The Recontextualization of Visual Elements in Dance Narrative

Abstract

Rethinking the dance narrative based on visual semiotics can introduce the possibility of creating poetic, identifiable, and sensible ways of visualizing the meaning and metaphoric triggers in dance works. In this practice-based study, I explore how choreographers can use varied visual elements to create and differentiate meanings at each stage of the composition. Movements and objects are used as visual elements to create metaphoric expressions and visualize the layer of meaning to form a narrative, a process I call recontextualization. By applying theoretical perspectives drawn from Janet Adshead-Lansdale’s intertextual approach to dance analysis and Mieke Bal’s theories of narratology to form a narrative, I explore the creation processes of six practical works across 16 stages. I argue that exploring the modes of reusing and recontextualizing visual elements is not about the reformation or repetition of choreography but rather about how to create different choreographic methods and understand dance narratives from different perspectives. Therefore, this study emphasizes the choreographer’s role, along with the influence of visual elements and semiotics, in meaning-making, aiming to broaden the boundaries of dance narratives. This broadening gains importance when choreography, in poststructuralist contexts, becomes more complex, blurring the boundaries among the choreographer, dancer, and spectator in meaning-making and interpretation.