Between memory and movement: a dancing-womanist-scholar in, not of, kinesiology

Abstract

Because kinesiology is historically linked to physical education, two specific aspects of physical activity-exercise and sport-currently receive primary attention from kinesiologists (Charles, 1994). Consequently, kinesiology has not fully embraced dance, considered a non- exercise/non-sport based endeavor, with the same enthusiasm as its exercise and sport based counterparts. My dissertation re-introduces and (re) presents dance to the field of kinesiology, advocating that it and other humanistic, subjective movement receive equal consideration as viable movement practice. To accomplish this, I explore how memories of my lived experiences, from childhood to my years in the department of Kinesiology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, have influenced and informed my current dance life and practice. I also show that the field of physical education-evolved-kinesiology has a rich history in dance, and use my personal experience as a dancer to inform the constructed notions of what physical cultural studies scholar David Andrews (2008) terms ‘epistemological hierarchies’ within the discipline’s movement practices.