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Prompt:

This 15-page research paper should be a thesis-driven project on a topic of your choice, where
you analyze a performance and weave in discussion of at least 3 texts discussed in the class. The
terms dance/ choreography/ movement/ performance here are broadly defined: you can reference
an artwork, a social dynamic, a political event, or your own creative process. In this assignment,
you should connect the performance to the related readings by discussing how the performance
either illustrates, or complicates, a specific (set of) argument(s) or concept(s) presented in the
texts.

The paper will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• – Your evident understanding of and ability to use methodologies of dance/performance
  studies, as indicated in the assignment brief
• – Your ability to develop an original thesis, using the theories and ideas engaged in class
• – The structure and coherence of your paper
• – Your ability to describe movement using the appropriate writing strategy (for example,
  prose, poetry, or another genre)
  The Performance I am going to us is a dance made by Mihran Kirakosian:
  
  About Mihran Kirakosian:
  Who is Mihran Kirakosian?
  Mihran Kirakosian, is a 35 year old choreographer who has come a long way. His father
  is a well known producer in Armenia and his brother is part of a comedian group called the
  “Demq Show.” When Mihran was a child he would constantly create videos and dances with his
  father. He would see what his father did as a living and would get inspired to create his own
  work of art. At the age of 16 Mihran got a gig to go on tour with many celebrities, one being
  Madonna. That was the breaking point of his career. He traveled all over the world. This
  opportunity that was given to him, exposed him to other celebrities, choreographers and
  agencies. After his tour was over with Madonna he went onto work with Micheal Jackson,
  Selena Gomez, Justin Beiber and Ricky Martin. As time went on, he got older and wanted to
  progress his career in other ways. He is very well known and praised in the Armenian
  community because there are not many dancers that make it as far as he has. He started to teach
  at a studio called Matador Dance Studio in Burbank, Ca. There were only a few students
  attending his class and with the help of their social media platform, they were able to promote his
  classes which led to more people coming and dancing for him.
  After many years of teaching at this studio, he expanded his platform and created a
  youtube channel to give other people around the world the opportunity to learn his dances. He
  first started off with just posted videos of his work but then he realized people were asking for
  more. He started to make one hour long tutorials of each dance. With those tutorials, he also

started to create different dance move tutorials for beginners to learn and create their own. As his
youtube platform grew, in 2017 he decided to open up his own studio called Mihran K. Studios
also located in Burbank, Ca. Prior to this pandemic, he would not only teach his own classes, but
would bring in choreographers to come teach their work as they are also trying to promote and
grow their career. Now, Mihran teaches his classes through zoom and continues to post his dance
videos and tutorials online.

Why did I choose Mihran Kirakosian? How has he impacted the world?

I did not know much about dance prior to Mihran. When I first found out about him in
2012, I immediately wanted to try hip-hop dance. I would always see people dancing at other
studios and was curious to see what I had in store. When you walk into the studio, his energy
gives everyone happiness to continue to work hard for what is wanted. I have been a student of
his since he started teaching at the first studio and watching him grow has really made me proud
of who he has become. It inspires me to work just as hard as he did to get to where I want to be.
Not only is he an instructor but he has also grown to be a friend. There were different groups at
different times for his class. There were beginners, intermediate and advanced. When I first went
to his I went into the beginners because I did not have any dancing experience. After a couple
classes, and his inspirational speeches prior to class starting, it made me work hard to move onto
the next group. After a couple of classes he saw I was capable of and moved me forward to the
intermediate group. This automatically gave me the confidence that was missing and two years
later I was moved up to the advanced group. From then on, I have also been in the dance videos,
dance performances and I continue to create dances to teach the other groups of students.

Mihran has inspired me and helped me grow to a certain degree of who I am today. He
has helped me gain the confidence that I was always afraid to show. When I first started as a
beginner, after each dance class, we would all get in a big circle and he would pick someone to
go in the middle to freestyle. I was always afraid of showing off what I had because I thought
people would make fun of my dancing. He would talk to me as a friend after class and tell me if I
wanted to progress I should not care what other people had to say because at the end of the day I
am there to grow and learn. I am sure with all of what he has done, and is continuing to do, he
inspires others to gain the confidence I did while dancing.

Who has he impacted?

With his screen sharing, he has impacted so many people all over the world. Although
there are many people in the city of Los Angeles, his biggest fan base is India. Dancers are
constantly, recreating his work and sharing it on youtube, twitter, instagram to show him what
they have done. Him being an inspirational person, he always comments back with feedback on
how they did which allows the dancers to go out and do more. He is interacting with his fan base
to create what they want to see rather than what he wants to do. He created choreography under
an Indian song that they much appreciated. His videos online give people the opportunity to
grow, and learn what is accessible to them. Although being in a dance studio physically allows
us to express our emotions and skill, some people do not have the privilege of going to a dance
studio, can not afford to go to a dance studio or do not have the transportation available for them
to go. Mihran gives that fulfillment that is missing for others to learn, share and get feedback
through the screen.

What is the performance you are using?

The performance I am choosing to do for this paper is a dance made by Mihran under the song
Mantra by TroyBoi. They are at an Indian church, the men are wearing traditional Indian
clothing and the girls are wearing jewelry like how they would in India. This dance incorporates
the culture of Indians and hip-hop dance moves that fans from India help put together along with
Mihran choreographing the moves. This performance inspired people to recreate what they were
seeing and create their own cultural dances.

The abstract of my paper:

The question of screen sharing has been widely debated in the choreographic field, where
arguments have been made on how problematic it can be dancing at a distance. My paper
addresses the issue with special attention on how it might be beneficial to people who are not
able to attend dance classes. Specifically, in my project, I will be looking at how online
instruction still gives students the experience of dance rather than being physically present in a
dance studio. From my own experience, I have been dancing and learning with a pop culture
choreographer named Mihran Kirakosian. Although I have attended his class for many years, my
school has not permitted me to attend. He has gone out of his way to post different cultural
dances along with a thirty minute to an hour tutorial that encounters students to gain something
they may or not be able to do. I argue that through dance history and screen sharing we are now
able to promote and broaden something that many people are not aware of due to the lack of
accessibility. To conclude this project I am examining screen sharing which sheds new light
within our history of dance.

These are the 8 sources I used:
In class text:
Conquergood, Dwight. “Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research.” TDR

(1988-),vol. 46, no. 2, 2002, pp. 145–156. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1146965.
Accessed 15 May 2020.

Dwight Conquergood wrote about the different studies of performances within culture.
Everything that he has done throughout his career has been focused on those groups of
people that have been left out. He has gone to get a deeper understanding of who they are
and where they come from. Through this text, Dwight offers for the reader to get a deeper
understanding of performance studies with its uniquely way of putting contrasting things
together. The text allows us to know different ways of performance research. When
looking at a performance, a person’s imagination is out together as a tactic of putting
different theories and practices together. Dwight Conquergood applies to my project
because he allows me to get a better understanding of different theoretical roots which
leads to screen sharing being superior. With screen sharing, people are able to see the
different cultural practices. This can lead to them doing it and continuously spreading
awareness.

Harmony Bench, “Screen Sharing: Dance as a Gift of the Common,” from Perpetual Motion:
Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2020, pp. 137-187.

Harmony Bench is the reason why I am choosing to write about screen sharing for my
project. She has allowed me to dig deeper into our future of dance. Dance is always going
to be something that brings different communities and with it being virtual that will only
make the dance district bigger. There is different content of commercial shoots shown in
the text which entails the raw material that is shown in order to grasp the viewers
attention. The main argument is this reading is how after multiple events took place in
different communities, the space of allowing people in each other’s public space or
culture is very limited. She argues that with there being digital interaction, it will spread
the awareness along with giving others the experience of expression. This is appropriate
to my topic being some places around the world are not exposed to different cultural
norms. With digital devices, we are able to see other people’s communities.

Susan Leigh Foster, “Choreographing History,” in Choreographing History, ed. Susan Leigh
Foster. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995, pp. 3-21.

Although I did not know of Susan Foster prior to this class, she has taught me a lot about
dance and the meaning of body movement. She illustrates how our body and the
physicality of movement is not just relevant to dancers and critics. Movement is
something that is essential in daily life which is the understanding and written work of
historians along with other disciplines. When she is talking about the body’s movement
and how it is vocalizing our history she is trying to voice out to others such as dance
historians. Although she mentions how the body and its cultural origin is fairly new, she
has acknowledged different program studies of dance on school campuses. Her main
argument is how physical embodiment is connecting to performative writing and
anything that is said connects to the body of the words. Tieing into my topic,
anything that is said from someone is a source of expression. Our body is constantly
writing regardless if it is done unintentionally.

Outside sources:

Barnett, Angela. “The Dancing Body as a Screen.” Computers in Entertainment, vol. 7, no. 1,
Jan. 2009, p. 1., doi:10.1145/1486508.1486513.

Barnett talks about how our body is our way of expression. Our body is a screen in which
projects artistic expressions. She says how our human body is an open canvas that has
been utilized throughout our history of dance. Barnett goes on to say how mass media has
grown more in our dance productions and will continuously increase. This has been a
positive aspect in our dance community because we are able to use technology to merge
different digital images with performers. The main point of this article is to show how
humans have adapted to technology and have coordinated its way to connect the different

graphics along with human movement to form a new type of expression in dance. This is
a very good filling in my paper because with dance being online and being shared, people
are able to come together to build an entire new aspect of dance which has already been
done. It is all just progressing as technology gets advanced.

Borelli, Melissa Blanco. “Introduction.” Oxford Handbooks Online, Feb. 2014,
doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199897827.013.004.

In lecture, we have discussed Melissa Borelli once or twice before and I have really
enjoyed her writing. In this piece of her writing I found it to be quite interesting. She
discusses an analysis through the body of dance. She shows us the discussions in a
specific music video in the text to help the reader picture how their body might be
engaging themselves with their body and what they see on the screen. The example
shown is a piece that George Michael created called Flawless, Melissa talks about how
George argues that the body of dance is all an adaptation to what we see in our everyday
life which is what forms the shape of dancing bodies. This piece can be added into my
writing because we are constantly mimicking what we see in our everyday life. When we
are moving our bodies we are using what we have already seen to create our own piece.
Regardless if it was something we someone else doing it or on a screen. We are
constantly sharing.

Melissa Blanco Borelli, “Dancing in Music Videos, or How I Learned to Dance Like Janet . . .
Miss Jackson,” The International Journal of Screen Dance, vol. 2 (2012): 52-55.

Since I really enjoyed Melissa Borelli and her piece on screen dancing, this is another
reading that caught my attention when doing some research. In this reading, Melissa
helps illustrate the different ways that are formed within the performer in the video and
the audience watching the video. The video that is referred to is by Janet Janet and it is
through the screen and the mediation of the screen. There is so much intimacy talked
about in the video that catches the audience’s attention encouraging them to follow along.
There is a physical experience of wanting to replicate the movement which gives me the
understanding that, that is what sets up the relationship. The main argument in this piece
is that our body is transfigured and wants it to become transplanted onto other bodies.
From my understanding, there is an aspect where it talks about how the dance and our
body is made in a way where it is used to be equal and as real in a video which makes it
so accessible. These arguments hold a great deal in my project because it is projecting
how what we see is what we do.

Salzer, Heike, and Ana Baer. “Being a Video-Choreographer: Describing the Multifaceted Role
of a Choreographer Creating Screendance.” The International Journal of Screendance,
screendancejournal.org/article/view/4446/3841#.Xr68ZcZ7nu0.

This text is about a conversation between two people which discussed the creative
process of a videographer along with the importance or screen videography, the audience
and what importance it holds. Ana Baer tells us how when she documents she is creating
a screendance. The main argument in this reading is the significance screendance holds is
the different body movements. The two techniques she studies the most when creating
her work is the dancers strengths and affinities. She likes to familiarize herself with these
techniques along with getting to know her equipment to help create and collaborate with
dancers. This reading was very interesting, although it was a conversation between two
people I really got a deeper and emotional understanding of the making of screendance.
Other readings have filled the gaps of what screen dance is and how it is beneficial to our
future but when Ana was conversing with the other person, she was showing how the
equipment works, how she interacts with the dancers, what she looks for and how she
uses other cultures to create dance.

Bench, Harmony. “Screendance 2.0: Social dance-media.” Journal of Audience & Reception
Studies7.2 (2010): 183-214.

My last piece I decided to write about was another text written by Harmony Bench. She
seems to understand and persuade her audience the gap that is missing within our dance
community. In this piece she argues how dancing on media can create a new community
for dance. She argues and uses the concept of social media and dancing to create an
artistic experimentation of social dance-media. Within her essay she shows us what the
strands of social dance-media is how it ties in with the concept of screen sharing.
Everything shown helps form a new way of dancing in our pop culture as we allude our
time progresses for all of us to be in the media. From my point of view, dance is
something that will continuously grow. It is a way of expressing ourselves, our mental
state and emotions. Even now people post not their own pieces but some of which they
have learned from others to express to others on how they feel. As social media grows,
social media dancing is going to grow even more within its community.