Dissertation

Bitch - the Solo-Cannibal Practice : an Anthropophagic Study in Solo Dance Making

Gonçalves Dias, Alexandra

2020

Overview

'BITCH' is a solo dance which explores the concept of 'cultural anthropophagy' as an embodied process of incarnation. With the aim of offering an alternative way to approach solo practice through a studio-based creative work, this doctoral research develops a solo methodology, the solo-cannibal practice. For the purposes of this research, I look at solo dance as an independent movement-based category of performance practice that, although usually performed by a single artist, is created from, and thrives on, collaboration. A solocannibal method involves two intertwined paths: first, the development of procedures which aim to animate anthropophagy in my body; and second, a devouring process in which I take over the other artist. On looking at the solo practice as a means to activate relationship in which the soloist draws on, is influenced by, and collaborates with other artists, queer solo artist Nando Messias acted as a creative collaborator in the present research. Anthropophagic collaboration is, thus, a form of appropriation that happens in the body via the metaphorical act of devouring the other. My proposal develops anthropophagy as a political form of resistance and queer decolonising strategy, drawing from the concept of anthropophagy as coined by Oswald de Andrade in 1928, as well as later manoeuvres, particularly the ones proposed by Clark, Rolnik, Viveiros de Castro, and Mombaça.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Cannibalism