UC Riverside

This dissertation examines the choreographic techniques of Black women alongside the steps and missteps of scholars and activists in the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements in South Africa. I present contemporary dance as a site of decolonization by composing a kaleidoscopic vision of dance as a process of becoming in entangled time/space, where movement is both a political and kinesthetic manifestation of African philosophies of feminism and interdependence. This interdisciplinary project includes ethnography, performance analysis, and embodied research based on three trips to South Africa between 2017 and 2019. Analysis of performances and interviews in Makhanda, Los Angeles, and New York City accompany that of embodied research in the form of workshops and performances in Tshwane. By relating student protests to choreographies by Dada Masilo and Mamela Nyamza, I argue that Black women use unique choreographic and performative techniques to challenge the pervasive colonial discourse about their bodies and manifest a sense of the world beyond colonialism.