Final Project Proposal (work in progress)

The professor gave us prompts to cover in out 5-7 page artists statement

1. What is your project? What tools did you use to make it?
2. What ideas were guiding your choices? What theological questions do you address?
1. I chose this because burlesque was a very healing practice of mine and I very much miss it. I chose to use a externally "secular" event that actually had great spiritual impact internally and decided to bring that sacred journey into the public eye. I also felt called to use myself as the cards because I believe that all people have Spirit within them, we are all divine, and can connect and use it as we see fit - we are magic. Tarot is a tool I use to tap into Spirit, so to do tarot made the most sense as opposed to my personal oracle cards because I knew other people who know about tarot would be able to actually see my journey and know. In that dance I was channeling my divine power, tarot is a means to connect to that divine power, and the art is a way to tell the world what I did with it. 
3. Who is this for? How does it fit within the context of this community?
1. At first this was for myself. This is a story about strength, resilience, and learning to LIVE after trauma. This tells the story of a survivor and to those who know how to read it, it tells them they can do it too. This dance honored the sacredness of divine feminine rage and channeling that rage to survive the fear and embrace life again. It honors all sexual assault survivors; it is for any woman who has faced trauma, and decided they would not hide in the shadow, and fought their way back into reclaiming their power. This is for the women who balance rage and peace on a blade with a steady hand, who remembers kindness through the ghosts of violence, and came back into the light regardless of what scars they bare. The tarot cards tell the internal journey that happened before, during, and after this life changing dance. Through telling that story, anyone regardless of who they are, will know they are not alone. 

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Final paper/project: this is an opportunity for students to draw on the readings, lectures, class conversations, and previous assignments to articulate their own informed understanding of the contemporary use of the arts as a means of theological or religious expression and reflection. Students will complete ONE of the following and present it to the class at the end of the term. 

a) The creation of a work of art or popular culture, such as a painting, dance, poem, sculpture, graphic novel, etc. that speaks to an aspect of your religious practice. This will be accompanied by a researched, footnoted artist’s statement of approximately 5 pages that describes your ideas and contextualizes them.  

Proposal for final paper/project: The proposal will demonstrate student preparedness for the final paper/project. It will consist of a paragraph description of the proposed project (about 250 words), as well as a close reading (300-500 words) of a relevant image/object/artwork. It will also include an annotated bibliography of at least 5 academic sources. It will be graded on a pass/fail basis and the professor reserves the right to ask the student to revise and resubmit the proposal.

The "Close Read" will be of a Tarot Card. I'll probably choose the devil because the primary thing about it is that the people who are chained...are holding the chain. Not the Devil. 

****AFFECT? --> the healing aspects... find it in the previous lecture to see the right word. 

Annotated Bibliography to support the 5 page paper - 

•  Pollack-Pelzner, Daniel. “Shakespeare Burlesque and the Performing Self.” Victorian Studies 54, no. 3 (2012): 401–9. https://doi.org/10.2979/victorianstudies.54.3.401.
• More on burlesque as a personal performance for self.
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.54.3.401?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• Buckland, Theresa Jill. “Dance, Authenticity and Cultural Memory: The Politics of Embodiment.” Yearbook for Traditional Music 33 (2001): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519626
• Dance in conversation with other areas of study
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/1519626?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• Gaskill, Malcolm. 2010. Witchcraft : A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed April 26, 2025. ProQuest Ebook Central.
• Book on Witcraft.. honestly i think i could get some really good quotes from this. 
• https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.theoref.idm.oclc.org/lib/dtl/reader.action?docID=684591&ppg=1'
• Benussi, Matteo. (2019) 2023. “Magic”. In The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by Felix Stein. Facsimile of the first edition in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Online: http://doi.org/10.29164/19magic
•  https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/magic
• https://anthroholic.com/forms-of-magic?srsltid=AfmBOoplHEziSc_FdogfJxn52KE_9Zwf34G3Fc-WLAVU1MwbNCwnFrDE
• Dovell, Denise. “Dancing toward My Wolf: A Journey of Healing through Dance-Making.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 20, no. 2 (1999): 43–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/3347011. 
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/3347011?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• Healing through dance!! 
• Page 2 liminal spaces, pg 5 whats healing about dance, pg 10 shamanic work, 
• This is an actual example of a woman doing shadow work healing generational trauma through dance. 
• Koch, Anne. “Alternative Healing as Magical Self-Care in Alternative Modernity.” Numen 62, no. 4 (2015): 431–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24644878.
• Magic as self care
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/24644878?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• Page 6 spirituality as a form of psychological healing, pg 7 ritual theory
• Dale, J. Alexander, Janyce Hyatt, and Jeff Hollerman. “The Neuroscience of Dance and the Dance of Neuroscience: Defining a Path of Inquiry.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 41, no. 3 (2007): 89–110. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25160240.
• The science part of processing emotions through creative process
• Link to the PDF (took some hunting): https://tinyurl.com/y8w3v72p
• Wright, Barbara S. “Dance Is the Cure: The Arts as Metaphor for Healing in Kelantanese Malay Spirit Exorcisms.” Dance Research Journal 12, no. 2 (1980): 3–10. https://doi.org/10.2307/1478508
• This article goes into how theatrical dances can be a form of exorcism - THIS is very close to how dance can be shadow work!! 
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/1478508?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
•  Baumholser, Erin. “It’s Laid Out in the Cards: How Meaning and Identity Are Constructed through Tarot Reading.” Dissertation, ResearchGate, 2016. 10.13140/RG.2.1.2639.7046.
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303297812_It's_Laid_Out_in_the_Cards_How_Meaning_and_Identity_are_Constructed_through_Tarot_Reading
• This dissertation draws on several articles that I contemplated for this very topic. I wanted to have at least one source on the history and uses of tarot that also explored its connection to self. The premise of this dissertation encompasses the purpose of my art piece. I am recreating a moment where my identity was in transition from victim to survivor. I completed this transformation through shadow work, culminating through ritual dance in the form of neo-burlesque. Tarot cards are how I chose to give a visual representation of what was occuring in my mind as I completed this ritual. This is the only source I could find that adequately linked tarot and identity for the sake of Artist's Statement.