Date of Award

5-2019

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

MFA in Dance

Department

Dance Graduate Program

Abstract

This thesis establishes the practice of choreography within the methodology of Practiceas- Research (PaR) and draws on performance theorist and dramaturge Bojana Cvejić’s idea of choreography as “problem-posing” to emphasize choreography’s capacity to provoke ideas, questions and problems in the creative and performative process. It centers the choreographic practice around the question of time and engages in conversations about the conceptualization and actualization of time philosophically, theoretically and choreographically. Investigating Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch’s concept of the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous, the author connects this theory to her personal experience of living in America as a Chinese national. Advocating for the idea of choreographing in the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous, this project emphasizes that choreography can not only function as a liberating vehicle charged in the non-simultaneous situation, but also potently raises the following questions: Can choreography both embody and establish a social, cultural, political and artistic identity? Is there a national border line and a historical artistic lineage guarding and trapping the identity of the work itself? Can choreography not only evoke all of these questions, but also be liberated from these limitations and contradictions?

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