Dancing into Voice: articulating and engaging embodied knowledge

As a phenomenological investigation, this thesis takes the reader on a journey of wandering in search of voice. My research is informed by my struggles transferring embodied knowledge to the written page. Through performative inquiry and recognizing embodied ways of knowing, I explore avenues that entice knowledge from my body, cultivate knowledge with my body, and express knowledge through my body. My wanderings unearth ways of being that are present, receptive, perceptive, and relational, revealing and creating pathways leading towards a figurative form of voice that nourishes self-understanding, while accessing a literal form of voice that can be represented in written and spoken articulation. Through a pedagogy of noticing and of reciprocal engagement, attention is paid to my own journey into literal and figurative voice with the intent of facilitating similar enabling circumstances for others.