Researcher of the Week: Alexia Petasis

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 23:07:24 -0400

Alexia is an Interdisciplinary Studies major and Psychology minor who will graduate in spring, 2019. She has been selected as an Undergraduate Research Award (URA) Scholar for 2018-19, and is a member of the Honors College.

Title of your research project: Confronting Social Issues through Translational Choreography

Describe your project: The purpose of this research is to determine how dance is being used by choreographers, specifically Sarah Panayiotou in her dance company BABEL Movement (a NY-based dance company that partners with social justice organizations in order to increase the rate of which they make an impact), to effectively communicate and engage with social issues. The goal is to apply an interdisciplinary framework to analyze the integration of the various disciplines that inform the choreography and determine the effectiveness of using dance for social justice organizations.

Who is your mentor(s) for your project? How did you find your mentor? Why did you choose them? My mentor is Steven McAlpine, Assistant Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department. I chose him because he has been my advisor for the past year and has helped me develop my course of study for my INDS degree. He is also very knowledgeable about interdisciplinary work, especially with a focus in arts integration, which will be useful to help me structure my research.

How did you become interested in this project? I have been dancing for the majority of my life and have recently started to devote my time to volunteering for non-profits, one of which being The Samaritan Women in Baltimore. I was unable to see the correlation between these two aspects of my life until I joined INDS and saw how the integration between choreography and social issues could be powerful in communicating stories and experiences that are difficult to express with words.

Describe how your work is interdisciplinary and why that is important to your work/expression: This work is interdisciplinary because it uses theories and frameworks from psychology and sociology to explain social justice issues with the use of dance as a vehicle to communicate those issues. This is important because these disciplines work together to maximize the potential of the other, in order to create dances that are both substantial and impactful. This work uses dance to “reason through analogies,” by representing social issues through movement as well as to “bridge the explanation-action gap” by presenting the issues in a new light, perhaps motivating and driving individuals to action through these compelling dances.

What has been the most rewarding part of undertaking this project? The most rewarding aspect of this project will be to see if social justice organizations benefit from this non-conventional use of dance.

How will you disseminate your research? I will disseminate my research at URCAD and hopefully have it published in the UMBC Review.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research? I would advise students who want to get involved in research to do research in the areas they are passionate about. If you are naturally drawn to a specific field, the questions you are curious about can be really powerful in driving innovative research.

What are your career goals? My career goal is to have a similar non-profit as Sarah Panayiotou’s BABEL Movement. I plan to start a dance-based social justice organization to portray social issues through dance with a specific focus on community outreach and community partnerships.

Alexia has choreographed a dance for sexual assault awareness month that will be performed in the UMBC recital hall (Fine Arts 118) on April 13 at 6pm. The performance will be followed by a community engaged conversation with individuals from the Women's Center, We Believe You, Hope Works, TurnAround, and UMBC's Title IX dept. See: