Moving Memories: Shifting the Locus of Enunciation in Choreographic Composition

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article proposes a decolonial choreographic process rupturing the historical locus of enunciation in a dance program at a tertiary institution in South Africa. This locus in choreographic composition curricula in such universities reflects Western modernity, resulting in epistemological hegemony that creates epistemic othering that, we argue, affects students’ ontological positioning. We view decoloniality as centered on rupturing the historical locus of enunciation through epistemic disobedience and delinking from coloniality/modernity. We argue that one pedagogical approach in a choreographic composition curriculum is through using embodied, autobiographical memories toward decolonial storying. We discuss the ways this decolonial option shaped the choreographic process toward the performance of Memoryscapes (2022). We conclude by demonstrating how this option surfaced the participants as the loci of enunciation(s), by drawing from their identities, subjective lived experiences, and autobiographical memories in the process of embodied decolonial storying.