD, University of Western Sydney

Borovica, Tamara. 2018. Creative investigation of the embodiment of womanhood through dance: bodies, gender and becoming, PhD University of Melbourne

Bourchier, Randall. 1991. Australian Multicultural Policies, the Arts and Traditional Music and Dance within the Cambodian Community of Melbourne. MA, Monash University

Brannigan, Erin. 2004. A cinema of movement : dance and the moving image, PhD, University of NSW

Brickhill, Eleanor. 2016. Trouble with Tango: conversations across boundaries Argentine Tango and contact improvisation, MA, University of Wollongong

Brown, Amie. 2024. Movement to Music: Notating Baroque Dance for Musicians, MA, University of Sydney

Bryant, Fiona. 2009. Dialogical dancing: illuminating dimensionality in solo dance practice, MA, Univeristy of Melbourne

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Card, Amanda. 1999. History in motion: dance and Australian culture, 1920 to 1970, PhD, University of Sydney

Carter, Keryn. 1995. Performing the Feminine: Women, Narrative, Dance. PhD, LaTrobe University

Carroll, Jacqui. 1998. Changing Lanes: An Exploration of the Journey from Dance through Choreography to Directing and the Spoken Word, MA, Queensland University of Technology

Coleman, Judith. 2017. Sites of justice: Face-to-face encounters through dance-making in Meeting Places, PhD, Edith Cowan University

Corpus, Rina Angela. 2021. Dance of Awareness: Galaw-nilay and the Practice of Meditative Movement, PhD Univeristy of Melbourne

Crisp, Rosalind. 1998. Solo work, MA, University of Western Sydney University

Crivellenti, Tania. 2025. Dancing with Diversity: Mapping the Evolution and Impact of Latin Dance in Australia (1989-2024), MA, Macquarie University

D

Dalgleish, Monique. 2002. The influence of Latin American dancing on women’s perceptions of self, MA, University of Melbourne

Dempster, Elizabeth. 2002. An embodied politics : radical pedagogies of contemporary, PhD, Monash University

Devi, Rakini. 2018. Urban Kali: From Sacred Dance to Secular Performance. DCA, University of Wollongong

Dunphy, Kim 1996. Cultural dance as a life experience: perceptions of Maori performers in Melbourne, MA, University of Melburne

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East, Yvonne. 2016. Twisted floating bodies: Choreographing the nude, MA, University of NSW

Ellis, Simon. 2005. Indelible: a movement based practice-led inquiry into memory, remembering and representation, PhD, University of Melbourne.

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Ferris, Michelle. 2013. Dancing the threshold: liminal space and subjectivity in practice and performance, MA, University of Melbourne

Fisher, Lynn Margaret 1992. Dance Class: A History of Professional Dance and Dance Training in Western Australia from 1895–1940. MA, University of Western Australia

Forbes, Luke Aaron. 2021. Corpus Australis and Settler Colonialism: Land and Body Politics in Australian Settler Colonists’ Dances and Other Performances of the Postcolonial, PhD, Monash University

Fuhrmann, Andrew. 2023. Staging Moods: Melancholy, Hope and Anxiety in the Work of Lucy Guerin, PhD, University of Melbourne

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Gard, Michael. 2001. Aesthetics, athletics and art: a study of men who dance, PhD, University of Wollongong

Gardner, Sally. 1997. Lying Down in the Air: Feminism, (New) Dance, and Representation, MA, Monash University

Gardiner, Sally. 2024. Dancing together : the choreographer and the dancer in modern dance, PhD, Monash University

Garlick, Fiona. 1992. The measure of decorum : social order and the dance suite in the reign of Louis XIV, PhD, University of NSW

Gaylor, Averyl. 2023. Choreographies of Health and Hygiene: Dance and the Perfectible Body in Modern Australia, PhD, La Trobe University

Godfrey, Nerida. 2019. Becoming-with movement : life course mobilities and alternative cartographies of Independent Contemporary Dancers, PhD, University of NSW

Griffiths, Carolyn Margaret. 2000. Tracing image and bodily displacement in modern and postmodern dance, MA, Edith Cowan University

Grogan, Helen Lorraine. 2019. Space is occurring, MA, University of Melbourne

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HART, Gareth. 2012. Toward an understanding between corporeality, improvisation and inhabited space, MA, University of Melbourne

Heywood, Nicola. 2016. Undoing Discomfort: being real/becoming other in an embodied performance practice, DCA, University of Wollongong

Hocking, Rachel. 2006. Crafting connections: original music for the dance in Australia, 1960-2000, PhD, University of NSW

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John, Chrisilda. 1999. Fusion of Dance and Painting in Kathakali, MA, Queensland University of Technology, 1999

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Keft-Kennedy, Virginia. 2005. Representing the belly-dancing body: feminism, orientalism, and the grotesque, PhD, University of Wollongong

Kennedy, Mary-Kate. 2019. You are now in harmonic poise: modern dance interrogates verticality, PhD, Deakin University

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Leach, Paea. 2019. The doing of dancing: Kinaesthetic attention, the dancer and agency, MA, University of Melbourne

Lester, Garry. 2000. Kai Tai Chan : a different path, PhD, Deakin University

Long, Julie-Anne. 1999. The Leisure Mistress Dances : an investigation of a practice where fact and fiction collide, MA, University of Western Sydney

Long, Julie-Anne. 2010. Walking in Sydney looking for dancing: an auto-ethnographic mapping of the place of independent dance, PhD, University of NSW

Lyons, Camie-Jane. 2005. Heavy metal ballet, capturing movement and casting into space, MA, University of NSW

M

Manley, Pauline. 2007 Opening the pod: involution & dehiscence in contemporary dance, PhD, University of Sydney

Marchant, Jason. 2018. Existence of dancing, PhD, University of Sydney

McIntosh, Hamish. 2023. To an end: Death as a queer theory of dance, PhD, University of Melbourne

McLeod, Shaun. Chamber: Dance Improvisation, Masculine Embodiment and Subjectivity. MA, Deakin University

McNeilly, Jodie. 2012. Poetics of Reception: a phenomenological aesthetics of bodies and technology in performance, PhD, University of Sydney

Millard, Olivia. 2013. From score to work? Making a group, improvising a dance, PhD, Deakin University

Mokotow, Anny. 2007. Why dance: the impact of multi arts practice and technology on contemporary dance, MA, The University of Melbourne.

Mokotow, Anny. 2007. Decentred perspectives: dramaturgical developments in dance, PhD, The University of Melbourne.

Muller, Ebony 2021. CARE DANCE: Dance/Movement Improvisation and the Ethics of Care, PhD, Deakin University

Murphy, Siobhan. 2008. Practices of Tactility, Remembering and Performance, PhD, University of Melbourne

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Neideck, Jeremy. 2016. The Fabric of Transcultural Collaboration Interweaving the traditional Korean vocal form of p’ansori and the contemporary Japanese dance form of Butoh in a transculturally Australian context, PhD, Queensland University of Technology

Nevile, Jennifer. 1992. The courtly dance manuscripts from fifteenth-century Italy, PhD, University of NSW

Newton, Rhiannon. 2022. Embodying an Ecological Condition: Dance Practices and the Development of Embodied Ecological Awareness, MPhil, University of NSW

Ng, Jason Andrew. 2019. Connecting Asia-Pacific Hip-hop—The Role of the Cross-Cultural Intermediary, PhD, Monash University

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Panetta, Alexndria. 2022. Enacting (Re)Actions: Affect Theory and Embodied Resonance in Improvisational Contemporary Dance and Compositional Pedagogy, MA, University of NSW

Parker, Sandra. 2010. Locating the trace: an exploration of tracing and the choreographic process, PhD, Melbourne University

Peacock, Sue. 2024 Technique reframed body reimagined, PhD, Edith Cowan University

Pollitt, Joanna, 2001. Accumulated response in live improvised dance performance, MA, Edith Cowan University

Port, Rheannan. 2020. Aboriginal contemporary dance practice: embodying our ways of being, knowing and doing through dance storying, MFA, Melbourne University

Postle, Julia. 1996. Dancing through the Postmodern: Australian Choreography in Relation to Postmodernism. MA, Queensland University of Technology

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Reid, Dianne. 2001. Cutting Choreography: Redefining Dance on Screen. MA, Deakin University

Reid, Dianne. 2016. Dance interrogations—the body as creative interface in 'live screendance', PhD, Deakin University

Richardson, Denise Christine 2000. Pirouettes into Parallel: How Classical Ballet Technique Informs the Training of Contemporary Dancers. MA, Queensland University of Technology

Roberts, Paul H. 2017. An unfinished mindful body meets live choreographies of solo dance, PhD Univeristy of Melbourne

Robinson, Jasmine. 2019. Drawing us in: The Australian Experience of Butoh and Body Weather, MA, University of Sydney

Robinson, Phoebe. 2014. Choreographic imagination, MA, University of Melbourne

Robinson, Phoebe. 2022. Dancing the Mimetic Faculty: A Peculiar Phenomenology, PhD, University of Melbourne

Robinson, Raymond S. 2000. Dreaming Tracks: History of the Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Scheme, 1972–1979: Its Place in the Continuum of Australian Indigenous Dance and the Contribution of Its African American Founder Carole Y. Johnson, MA, University of Western Sydney

Russell, Meredith. 2003. The Danced Space, Ancient and Modern: The Role of Transformation in Classical Indian and Modern Dance. MA, University of South Australia

Ryan, Susan Michele. 2002. Life-Span Developmental Perspectives of the Professional Dance Career. PhD, Queensland University of Technology

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Schacher, Alan. 2000. Done by gravity feed : relationships between body and site in the performance and installation works, MA, University of NSW

Shaddick, Lillian 2019. Samba Showgirls: Cross-cultural practice in Australian popular dance entertainment, MA, University of Sydney

Shaddick, Lillian, 2024.Leisurely Seeking Duende: Meaning making through the embodied experience of flamenco dance, PhD, Univerisytty of Sydney

Sietsma-Smith, Maggi. 1994. Listen to Me Dance: An Analysis of Human Voice in the Construction of Meaning in Dance Performance. MA, Queensland University of Technology

Shih Pearson, Justine. 2012. In the In-between: Embodying the Intercultural in Performance, PhD, University of Sydney

Shrubsall, Gina. 2002. The Dancing Body Makes Sense of Place, MA, University of Western Sydney

Smith, Helen Suzanne. 2016. Being moved: the transformative power of butoh: towards an articulation of an aesthetics of butoh, MA, Monash University

Stamp, Brook. 2018. Pulling down from the ephemeral, MA, University of NSW

Stamp, Brook. 2024. For the Record: Perspectives on Dance Agency in the Visual Arts, PhD, Melbourne University

Stell, Peter. 2009. Sydney Dance Company: a study of a connecting thread with the Ballets Russes, PhD, Melbourne University

Stevens, Monica. 2018. Diversity, Innovation and Vibrancy in Australian Dance Through Indigenous Choreography, MA, Deakin University

Stewart, Garry. 2020. The Corporeality of Emotions and the Choreographic in Video Installation, MA, University of NSW

Stock, Cheryl. 1999. Making Intercultural Dance in Vietnam: Issues of Context and Process from the Perspective of an Australian Choreographer and Her Colleagues from Vietnam Opera Ballet Theatre (Nha Hat Nhac Vu Kich Viet Nam) 1995–1999. PhD, Queensland University of Technology

Strapps, Emma. 2010. Vulnerable body: intersecting life, practice and performance: moving between shiatsu and dance/intuitive and constructed being, MA, University of Melbourne

Swain, Rachel. 2010. Ways of listening: dramaturgy as deep mapping in intercultural-Indigenous performance, PhD, Melbourne University

Synnott, Lisa. 2025. “Is this work yours or mine?” Uncovering twenty-first-century dancer authorship, PhD, University of NSW

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Thomson, Elizabeth. 2015. Body as archive: the presence of history in dance, MRes, Macquarie University

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Vachananda, Nareeporn 2017. Choreographing time: temporality in choreography from the perspective of a solo improviser, MA, University of Melbourne

Vachananda, Nareeporn 2022. Improvising time: An investigation into the link between time and intersubjectivity in the performance of solo dance improvisation, PhD, University of Melbourne

Van Hout, Vicki. Tent embassy dreaming and the body politic: contemporary urban Australian indigenous lexicons, MA, Macquarie University

Vengurlekar, Nitin, 2018. The choreography of the gaze: looking back at spectators in works by Pina Bausch and Jacques Tati, PhD, University of NSW

Vilmanis, Elizabeth Jane. 2017. Seeing the Chameleon: Barriers to Creating Dance Work for Independent Dance Creators in Brisbane, MA, Queensland University of Technology

Vincent, Jordan Beth. 2009. In pursuit of a dancing ‘body’: modernity, physicality and identity in Australia, 1919 to 1939, PhD, The University of Melbourne.

Vincs, Kim. 2001. Rhizome/MyZone: The Production of Subjectivity in Dance. PhD, Deakin University

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Wait, Nalina. 2019. Western Improvised Dance: Practices, Pedagogies, and Language, PhD, University of NSW

Wood, Patricia 2016. Dancing the archive: a study in remembering, re-embodiment and re-enactment, MA, Macquarie University

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Yap, Ding Chai. 2021. Trance-Forming Dance: the practice of trance from traditional communities to contemporary dance, PhD, Melbourne University

You, Soo Yuen. 2021. Cross-cultural encounters in dance imagery, PhD, University of Melbourne