Expanding the Object: Post-conceptual dance and choreographic performance practices

Abstract

This project is concerned with exploring the relationship between postconceptual dance and its state as object. As a practice-led research project it aims to do so both through the written thesis and through artistic practice, which is here presented as a series of video projects that extend representations of dance. Over five chapters I trace the permutation of the ‘object’ from choreographer to spectator, participant, editor, collector and ‘reframer’, arguing for the multiplicity of roles that choreographers, and by extension dancers, take on at the beginning of the 21st century. My interdisciplinary research draws from a variety of theoretical discourses including performance theory, visual cultures and critical theory, and is therefore both relevant to the field of dance studies and beyond the discipline. Given the practice-led nature of the project, my aim has been to expand choreographic performance practices and to increases the range of ‘objects’ that can be considered dance. Therefore, the project resides in the gaps and tensions between practice and theory, performance and documentation, language and dance, text and movement, choreography and objecthood. Throughout I argue that post-conceptual dance operates within an extended field in which dancers and choreographers are expanding the boundaries of the art form, making dance relevant to a broader artistic, cultural, political and social context.