Corpus Australis and Settler Colonialism: Land and Body Politics in Australian Settler Colonists’ Dances and Other Performances of the Postcolonial

Abstract

Corpus Australis and Settler Colonialism reviews recurring settler-colonialist themes in settler colonists’ theatrical dances and discourse on dance-related topics to demonstrate how “the postcolonial” is deployed as an apologia for settler-colonial action in dance contexts. The thesis scrutinises most closely settler colonist dance professionals’ and commentators’ representations of “Australian” lands and autochthonous bodies from the 1980s onward. It argues that such “performances” are postcolonising, possessive claims to corpus australis. It reveals the ways dancing and dance scholarship can be vehicles through which settler colonists imagine how their bodies (of thought) interact with and govern Indigenous “Others” and lands.