Dance Studies

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Open Access
Life as Somatic Practice
(2021-11-15) Kowalenko, Twyla Marie; Callison, Darcey
Somatics refers to a broad field of ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies that bring attention to the first-person subjective, sensorial experience of life through the practice of directing non-judgmental, open attention to one's body and listening to its messages (Eddy, 2016, p. 12). This research expands somatics, offering bridges between practice and life, by highlighting subtle separating tendencies such as mind versus body, internal versus external experience and expertise, and prescribed environmental conditions. By asking What if the awareness of the experience and movement in our bodies was regarded as not only important, but foundational in our lives, and something we had access to all the time?, this research offers a novel somatic practice-as-research approach via an emergent, mixed-method, arts-informed, reflective, and evocative method. Specifically, it uses movement scores intentionally limiting the frame to explore possibilities to provide a somatically grounded methodology that considers research, writing and reading as somatic practice. Working within a life-as-movement ontology (LaMothe 2015), which recognises the inherent movement in life, this research conceives of language, research and writing as movement scores and as possibilities for somatic practice. The research was both autoethnographic and participatory with a ten-week exploration with 20 participants. The participant exploration consisted of a semi-structured interview, video and written invitations via email to explore somatic practice in daily life, written and oral participant feedback, and an unstructured final interview. The research findings are presented through a variety of evocative and somatically-grounded writing scores. The plurality of writing scores crystallises the research, presenting multiple subjectivities and invites the reader to become somatically aware of their beliefs and experience. The research effectively demonstrates how somatics can transcend some of its limitations by empowering inner knowing and bringing praxes into all aspects of life, including research and language. This research shows how score as method contributes a transformational and somatic approach and an alternative to critical methods. As opposed to focusing on issues, problems and constraints, the method of score starts from what is working to grow and increase somatic awareness through our lives, effectively building on and expanding the reach and applicability of somatics.
Open Access
Men in Mohiniyattam: An Ethnographic Study on Gender Binaries
(2021-11-15) Banerjee, Sanjukta; Sellers-Young, Barbara
Mohiniyattam is an Indian Classical Dance form that originated in the state of Kerala and is popularly referred as the "dance of the enchantress." As a historically female-dominated genre, men have experienced barriers to learning and performing Mohiniyattam due to gender-based norms and stigmas (that call into question their sexuality and label them as effeminate). But, since the 1980s there has been rising interest among men to learn and embody Mohiniyattam, although social and institutional agencies have continued to negate their ability to access the genre. This dissertation maps male dancers movements between spaces (gendered, artistic, and geographical) as they are taking up Mohiniyattam—upon moving out of the orthodox Indian society into the Indian diaspora of Toronto—and establishing cultural exchange and the transmission of their unique perspectives. This ontological study draws on ethnographic research methods utilized during fieldwork conducted in Kolkata, India, and Toronto, Canada. With three primary case studies and archival and Internet research, I explore the experiences and challenges of male Mohiniyattam dancers who are negotiating hetero-centric biases, gendered norms and stigmas within their socio-political contexts and the dominant cultural ideology, and I consider the broader impacts of these gender-specific limitations and the audience gaze on the embodiment of Lsya or Tandav (movement qualities) in the practice of Mohiniyattam.
Open Access
I Dance Land: An Apprenticeship with Wind and Water: Depatterning Somatic Amnesia, Repatterning Ecosomatic Senses
(2021-11-15) Bellerose, Christine; Fisher-Stitt, Norma Sue
This doctoral research relates the somatic, sensory awareness, and eco-performative processes through which I seek to depattern my somatic amnesia and repattern my ecosomatic relationship to the land – a portal into what it means to move and think with the land and to ground knowledge by way of sensing and moving. EcoSomatics enlarges the notion of sensory motor amnesia by attending to ecosomatic disenchantment. This intuitive, site dance, performance as research bridges movement-based somatic art (somadance) with movement-based performance art (eco-performance). "I Dance Land" ecosomatic land-based epistemology is a hand-based philosophy founded on values of co-creation, reciprocity, mutuality, and continuity across differences, at the nexus of multiple somatic dimensions lived, apprenticing with wind and water, dancing and being danced by the land, and writing with mountain. The notion of somatic drives – senses of existing, awareness, attuning, and empathy –, delimiting a performance milieu, fleshing-out a notion of guesthood – arriving, waiting for an invitation, introducing myself and my art to the land, settling into, and not over-extending my stay –, sensing cold as texture, stepping into a place-of-not-cold, moving at the speed of ice, and finding ease in tension, are living and growing methods and techniques developed during this research journey. These lessons are methodologically rigorous, and generate a renewed intimacy with the land as they manifest in the somatic architecture my body dances. I include twelve autoethnographic case studies performed during the winter season's cold and summer's heat in Canada, the continental United States and Hawaii from 2013 to 2019. Not all make sense at the threshold between the real and the imagined, however, "I Dance Land" challenges the colonial legacy of Anglo-English culture of distrusting the body, sense, land, and meaning-making relationship. From the process of unwinding my aesthetic research journey emerges a praxis of relational eco-wellness that can be taught to dancers and non-dancers alike. Depatterning somatic amnesia, repatterning ecosomatic senses has rich implication for not only Somatics and EcoSomatics, but also for Phenomenology, Ecofeminism, Dance Studies, Performance Studies, and Settler-colonial scholarship, as well as laying the groundwork for research and community ecosomatic wellness projects involving somatic attentiveness.
Open Access
Going Off! The Untold Story of Breaking's Birth
(2021-07-06) Aprahamian, Seroui Hagop; Woehrel, Mary
When breaking first emerged in The Bronx, New York, of the 1970s, it was a dance practiced almost exclusively by African American teenagers. Yet, most scholarly accounts of the dance have focused on Latino/a youth and media narratives from the 1980s onwards to contextualize the form. As a result, much like jazz, rock n roll, or disco dancing before it, one can refer to dominant discourse on breaking today and find almost no mention of the African Americans who ushered it in. I address this invisibilization of breakings African American founders by analyzing the overlooked accounts and experiences of its earliest practitioners from the 1970s. Utilizing a wide array of non-traditional primary sources, untapped archival material, first-hand interviews, and movement analysis, I offer a revisionist account of the social dynamics and systemic factors that led to the creation of breaking as a distinctly working-class African American expression and its subsequent marginalization and misrepresentation in academia. Given the significant discrepancy between the testimony of pioneering breakers and what has been reproduced in academic writings, I also utilize such testimonies to disrupt prevailing assumptions within the field of hip-hop studies. As part of this process, I emphasize the largely overlooked role breaking played in shaping hip-hops musical development, as well as the impact youth socialization and alternative identity formation had on the cultures emergence. Central to this research is my contention that the non-normative aesthetics and principles of early hip-hop practices were shaped by the underground, working-class dance spaces in which the movement arose, forming part of a broader tradition of cultivating expression within the African American jook continuum.
Open Access
Exploring the Life and Work of Gladys Forrester: A Canadian Dance Educator, 1936 - 1998
(2021-07-06) Steel, Pamela Rae; Fisher-Stitt, Norma Sue
The current body of literature regarding dance history in Canada is informative and expanding, focusing predominantly on professional schools, dancers, choreographers and companies. There is much yet to be said, however, regarding individual dance educators, their instructional practices and influence on the subject of Canadian dance evolution and culture. This research investigates one mid-twentieth century, Toronto dance teacher, Gladys Forrester, expanding the body of knowledge specific to her career and contributions within the context of Toronto (and Canadian) dance history. Through archival and oral language research methodology Gladys Forresters professional dance and teaching praxis comes to light. This study describes issues and lays bare existing specific phenomena in order to gain greater insight into historical events (Sagor 156). The goal to understand Gladys Forresters dance practice and pedagogical philosophy enables an exploration of the Toronto dance culture of her time, clarifying her legacy and influence on todays dance community. In addition, research aims to represent the human experience of the subject in such a way that readers or viewers are drawn into the interpretive process of making meaning based on their own reading and reality (Cole and Knowles 11). The exploration of materials provides insight into the life and work of a forgotten voice and presence in history. Approximately 30 interviews designed to identify Forresters particular profile and contribution reveal information categorized within the frames of: the Christian Science religion and the psychology of flow, and teaching pedagogy and philosophy. Results of the information analysis provide a variety of findings that survey Forresters unique approach, the quality of her teaching and her role in the dance community.
Open Access
An Applied Neurobiological Model Of Dance, Why It Matters, And How It Heals
(2021-03-08) Barnstaple, Rebecca Elizabeth; Callison, Darcey
Dance-based programs for neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers (PD/AD) diseases are growing, with reported benefits including physical, cognitive, and affective improvements. This is not a new phenomenon; throughout history in cultures around the world, dance has played a role in promoting health and changing the course of maladies; however, it is only recently that research has attempted to identify and understand the mechanisms through which these benefits occur. A neurobiological model of dance, grounded in tools and practices from the field of dance studies, elucidates aspects of dancemaking that are effective in the treatment of specific disorders while promoting health and optimising function. Dance studies can and should play a central role in the development of dance-based interventions and research, contributing to our understanding of the impacts of motor learning and performance on the nervous system, and demonstrating the importance of skillful creative movement for well-being across the lifespan.
Open Access
Whoever Said Change Was Good: The Transforming Body of the Disney Villainess
(2020-05-11) Johnson, Michelle Marie; Fisher-Stitt, Norma Sue
This dissertation examines female figures in Disney animation through the lens of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), a system for observing and articulating movement qualities. Drawing from six major films released between 1937 and 2010, I focus my inquiry on how the bodies and movement of Disneys villainesses reflect and/or perpetuate cultural imaginaries of women. I identify the influence of several cultural tropes of femininity, including fairy-tale archetypes, ballet conventions, and the Hollywood femme fatale, and explore how they constellate social understandings of age, beauty, and desirability. Coalescing around the theme of physical transformation, the study investigates how consistent movement patterns both support character animation and reflect gender ideologies encoded in the bodies of these wicked women. Through a methodology grounded in LMA and drawing from dance studies, feminist theory, and Disney scholarship, I interrogate popular conceptions of women and evil, articulate how movement contributes to cultural meaning, and demonstrate LMAs value to cultural analysis and animation.
Open Access
Between Species: Choreographing Human and Nonhuman Bodies
(2019-11-22) Osborn, Jonathan Mark; Sellers-Young, Barbara
BETWEEN SPECIES: CHOREOGRAPHING HUMAN AND NONHUMAN BODIES is a dissertation project informed by practice-led and practice-based modes of engagement, which approaches the space of the zoo as a multi-species, choreographic, affective assemblage. Drawing from critical scholarship in dance literature, zoo studies, human-animal studies, posthuman philosophy, and experiential/somatic field studies, this work utilizes choreographic engagement, with the topography and inhabitants of the Toronto Zoo and the Berlin Zoologischer Garten, to investigate the potential for kinaesthetic exchanges between human and nonhuman subjects. In tracing these exchanges, BETWEEN SPECIES documents the creation of the zoomorphic choreographic works ARK and ARCHE and creatively mediates on: more-than-human choreography; the curatorial paradigms, embodied practices, and forms of zoological gardens; the staging of human and nonhuman bodies and bodies of knowledge; the resonances and dissonances between ethological research and dance ethnography; and, the anthropocentric constitution of the field of dance studies.
Open Access
Work It Out: Three Case Studies Examining Dance and Girls' Body Image in Early Adolescence
(2019-03-05) Paolantonio, Deanna Olga; Robinson, Danielle
For young girls, the self-disciplining of their physical bodies, both in their use and appearance, has resulted in the prevalence of body image issues. Supported by extensive literature on body image, I argue that young girls learn that their self-worth as future women is tied to the evaluation of their bodies as aesthetically pleasing, reproductively able, and representative of conventional femininity. In this dissertation, I detail a new approach to teaching dance to girls in schools who are on the cusp of becoming teenagers through a specially designed program, Work It Out. This program aims to account for the performative nature of gender (Butler 1990) and the prevalence of beauty sickness (Engeln-Maddox 2005) among adolescent girls through self-reflexive, embodied play activities. This teaching strategy applies the inherently expressive nature of creative dance and choreography to girls experience of their bodies and body image. Work It Out fills a pedagogical gap in current body image programming options for girls provided by existing programs. While these other programs have brought the issue of girls body image to the attention of mainstream media, they do not adequately address the issue of girls body image in an inclusive, girl-centered, expressive, flexible, or reflexive way. Through a series of three case studies conducted in a coeducational public school, a girls-only private school, and a type one diabetic girls-only recreational setting, I address the following questions: Can dance, as a form of embodied play, assist girls aged 11 to 14 in grappling with the body image issues that frequently occur in adolescence? Which pedagogical strategies have the potential to foster a more positive corporeal self-conceptualization? And how can educators use dance in a range of settings to encourage positive body image? Overall, this research shows that in these three distinct settings, educators invested in fostering positive body image need to attend to the following three fundamental concepts: body functionality, belonging, and body-based ideals. If girls learn to appreciate their bodies functionality, forge a stronger sense of belonging, and diversify their body-based ideals, they will be empowered to re-conceptualize their body image in a positive way.
Open Access
Choreographing and Reinventing Chinese Diasporic Identities - An East-West Collaboration
(2018-11-21) Quah, Elena; Amegago, Modesto
In demonstrating Eastern- and Western-based Chinese diasporic dances as equally critical and question-provoking in Chinese identity reconstructions, this research compares choreographic implications in the Hong Kong-Taiwan and Toronto-Vancouver dance milieus of recent decades (1990s 2010s). An auto-ethnographic study of Yuri Ngs (Hong Kong) and Lin Hwai-mins (Taiwan) works versus my own (Toronto) and Wen Wei Wangs (Vancouver), it probes identities choreographed in place-constituted third spaces between Chinese selves and Euro-American Others. I suggest that these identities perpetrate hybrid movements and aesthetics of geo-cultural-political distinctness from the Chinese ancestral land ones manifesting ultimate glocalization intersecting global political economies and local cultural-creative experiences. Echoing the diasporic habitats cultural and socio-historical specificities, they are constantly (re) appropriated and reinvented via translation, interpretation, negotiation, and integration of East-West cultural-artistic and socio-political ingredients. The event unfolds such identities placial uniqueness that indicates the same Chinese roots yet divergent diasporic routes. In reviewing Ngs balletic and contemporary photo-choreographic productions of post-British colonial Hong Kong-ness alongside Lins repertories of Chinese traditional, Taiwan indigenous, American modern and Other artistic impacts noting Taiwanese-ness, the study unearths cultural roots as the core source of Chinese identity rebuilding from East Asian displacements. It traces an ingrained third space between Chinese historic-social values, Western cultural elements, and Other performing artistries of Hong Kong and Taiwanese belongings. Juxtaposing my Chinese traditional-based and transcultural Toronto dance projects with Wangs Vancouver balletic-contemporary fusions of Chinese iconicity, Chinese-Canadian identities marked by a hyphenated (third/in-between) space are associated as varying North American self-generated routes of social and artistic possibilities in a Canadian mosaic-cosmopolitical setting the persistent state of Canadian becoming. My conclusion resolves the examined choreographic cases as continually developed through third-space instigated East-West cultural-political crossings plus interpenetrative local creativities and global receptivity. Of gains or losses, struggles or rebirths, the cases of placial-temporal significations elicit multiple questions on Chinese diasporic cultural infusions, social sustenance, artistic integrity, and identity representations amid East-West negotiations my experiential reflection on the dance role and potency in the reimagining and remaking of Chinese diasporic identities.
Open Access
Metacognitive Writing Strategies for Emerging Dancer-Scholars: Uncovering Supportive Links Between Academic Writing and Choreographic Processes
(2018-11-21) LaFrance, Cheryl Lynne; Fisher-Stitt, Norma Sue
Canadian graduate programs in Dance at the Masters level frequently accept students with long professional careers in dance but limited academic background in writing essays. Writing term papers, with perhaps only dim memories of high school writing instruction to draw from, can pose challenging experiences for such emerging dancer-scholars. While long standing metacognitive reading strategies are commonly available to assist those new to graduate studies with interpreting their academic readings, no comparable metacognitive writing strategies appear in the literature to support an academic writing process. However, metacognition theory regarding the role of affect in monitoring and controlling ones progress through the completion of a task offers potential applications to support academic writing. Furthermore, re-imagining academic writing as an experience deeply informed by affect resonates with recent research into articulating the affective or felt sense understanding of ones creative processes in composing a choreographic work. Investigating connections between how dancers process composition tasks in the two disciplines revealed metacognitive processing parallels. The findings implied several considerations for designing a writing pedagogy specific to the needs of emerging dancer-scholars. This dissertation research with graduate dance students in Canada and the US incorporated ethnographic and educational action research approaches for identifying, addressing and documenting participants perceived essay writing problems. Initial group workshops prepared the participants for individual Case Study research sessions, which were characterized by practice-led research/research-led practice methods of generating, developing, performing and theorizing. The research investigated the howness of each participants writing process across a series of analytical writing assignments. Participants and I collaborated in uncovering the focus and potential structure for each paper using visual-spatial-dialoguing techniques. Participants expressed affective experiences during these video- or audio-taped sessions and in emailed reflections. Their gestural and verbal metaphors generated metacognitive knowledge about the source of writing frustrations versus the support provided by using familiar processing techniques from their choreographic practices. Their retrospective analyses demonstrated the participants metacognitive evolution from personal awareness to co- and self-regulated learning about the characteristic processing traits underlying their writing and choreographic practices. A comparative analysis of three Case Studies suggested metacognitive writing strategies for supporting emerging dancer-scholars.
Open Access
Soviet Bodies in Canadian Dancesport: Cultural Identities, Embodied Politics, and Performances of Resistance in Three Canadian Ballroom Dance Studios
(2018-08-27) Outevsky, David; Alcedo, Russ Patrick
This research examines the effect of Soviet Union era indoctrination on dance pedagogy and performance at DanceSport studios run by Soviet migrants in Canada. I investigate the processes of cultural cross-pollination within this population through an analysis of first and second generation Soviet-Canadian ballroom dancers experiences with cultural identity within the dance milieu. My study is guided by questions such as: What are the differences in the relationship between national politics and dance in the Soviet Union and Canada? How have Soviet migrant dancers adapted to the Canadian socio-economic context? And, how did these cultural shifts affect the teaching and performances of these dancers? My positionality as a former Soviet citizen and a ballroom dancer facilitates my understanding of the intricacies of this community and affords me unique entry into their world. To contextualize this study, I conducted an extensive literature review dealing with Soviet physical education, diasporic identities, and embodied politics. I then carried out qualitative interviews and class observation of Soviet- Canadian competitive ballroom dancers at three studios in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. The research conducted for this dissertation revealed various cultural adaptation strategies applied by these dancers, resulting in the development of dual identities combining characteristics from both Soviet and Canadian cultures. My analysis of the data contributes original information to the fields of dance studies and pedagogy, migration studies, and cultural studies. The results of this study can act as a guide in the development of arts management, education, and cultural integration policies in Canada, fostering a creative dialogue between dancers, academics, and policy makers.
Open Access
Resistance: In Practice, as Process, and as Metaphor
(2017-07-27) Zukiwsky, Shae Ron Paul; Alcedo, Russ Patrick
Resistance: in Practice, as Process, and as Metaphor is an ethnographic and a practice-based research project. Michel Foucaults theory of the docile body is firmly embedded within the dissertations methodological framework that works toward signifying new considerations of relationships between theory and practice, and the relationships between individual dancers and their dance practices. My dissertation positions the practices that contributed to the creation and performance of the contemporary dance work Resistance, as the main focus of the dissertations scholarly inquiry. This inquiry asks: given that I am a docile body, what else could I be? In dialogue with selected theories that consider the body and individual subjectivity, the dissertation aims to address the marginalization and objectification of the dancers body-as-object, devoid of personal experience. This absence of the dancers personal experience permeates Western theatre dance scholarship. The dissertation serves as a form of resistance to existing theories that privilege the position and experiences of the spectator/observer of a dance performance over the creators and performers of the work. I frame my own dance practice as the primary field site for this ethnographic study that considers the body, individual subjectivity, art and the individual, choreographic processes, and agency. Positioned at the center of this practice-based research project is the creative act as a form of knowledge and scholarship.
Open Access
Ballet Pedagogy as Kinesthetic Collaboration: Exploring Kinesthetic Dialogue in an Embodied Student-Teacher Relationship
(2016-11-25) Berg, Tanya Christa; Fisher-Stitt, Norma Sue
The twenty-first century ballet class often retains traditional organization, beginning with the barre work, continuing with the centre practice, adage, pirouettes, and allegro. However, the pedagogical demands on teachers have evolved within that framework due to critical questioning of how factors such as patriarchal underpinnings of class structure, the students lived experience, and the efficacy of newly added pedagogical strategies influence dance education. Employing ethnographic methods, in the form of two separate studies, this research addresses how embodied student-teacher relationships based on multisensory perception can create kinesthetic dialogue, which facilitates the transmission of embodied knowledge. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how an embodied student-teacher relationship manifests itself in the ballet studio, highlighting whether kinesthetic dialogue facilitates the transfer of bodily knowledge. The questions driving the research were: What combination of verbal and non-verbal communication is observed between the teacher and the students in each environment? Do instances within this communication illustrate the pedagogical tool of kinesthetic dialogue? Do moments within this pedagogical dialogue appear to trigger previously developed body memory in the students, based on their reactions to instructions, as well as in their performance of the material? Ethnographic data collection techniques included: participant observation, teacher interviews, student email interviews, student focus groups as well as student surveys. Results are reported using both a priori themes as well as themes that emerged from the data. The data interpretation across both studies is reported using two overarching pedagogical themes: the application of traditional pedagogical strategies with their accompanying ideologies, and the incorporation of innovative techniques that facilitated a progressive approach to learning. Literature demonstrates that the student-teacher relationship is saturated with a patriarchal history, hierarchical constraints and external aesthetic expectations. However, critical analysis by scholars and educators regarding institutionalization, the body, and pedagogy are shifting the foundations of traditional ballet for future generations. This research indicates that bringing ballets well-established pedagogical tools to consciousness has the potential to create more effective learning situations. An understanding of kinesthetic dialogue can facilitate the conscious application of a reciprocal mode of kinesthetic communication that ballet teachers have intuitively employed for centuries.
Open Access
Reconstructing the Present Through Kinesthetic History: An Investigation into Modes of Preserving, Transmitting, and Restaging Contemporary Dance
(2015-08-28) Young, Heather Elizabeth; Fisher-Stitt, Norma Sue
Methods of dance preservation have evolved alongside conceptual themes that have framed dance’s historical narrative. The tradition of written dance notation developed in accordance with notions that prioritized logocentricity, and placed historical legitimacy on tangible artifacts and irrefutable archives; whereas the technical revolution of the late twentieth century saw dance preservation practices shift to embrace film and video documentation because they provided more accessible, and more convenient records. Since the 1970s video recordings have generally been considered to provide authentic visual representations of dance works, and the tradition of score writing has begun to wane. However, scholarly criticism has unveiled both philosophical and practical challenges posed by these two modes of documentation, thus illuminating a gap between theories of embodiment and the practice of dance preservation. In alignment with contemporary discourse, which legitimizes the body as a site of generating and storing knowledge, this dissertation suggests ‘kinesthetic history’ as a valid mode of dance preservation. Operating as a counterpart to oral history, and borrowing theoretical concepts from contemporary historiography, existential phenomenology and ethnography, the term ‘kinesthetic history’ suggests a mode of corporeal inscription and transmission that relies on the reciprocal interaction of bodies in space. The use of ‘kinesthetic history’ as a methodological approach to the preservation, translation, and reconstruction of movement material reflects the elements of fluidity, plurality and subjectivity that are often characteristic of contemporary choreographic practices. This theory is interrogated through a case study, which explores the ways in which both a written and digitized score, video recordings, and the ‘kinesthetic history’ of an original cast member operated as modes of transmission in a 2013 restaging of William Forsythe’s One Flat Thing, reproduced (2000) at The Juilliard School. Conclusions drawn from the case study challenge the traditional notions of reconstruction and restaging and suggest ‘regeneration’ as an alternative term to describe the process of preserving and transmitting contemporary dance works.
Open Access
Towards a Generative Politics of Expression: Re-Negotiating Identity in the "Traditional" Dances of Fiji and Fiji's Canadian Diaspora
(2015-01-26) Kelly, Evadne Emily May; Robinson, Danielle
Recent performances of the “traditional” Fijian song-dance practice called meke indicate a re-negotiation of identity amongst Fijians living in Fiji and Canada. Post-independence Fiji has had a tumultuous history with four coups d’etat since 1987. Governance in that time, impacted by close to a century of British colonial rule, has been centred on a biopolitical terrain occupied by firm categories of race, ethnicity and culture. The politics of negotiating identity in post-independence Fiji have created ethnic tensions that have divided dance forms (Hereniko 2006). However, in light of Fiji’s most recent 2006 military coup in the name of multiracial harmony and anti-racism, there has been a re-negotiation of “Fijianness” in performances of meke that sometimes blurs boundaries formed by categories of race, and other times sustains race-based boundaries. These political and historical contexts are elements of what is being re-negotiated for members of Fiji’s disparate Diaspora in Canada that has grown significantly due to the coups (Lal 2003). In the context of shifting biopolitical terrains of power, my research asks: how does expressing movement-based affects (as relational feelings/sensations of intensity) activate and transform political tensions and identifications with nation, ethnicity, and culture for practitioners of meke in Canada and Fiji? The findings of this research are based on original dance-based participant observation fieldwork and archival research conducted in Western Canada and Viti Levu, Fiji between 2011 and 2013. I argue that meke in Canada and Fiji enables a re-negotiation of identity through experiences and expressions of powerful feeling states that generate and are simultaneously generated by movement. These affects enable Fijians to de-centre and strategically deploy discourses of multiculturalism in Canada and multiracialism in Fiji that divide Fijians by treating them as “ethnically” homogenous yet distinct groups. In addition, while haunted by felt intensities that migrate from Fiji, Fijian migrants in Vancouver generate new articulations of identity expressed through meke that emerge from new connections to place. I examine examples of Fijian dance that show how movement-based affects go beyond merely reflecting or representing culture and ethnicity, and instead expose how dance actively generates culture and identity.
Open Access
The Debaprasad Das Tradition: Reconsidering the Narrative of Classical Indian Odissi Dance History
(2014-07-09) Kar, Paromita; Alcedo, Russ Patrick
This dissertation is dedicated to theorizing the Debaprasad Das stylistic lineage of Indian classical Odissi dance. Odissi is one of the seven classical Indian dance forms recognized by the Indian government. Each of these dance forms underwent a twentieth century “revival” whereby it was codified and recontextualized from pre-existing ritualistic and popular movement practices to a performance art form suitable for the proscenium stage. The 1950s revival of Odissi dance in India ultimately led to four stylistic lineage branches of Odissi, each named after the corresponding founding pioneer of the tradition. I argue that the theorization of a dance lineage should be inclusive of the history of the lineage, its stylistic vestiges and philosophies as embodied through its aesthetic characteristics, as well as its interpretation, and transmission by present-day practitioners. In my theorization of the Debaprasad Das lineage of Odissi, I draw upon Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the habitus, and argue that Guru Debaprasad Das's vision of Odissi dance was informed by the socio-political backdrop of Oriya nationalism, in the context of which he choreographed, but also resisted the heavy emphasis on coastal Oriya culture of the Oriya nationalist movement. My methodology for the project has been ethnographic, supported by original archival research. In the second chapter, I examine the twentieth century history of this stylistic lineage in the context of the Odissi revival of the 1950s, and in the third chapter, I examine the life and artistic work of its founder, the late Guru Debaprasad Das. The fourth chapter is dedicated to analyzing the stylistic characteristics distinct to this style of Odissi, and examining some of the underlying politics of representation, classicism, and regional affiliations which have informed the repertoire and movement lexicon of this lineage. I point to how this lineage has been historically marginalized in scholarship, discourse, and the international stage, and analyze some of the reasons for this marginalization. The fifth and sixth chapter are dedicated to the current practice of the lineage, including pedagogical practices by current teachers, as well as examination of the creation and performance of new repertoire pieces within this lineage, and the various contexts in which this style of Odissi is performed globally. Ultimately, I examine the divergent artistic voices from within the Debaprasad Das lineage itself and argue that the Debaprasad Das lineage of Odissi is itself marked by heterogeneity via multiple and often divergent understandings of the philosophies of the late Guru Debaprasad Das.

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