A HISTORY OF AUSTIN BALLET THEATRE AT THE ARMADILLO WORLD HEADQUARTERS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF DANCE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES BY CAROLINE SUTTON CLARK, B.F.A., M.F.A. DENTON, TEXAS DECEMBER 2016 DEDICATION To my magical daughters, Gwendolyn and Genevieve. Thank you for all the hugs. May you always live life to the fullest. To all of the voices who could not be included. And, to Stanley, standing in the wings. “My dear, you did it!” iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Linda Caldwell, for her enthusiasm, insight, and guidance throughout the process. She bravely undertook the journey with me throughout these several years. I would also like to thank my committee members past and present for their generosity and unwavering support: Dr. Rosemary Candelario, Professor Mary Williford-Shade, and Professor Jordan Fuchs. Dr. Penny Hanstein welcomed me into the program and instilled in me the skills to embark on a new life in research. The administrative assistant for the dance department at Texas Woman’s University, Penny Lewis, has not only been a joy to work with but also provided priceless insight from her own experiences. And, thank you to my cohort-mates, who have been a never-ending source of inspiration, brilliance, support, and humor. A special thank you goes to the McCorkle family who housed and fed me during my studies with not only the best of companionship, human and canine, but some of the most delicious food I’ve ever eaten. Thank you to the people I interviewed for this research. I am so honored to work with you. Thank you to my family, including Eldon, Beverly, Susan, Nancy, Chris, Gwendolyn, and Genevieve, plus David and Jeffrey, for sustaining and supporting me. Also, thank you to my wonderful dancer friends, too many to mention, for all the good times—especially at Café Dance. iv ABSTRACT CAROLINE SUTTON CLARK A HISTORY OF AUSTIN BALLET THEATRE AT THE ARMADILLO WORLD HEADQUARTERS DECEMBER 2016 The purpose of this qualitative historical inquiry is to investigate the performances of Austin Ballet Theatre at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, TX from 1972 to 1980. Austin Ballet Theatre was an amateur ballet company performing classical and contemporary works at the Armadillo World Headquarters, a psychedelic music club. In addition to allowing for the composition of a historiography of this unusual pairing, the dissertation research results in multiple insights into an important, although largely unknown, period of cultural history in the Austin community. It also highlights how connections among diverse groups of people and practices not only iterated through the situation of practice then but continue to influence historical narratives about the ballet and how it is remembered. The research was conducted using an oral history methodology with 19 participants representing a variety of perspectives on these ballet performances. These interviewees included dancers, mothers of the dancers, visual artists for both the ballet and the Armadillo, Armadillo staff, the lighting designer for the ballet, a dance critic for the newspaper, and audience members. Some documents, mostly newspaper reviews and v articles along with playbills and broadsides, also emerged from the archives of the Austin History Center and the dancers’ private collections. The use of open-ended oral history methods resulted in a constellation of analytical themes surrounding what the participants identified as the most important aspects of this history: learning through performing, and making ballet accessible to the community. Further investigation of these themes resulted in the questioning of socio- cultural frames of ballet and how Austin Ballet Theatre’s practices functioned for dancers and audiences in this time and place. The dissertation also investigates the narrative, discursive condition of history composition through the creation of a historiographic metafiction about Austin Ballet Theatre at the Armadillo World Headquarters. The metafiction, included as an appendix, provides an alternative way of experiencing the data towards fulfilling the research purpose of representing the multi-layered processes of qualitative historical inquiry. This research therefore supports a world-making view of dance practices and considers how such a perspective impacts historical narratives. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ............................................................................................................ iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. v Chapter I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 Background: From Oral History ...................................................................... 1 Statement of the Research Purpose .................................................................. 3 The Meaning of Meaning ..................................................................... 4 Overview of the Scope of the Study .................................................... 4 Importance of the Study ....................................................................... 5 Structure ........................................................................................................... 7 Chapter Organization ........................................................................... 7 The Appendices ................................................................................... 8 Appendix A .............................................................................. 8 Appendix B .............................................................................. 8 The Appendix: Historiographic Metafiction .................................................... 8 II. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................ 11 Toward a Research Approach ........................................................................ 11 Oral History Methodology ............................................................................. 14 Data Collection .............................................................................................. 16 Austin History Center ........................................................................ 16 Oral History Interviews ...................................................................... 19 Finding Participants ............................................................... 19 The Interview Process ............................................................ 21 Interview Techniques ................................................. 21 Transcription .............................................................. 25 Memorabilia as Emerging Documents ............................................... 26 Photographs and Video ...................................................................... 28 Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 29 vii Analytical Processes .......................................................................... 29 Trustworthiness .................................................................................. 32 Reflexivity and My Role as Researcher ......................................................... 33 My Positionality ................................................................................. 34 Shared Authority and Changing Recorded History ........................... 35 Representation ................................................................................................ 37 Chapter Organization ......................................................................... 37 A Note on Verb Tenses ...................................................................... 38 Alternative Representation ................................................................. 39 Inspiration .............................................................................. 39 Literature Review ................................................................... 40 Stephen Banks: The Argument for Fiction ................ 41 Linda Hutcheon: “Historiographic Metafiction” ....... 43 Leah McCormack: Historiographic Metafiction in Practice ....................................................................... 44 The Process of Writing Historiographic Metafiction ............. 47 Multiple Voices and Points of View .......................... 47 Verb Tenses ............................................................... 48 Creating Space for Details ......................................... 49 Placement in the Dissertation ..................................... 49 Conclusions .................................................................................................... 50 III. A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF AUSTIN BALLET THEATRE AT THE ARMADILLO WORLD HEADQUARTERS ..................................................... 54 Mid-20th Century Ballet History in Austin .................................................... 54 Austin Ballet Society ......................................................................... 54 “Mainly About Women” .......................................................