Melonie Buchanan Murray portrait
  • Director, School Of Dance
  • Professor, School Of Dance

Research Keywords

  • dance, ballet, critical theory, dance history

Creative Research

  • "The Eddy." A contemporary duet performed as part of a full-length production title River of Angels. Performed in Grand Junction, CO. Choreography completed and performed in summer 2019. Choreography, completed 07/21/2019.
  • "Nu-topia." A mutli-media evening-length dance concert featuring the music of John Lennon and the Beatles. Peformed in Aspen, CO at the historic Wheeler Opera House. Produced by Wilder Productions. Choreography, completed 06/09/2018.
    https://www.wheeleroperahouse.com/news/nu·topia-to...
  • "Onward." A contemporary pointe piece exploring notions of feminism and power. Commissioned by the Dance Department at Belhaven University. Performed in Jackson, MS. Choreography, completed 04/29/2018.
  • "The Lennon Project" (contemporary dance). World Dance Alliance Global Summit. Memorial University. St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada 2017. (Blind peer-review process) Choreography, refereed, completed 07/2017.
  • "This Seat is Taken" A character pointe work created for Utah Ballet. Choreography, completed 11/2016.
  • "a subtle coercion of liberties" Contemporary pointe, quartet, 11minutes Original work created for Utah Ballet. Selected to represent the University of Utah at the American College Dance Association conference in 2016. Commissioned for re-staging at Friends University in 2016. Choreography, completed 10/09/2015.
  • "On the Verge" A contemporary ballet created on dancers at Colorado Mesa University. Choreography, completed 04/2014.

Presentations

  • “Dance as an Academic Discipline: where are we falling short?” National Dance Education Organization. Annual Conference. October 7, 2021. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/07/2021.
  • “Dancing Into Higher Education: How Early Twentieth-Century Feminist Social Movements Influenced Dance as a Burgeoning Academic Discipline in the US.” 12th Annual Conference on Visual & Performing Arts. Athens, Greece. June 7, 2021. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/07/2021.
  • “Ecologies, histories, and legacies: the academic discipline of Dance in the US.” World Dance Alliance-Americas. Annual Conference. April 23, 2021. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 04/23/2021.
  • “An Experiment in Collaborative Syllabus-Building: the 'buffet-style' career preparation course for university dance majors.” National Dance Education Organization. Annual Conference, virtual. October 25, 2020. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/25/2020.
  • “Dance Science: The Rejoining of the Disciplines of Dance and Kinesiology in American Academe.” Co-presenter Steven Ross Murray. Western Society for Kinesiology and Wellness. Annual Conference, virtual. October 9, 2020. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/09/2020.
  • “Repetitions & Variations: Ballet’s Cultural Memory.” Athens Institute for Education and Research. 11th Annual Conference on Visual & Performing Arts. Athens, Greece (virtual presentation). June 9, 2020. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/09/2020.
  • “Dance as an Academic Discipline, (un)common ground.” Dance Studies Association. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. August 2019. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/11/2019.
  • “Othering in America’s Ballet Advertisements: the troubling representation of race and gender in ballet advertising.” Corps de Ballet International conference. Tallahassee, Florida. 2019. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 07/15/2019.
  • “Ballet’s Binary Genders in a Rainbow-Spectrum World.” Biennial Art History Symposium: Narratives of Gender and Hidden Power in the Visual Arts: Renegades, Revolutionaries & Rebels. Utah Valley University. February 2019. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 02/08/2019.
  • Dance as an Academic Discipline in the United States and its Return to its Roots in Physical Education.” International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport. Madrid, Spain. July 2019. Conference Paper, Refereed, Accepted, 01/01/2019.
  • “Enrico Cecchetti’s Influence on Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.” Corps de Ballet International. Florence, Italy. July 2018. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 07/18/2018.
  • “Enrico Cecchetti: an Ingenious Mime.” Corps de Ballet International. Florence, Italy. July 2018. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 07/18/2018.
  • "Repetitions and Variations: Transmitting and Perpetuating the Embodied Cultural Memory of Ballet." Congress on Research in Dance, Ohio State University, October 2017. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2017.
  • “An Experiment in 21st Century Assessment for Ballet: developing effective assessment methods and utilizing an online learning platform for ballet coursework at a Research-I university.” Co-presenter with Jay Kim. Corps de Ballet International. Provo, Utah, June 2017. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/2017.
  • “The Performance of Gendered Movement Mechanics in American Dance.” Western Society for Kinesiology & Wellness. Reno, Nevada. October 2016. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2016.
  • “The Physical Practice of Dance and Sport as Cultural Expression.” Co-presenter Steven Ross Murray, PhD. Western Society for Kinesiology & Wellness. Reno, Nevada. October 2016. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2016.
  • Choreographic presentation. “a subtle coercion of liberties”. World Dance Alliance-Americas. Universidad de las Américas Puebla. Puebla-Cholula, Mexico. August 2016. Other, Presented, 08/2016.
  • “The Performance of Gender in Early Ballet Training.” Corps de Ballet International. Towson University, Towson, Maryland. June 2015. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/22/2015.

Publications

  • Melonie B. Murray (2022). Writing as a Meaningful Component of the MFA Curriculum. Dance Education in Practice. Published, 10/26/2022.
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23734...
  • Murray, Steven R. & Melonie B. Murray and Kristin J. Heumann (2022). "The Status of Physical Education Service Programs in Utah’s Colleges and Universities". Journal of Kinesiology & Wellness. Published, 01/07/2022.
  • Melonie B. Murray & Steven Ross Murray (2022). Reconnecting Dance and Physical Education through Dance Science. The Physical Educator. Vol. 79, 37-59. Published, 01/07/2022.
    https://js.sagamorepub.com/pe/article/view/10797
  • Melonie B. Murray (2022). Repetitions and Variations: the Embodied Cultural Memory of Ballet. Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts. Vol. 9, 15-26. Published, 01/03/2022.
    https://www.athensjournals.gr/humanities/2022-9-1-...
  • Murray, Melonie B. & Steven R. Murray (2021). "Framing Dance only as Art: the Philosophical Conundrum of Dance in Education". Dance Education in Practice. Accepted, 09/01/2021.
  • Murray, Melonie B. (2021). "The Uneasy, Unexplored, and Under-examined Existence of Ballet in American Higher Education". Research in Dance Education. Published, 07/30/2021.
    https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UZ8PZSDP9ARHKV7...
  • Murray, Melonie B. (2021). “Collaborative Syllabus Building: the 'buffet-style' career preparation course for dance majors". Dance Education in Practice. Vol. 7:2, 9-14. Published, 06/01/2021.
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23734...
  • Murray, Melonie B. & Ed. Adesola Akinleye (2021). "Ballet’s Binary Genders in a Rainbow-Spectrum World". (pp. 240-254). Intellect. Published, 03/01/2021.
  • Murray, Melonie B. & Steven R. Murray (2020). "Dance as an Academic Discipline in the United States and its Reconnection to Physical Education". The Physical Educator. Accepted, 10/19/2020.
  • Murray, Melonie B. & Steven R. Murray (2017). "The Performance of Gender in American Dance". The John Messengale Papers in Western Society for Kinesiology and Wellness Chronicles. Vol. 6, 4-11. Published, 12/2017.
  • Murray, Melonie B. & Steven R. Murray (2017). "The Physical Practice of Dance and Sport as Cultural Expression". The John Messengale Papers in Western Society for Kinesiology and Wellness Chronicles. Vol. 6, 12-16. Published, 12/2017.
  • Murray, Melonie B. “Maestro: Enrico Cecchetti and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes” in Dance Chronicle, vol. 40, no. 2. July 2017. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01472526.2017.1320744. Published, 07/2017.
  • Murray, Melonie Buchanan. “Selling Ballet: the Commoditization of Dancers in the Advertising Campaigns of American Ballet Companies” in The Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship. Accepted, 04/25/2014.
    http://www.jedsonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/...
  • Sands, William A PhD; Murray, Melonie Buchanan MFA; Murray, Steven Ross DA; McNeal, Jeni R. PhD; Mizuguchi, Satoshi PhD; Sato, Kimitake PhD; Stone, Michael H. PhD. “Peristaltic Pulse Dynamic Compression of Lower Extremity Enhances Flexibility” in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. September 2013. Accepted, 09/2013.