I have always had a passion for dance. I attended dance lessons since I was four years old, and I continued throughout elementary school, and onto high school, where I attended a performance-based visual arts school. I chose these five images because I felt that these images best explicate what dance means in visual form in different cultures, across different time periods, and across different global regions of the world. Personally, I believe that dance is a spiritual movement that ignites from within. In congruence with this concept, I chose five images that depict the act of dance as a spiritual or mystical act. This spiritual or mystic aura that is given to dance in these representations also relates to module 3, in which viewers make meaning. Sturken and Cartwright (2009) claim that "meanings are produced through complex negotiations" (p.49). In other words, meaning is not inherent or directly given to the viewer. The viewer creates meaning through a series of looking practices. Based on my contextual and experiential knowledge of dance, I have denoted meaning to these images, that fit with my own visual representation of what I think dance embodies.
