Lauren-Frances Wood '21

Major: Dance
Bio: Lauren-Frances Wood was born in Syracuse, NY but grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is a junior in the Alvin Ailey/Fordham University BFA Dance program, and she is finishing up her minor in mathematics. She has loved immersing herself in the various dance techniques and styles of the dance program, and is especially excited to choreograph on more dancers this semester. She hopes in her career through experience and research that her different areas of study will converge to create a new lens of looking at and creating dance.

Title of Research: Conscious and Subconscious Qualities of Movement
Partners: Dancers: Kate Mantyh, Natalie Ng, and Mollie Petrizzo
Mentor: Emily Riehle
Abstract: My purpose for this movement research project is to explore the different qualities of movement that a dancer produces based on the tone of music and the emotion they associate with the music. I started with the knowledge that behind every emotion is a thought and behind every thought is an emotion. Then I paired this knowledge with the dancer’s mind, and I concluded that behind every emotion is a step and behind every step is an emotion. I believe this to be true, but I wanted to test this with other dancers. I am curious to find out how much of a dancer’s quality of movement is them consciously putting emotion into every step and how much of it is the dancer letting themselves respond subconsciously to the mood of the music and the emotions it evokes.