Cultural Anthropology
celia.tuchman-rosta@email.ucr.edu
I graduated from Rutgers University in 2006 with a double major in Dance and Evolutionary Anthropology. When I traveled to Kenya for field school, I saw the courtship dance of the Dassenech, a remote northern tribe. I was inspired to transition to a cultural approach for further research. I felt that I had finally found a way to combine my two passions—anthropology and dance. My experience in Kenya , analyzing the outside influences on the dance I had seen, also sparked my interest in how tourism and globalization affect dance cross-culturally. I want to use the tools that I have learned in my studies of dance and anthropology to blend the two fields. I believe that dance can deepen the understanding of how different elements of a culture are organized. Also, I am interested in researching how societal change from both inside and outside a culture is embodied in the region's dance practices, and how changes in movement style and form affect the society that produces the dance. I want to use a holistic approach to my study of dance incorporating the history of movement practice, movement analysis, and the perceptions of the participants and observers along with a broader study of political, economic, and social relations to get an understanding of how dance mirrors societal change.