UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title A Critical Dance Studies Examination of the Teaching Methodologies, Exercises, and Principles of Pilates Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7sj2k7f7 Author Holmes, Sarah Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE A Critical Dance Studies Examination of the Teaching Methodologies, Exercises, and Principles of Pilates A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Dance History and Theory by Sarah Woolverton Holmes June 2013 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Chairperson Dr. Anthea Kraut Dr. Tamara Ho Copyright by Sarah Woolverton Holmes 2013 The Dissertation of Sarah Woolverton Holmes is approved: _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside DEDICATION To Riley Holmes and Carole Reed. Thank you. iv ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A Critical Dance Studies Examination of the Teaching Methodologies, Exercises, and Principles of Pilates by Sarah Woolverton Holmes Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Dance History and Theory University of California, Riverside, June 2013 Dr. Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Chairperson This project examines the teaching methodologies, exercises, and Principles of the exercise practice commonly known as Pilates from a Critical Dance Studies perspective. Muscle memory, or embodied knowledge, is significant to dance scholarship in that embodied knowledge houses important unwritten cultural, social, and political histories. This project examines the racial, gendered, and class-based issues embedded in the exercises and Principles of Pilates, revealing the ways that the embodied discourses Pilates perpetuates are “white” in nature, and work to conceal and absent other cultural histories. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .................................................................................................... vii Chapter I: A Critical Dance Studies Approach to Analyzing Pilates ................. 1 Chapter II: The Pilates Exercises: The “Quiet” Hips of Pilates and the Racial Instability of the Pelvis ................ 35 Chapter III: Classing the “Classical” Pilates Principles: Demonstrations of Discipline and Bodily Comportment ................................. 89 Chapter IV: Imagining and Imaging Pilates: White Gender Norms, Beauty and the “Ideal” Body ...................................... 146 Chapter V: The Presence of Absences: Unconscious Competency of Cultural Appropriations ................................... 196 Afterwards: So What? Where Do We Go From Here? .................................. 225 Bibliography .................................................................................................... 232 Appendix A: Evolved Principles ..................................................................... 248 Appendix B: The Universal Reformer ............................................................ 250 Appendix C: Sources of Figures ..................................................................... 251 vi LIST OF FIGURES Number Page Figure 1.1: Author and Student Learning the “Chest Expansion” Exercise .............................................................................................................. 30 Figure 1.2: Author Performing “Plank” on the Reformer, Part of the “Long Stretch” Exercise .................................................................................... 30 Figure 2.1: Polestar Pilates, “One Leg Stretch” Exercise ................................ 39 Figure 2.2: Polestar Pilates, “Leg Circles” Exercise ....................................... 43 Figure 2.3: Polestar Pilates, “Quadruped Series” Exercise ............................. 47 Figure 2.4: Ballerina in Arabesque ................................................................... 67 Figure 2.5: The Transversus Abdominus .......................................................... 72 Figure 2.6: The Core Muscles ........................................................................... 72 Figure 2.7: The Action of the Transversus ...................................................... 73 Figure 2.8: Author Using Tactile Cues to Stabilize a Student’s Pelvis .......... 88 Figure 3.1: Julianna Demonstrating Concentration in the Advanced “Bicycle” Exercise ............................................................................................. 97 Figure 3.2: Joseph Pilates Demonstrating Centering in the “Hundred” Exercise .............................................................................................................. 98 Figure 3.3: Dana Demonstrating Control in the “Open Leg Rocker” Exercise ............................................................................................................ 101 Figure 3.4: Peak Pilates Model Demonstrating the Inhalation in the “Chest Expansion” Exercise ............................................................................ 103 Figure 3.5: Joseph Pilates Demonstrating Precision in the “One Leg Stretch” Exercise .............................................................................................. 105 vii Figure 3.6: Illustration of Women Demonstrating Flowing Movement In the “Rollover” Exercise ............................................................................... 107 Figure 3.7: Author Teaching Flow, Precision, and Centering ........................ 145 Figure 4.1: Julianna Demonstrating the “Leg Pull Up” Exercise .................. 152 Figure 4.2: Front Cover of Pilates “How-To” Book....................................... 152 Figure 4.3: Peak Pilates Model Demonstrating the “Pilates Stance” ............. 153 Figure 4.4: Illustration of a Woman Demonstrating Proper Pilates Abdominal Support .......................................................................................... 154 Figure 4.5: Another Pilates Body? ................................................................. 154 Figure 4.6: More Defined Abdominals ........................................................... 155 Figure 4.7: Photograph of Woman Demonstrating the “Teaser” Exercise With “Magic Circle” Prop ............................................................................... 156 viii CHAPTER ONE A Critical Dance Studies Approach to Analyzing Pilates ________________________________________________________________________ Like many dancers before me, I came to know the benefits of an exercise system commonly known as “Pilates” because of an injury I sustained while dancing.1 Realizing I needed help outside of what “traditional” physical therapy could offer I sought Pilates to help my recovery. That was over twelve years ago, and since then, I have been certified by three different Pilates organizations, and continue to practice and teach Pilates on a regular basis.2 Early on in my Pilates career, I was very interested in the rehabilitative benefits of Pilates; I “shadowed” physical therapists, enrolled in anatomy and physiology courses, studied dance kinesiology, and became determined to understand the moving body from a kinesiological and biomechanical perspective. My passion for Pilates focused more on the “science” of the moving body and how Pilates could assist the body in healing. My story is not unusual. “The body” was an amazing machine to me, and one that I wanted to understand as such. But my perspective of the body, although beneficial in many ways, was singularly focused. As a first year graduate student in Critical Dance Studies at the University of California, Riverside, my understanding of the body began to shift. I came to see how the body’s movement can be understood not only scientifically, but culturally, historically, racially, sexually, and emotionally. Almost immediately into 1 For the purposes of this essay “Pilates” will be written as Pilates, and denotes the exercise practice. Its creator, Joseph Pilates will be referred to as Joseph Pilates. Additionally, “Pilates” can be pronounced: “Pil-AH-teez” or “Pil-AH-tus.” 2 Polestar Pilates in 2004, Peak Pilates in 2009, and the Pilates Method Alliance in 2011. 1 my coursework, questions about Pilates began to tug at my hagiographic and scientific perspectives. What, if any, are the embodied cultural values of Pilates? Are there “kinesthetic traces,” to borrow the term from Priya Srinivasan, of bodies which have otherwise been silenced over the course of its history? What kind of bodies are/were “produced” as a result of Pilates, and what does this tell us about culture? To what extent does Pilates discipline the body? How does Pilates effect the body’s participation in culture? Is the image of a “healthy” body accessible only to those who can afford it? Does Pilates contribute to a “politics of appearance” (that privileges whiteness and healthiness) which, ultimately, subjugates the disabled and/or non-white body? How can I understand the historical kinesthetic legacies of the “Pilates body” from cultural, gendered, class and racial perspectives? This research project grew from these initial questions. While I realize the ideas presented in this project may be controversial to some, I hope that my readers will approach these theories with an understanding that examining Pilates in a critical way will only expand