Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to explore the experiential aspects of life changes(job and childcare) for professional female dancers after childbirth with regard to the thesis of ‘social body’ and ‘identity’. The research methodology applied Clandinin and Connelly’s narrative inquiry( 2000). There were 5 research participants including 3 dancers with childbirth experience and 2 dancers who retired after giving childbirth. The results of the study were approached largely in terms of three categories. First, in ‘Defined by my social age!’, the study explored contents on bodily changes and subjective loss as a dancer. Second, in ‘Ajumma(middle aged woman), the symbol of childbirth and aging’, the study discussed the prejudice against the social body and the fear regarding one’s return as a dancer. Third, in ‘Fighting back against the social body’, the study uncovers self-conquest with the purpose of returning as a perfect dancer and introspective discourses as a mother. The social and cultural loss of professional female dancers in the labor field is experienced through the ‘social body’ following pregnancy and childbirth. An approach toward such subjective feeling and experience is research that is necessary for dance studies, with academic implications in this respect.

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