Female Self-Empowerment through Dance

In this article, utilizing the Graham Technique as a tool, I discuss strategies I use in my class to support dance as a way to challenge or transcend sanctioned female identities by shifting the focus from presentation to self-discovery, encouraging ownership of the movement, and exploring a range of physicalities that embody different aspects of the psyche, some socially defined as “masculine” or “feminine” movement. I engage with research coming out of psychology and neurobiology to support the exploration of a diverse range of movement qualities to cultivate both physical and psychological fluidity between expressions.