Standing Center

Abstract

In this article, I demonstrate an approach to fusing autoethnographic writing and solo dance performance, advocating for a place for the female performer to stand as creative practitioner and researcher. While contemporary ethnographers and autoethnographers have actively engaged with issues of methodology and representational forms, and have gained some recognition within qualitative research communities, artists engaged in contemporary performance research still struggle for acknowledgement of the methodological rigor and representational innovation in their work. As in other art forms, dance artists have distinct bodies of knowledge, unique methods specific to dance, and diverse embodied and representational options for sharing knowledge. Referring to creative processes utilized in developing a particular solo dance performance, I weave together descriptions of movement activities undertaken to enhance awareness, literature on human developmental movement and on performance ethnography and excerpts of creative writing. To represent my dancing in this article, I include images from the solo performance. In this weaving I offer a partial representation of embodied ways of knowing and make a call to qualitative researchers to reconnect with their own beginnings – to return home.