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Why dance: the impact of multi arts practice and technology on contemporary dance

This thesis investigates the influence of hybrid theatre practices, media and technology on contemporary dance performance and questions if dance is endangered by developments in hybrid cultures. Through a consideration of dance genealogies, the thesis suggests that notions of identity play a significant role in power structures within interdisciplinary relationships. / Contemporary dance has gone through many changes in the last century. In particular, contemporary aspects of performance have demonstrated that the body is not the only site for dance. Why dance, is a culmination of questions that surfaced during the course of my own practice. It refers to questions that many dancers have asked themselves in the years following the arrival of postmodernism, when notions of body identity confronted conceptual possibilities in the terrain of interdisciplinary and mediated spaces. / Incorporating my own experience as a practitioner and observer with theoretical perspectives in the field, I have attempted to give voice to some of the ambiguities and paradoxes that inhabit dance and its hybrid postmodern affiliates. I make use of various genealogies that have led to hybrid and interdisciplinary interactions as a means to define relationships of power that exist within interdisciplinarity. The use of case studies and examples of performances from Europe and Australia provide material through which to examine performance methodologies that have arisen out of interdisciplinary practice. My reading and suggestions express the concern that disciplines outside of the body may have become more important as defining element in dance. Through an examination of new ways that dancers now speak through media other than their bodies, the thesis examines what affects this has on the discipline of dance and questions if notions of disciplinarity are still relevant. While it has become necessary to reconstruct, reinterpret and demystify the body, the outcome suggests that autonomy rests with recognition of the body as the site for further development within negotiated spaces.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245227
Date January 2007
CreatorsMokotow, A.
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
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