A state of transcendence in dance: An autoethnographic analysis

Abstract

This thesis maps and analyses a dancer’s journey and as that dancer is myself the research investigates the limits and possibilities of self-observation as a methodology. I have taken a term commonly used in dance – transcendence – and used it as a gateway to explore the invisible experience that is the dancer’s personal process, configuring its key characteristic as a creative tension between restriction and infinite possibility, further explored as the dialogue between embodied technique and the sense of freedom in dance.

I explore how my body and experience in dance can be theorised, and what methodological tools are useful in the attempt to better understand the embodied work and invisible inner experience of the dancer. I place myself as the subject of the research and argue for the significance of my lived experience as a cross-cultural journey in the development of my own body’s intelligence.

The research addresses specifically a dancer’s body as a site for the interweaving of two different forms of dance, namely Korean dance and Western ballet, and explores the impact of this on the dancer in question. The aesthetic and technical implications of this inter-cultural practice are analysed alongside a study of the culturally inscribed body that in this research draws specifically on a Korean woman's upbringing in Korea.

Included with the written thesis are accompanying creative material in the form of a spoken address and films of original choreography danced by the researcher. An appendix is attached for those interested in knowing more of the choreographic process involved in the dance works.