This paper serves to identify, explore, and discover my personal creative process. I utilized Rosemarie Anderson's Intuitive Inquiry method, focusing on the change that would occur across all five cycles of my research experience. I conducted interviews of those who have had an impact in my growth, as well as understanding of my creative process or the elements which make it. I logged personal journal entries, to emphasize the daily experience I have with my process, outside of a written paper. This paper is written from the perspective of one woman's personal experience, and thus contains both formal research articles and informal and personal journal entries. Journal entries are interspersed with academic writing, to affirm the simultaneous personal nature and academic relevancy of the topic. I began my research with five themes to guide me in various directions, with the hope I would uncover more information along the way, leading to more paths to follow. During the course of study, three new themes were uncovered, reaction, relation, and restoration, and juxtaposed with other research and personal reflection. I then, based off these later themes and further research, developed a set of instructions for use beyond my undergraduate experience, specifically for places where I must act without the guidance of instructors. The three new themes that emerged had much in common with the themes from previous cycles. This leads me to believe that I have been aware of my process all along, and had yet to put it into words. This in itself is a remarkable light bulb moment, as is knowing that I may be more aware of my habits than I realize, if only I am to write them down and purposefully acknowledge them for what they are.

Physical activity has been shown to be effective in primary and secondary prevention of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease (Warburton, Nicol & Bredin, 2006). Women tend to be much less active than males and are henceforth at a greater risk for developing these conditions (Biddle & Mutrie, 2008). This study addresses what impact type of physical activity in adolescence has on adult physical activity levels in the female population. Specifically, the study focuses on coordination and performance activities in adolescence, and how adult physical activity levels compare to both sedentary adolescents and adolescent endurance and ball sport athletes. Ninety-six female participants that were ages 20-29 (N=53) and 30-39 (N=43) were asked to fill out a survey about their adolescent activity levels and their current activity levels. Those participants who identified as participating in coordination and performance activity (N=43) were compared to those who were sedentary (N=14) and then further compared to those who engaged in other types of adolescent activity (N=39). It was determined that coordination and performance activities during adolescence did have a significant effect on frequency of female adult physical activity when compared to their sedentary counterparts (p=0.015). Adolescent endurance and ball sport athletes did tend to have a greater frequency of current activity in adulthood than those involved in coordination and performance activities, which was attributed to a greater frequency of practice per week in those sports. In conclusion, introducing a frequent amount of physical activity the female adolescent enjoys increases their likelihood of frequently engaging in physical activity as an adult.

This study focuses on identifying which knee injuries commonly afflict the Arizona State University students who dance contemporary ballet. The study investigates why and how these injuries occur through survey data and in-depth physical and written assessments with a test pool of five dancers. The study discovered three themes that emerged from the data: a lack of posterior chain engagement, lack of lateral support in the knees, and weight sinking into the knees and ankles. All of theses themes relate back to a lack of use of functional rotation, and its key relationship in supporting contemporary ballet movement. Though current and past studies address some of these issues, the goal of this study was to create a more holistic solution to these issues by including multiple perspectives: kinesiology, somatics, and an understanding that each individual has a unique anatomy with which the individual needs to adapt. As a result, a more holistic training program including these perspectives was created as a result of this study.

The purpose of my creative research was to analyze my choreographic process and answer the research question: how will implementing somatic principles impact my choreographic process? In determining the impact I analyzed the use of choreographic approaches that bring proprioceptive awareness to interdisciplinary somatic themes of bodily systems, sensing, connectivity, initiation and sequencing. These somatic themes were utilized in movement invention and exploration as well as the structuring and performance of my choreography. Additionally, the research involved clarifying my role as a choreographer and my relationship to the dancers in my work. My creative research occurred in three choreographic phases and resulted in the production of B.O.D.I.E.S performed in three consecutive sections titled Discovery, Exploration, and Identity November 5-7, 2010. B.O.D.I.E.S demonstrates how somatics will lead to greater movement possibilities and dynamic range to explore in the craft of dance making.