The Promotion of Greater Body Positivity in Dance

This paper was written for dance history, a core class for dance majors. For this final research paper, we were able to choose a topic that was dance related to research. I chose to write how it is essential to promote greater body positivity in the world of dance, a topic I am passionate about. Through my research I have discovered that some styles of dance are more accepting of different body types and sizes, while ballet is a dance form that is not only popularly taught and enforced to be taught to developing dancers, but it also spreads negative bodily ideals that dancers feel they have to conform to. I further developed information literacy, in the evaluative process that went into sorting what research I would use that would support my thesis. My research aided the concept that this bodily ideal was still being presently utilized and what could effectively be done to dismantle it. I submitted my abstract to the undergraduate research symposium, it was accepted and thus I disseminated my research at the 2017 event via an oral presentation. In gathering and disseminating research and writing this paper, I expanded upon my knowledge of this issue within my discipline, in hopes that I can use this research and understanding to bring more positive body images to the world of dance in the future.