Subjectobject and Movementmaterial: A Diffractive Reading of the Becoming of Dance through the Subject

With this study, which is linked to the research topic of ‘choreography’, I wish to contribute to our understanding of how internal and external factors are involved in the becoming of dance through the subject. I want to increase our understanding of the multilayered relationships that are ongoing in the becoming of dance and provide and develop understandings for didactical and pedagogical contexts. By studying my own praxis in a teaching context, I want to understand what is involved in the becoming of dance through the subject.

In the article, I use post-humanist theories, with an emphasis on materialists such as Rosi Braidotti and her concept of the nomadic subject. The nomadic subject is fundamental for this study because it uses materialistic understandings of the world without renouncing the subject’s previous situational experience and embodied knowledge. In addition to the nomadic subject, I use concepts such as diffraction, intra-action and agents. These concepts have their roots in the theories of Karen Barad, also a post-humanist.

I am interested in what agents are entangled in the process of becoming and what hierarchies are at work within my practice. I want to determine how they figurate and whether it is possible for these hierarchies to reach positions that are more anti-essential.