| This dissertation examines Chinese diaspora in the United States in relation to U.S. modern dance from the 1930s to the 1990s. Through Homi Bhabha's notion of unhomeliness, the study analyzes how “China” motifs have become an iconic practice of East-West relations in the work of many Chinese moderns. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, dance criticism and aesthetics, a clear link emerges between shifting U.S.-Taiwan-China policies and artistic representations. I argue that the East-West panoply appeals to the East as subject and West as power, positing an inevitable transnational social drama. Depending largely on Chinese cultural markers in dance and the artist's authentic cultural identity, the visibility of choreographing Chinese diaspora fluctuates between pride and ambivalence. Chapter One investigates the absence of Chinese choreographers in modern dance historical scholarship. Findings reveal that representations of “China” concomitantly embrace and resist the U.S. modern dance canon and popular expectations within the U.S. and China(s). Chapter Two depicts the early presence of the Chinese diaspora in the U.S. modern dance world. Canon-formation in relation to art-dance, Orientalism, McCarthyism, and Si-lan Chen-Leyda's dance of modern “China” is examined. Chapter Three deconstructs how East-West Cold War ideology permeated dance. An icon of progress without change looms large in both Al Huang's repertoire of “East-West synthesis” and Susanne Langer's theory of virtual powers and dynamic images. Premised on Nature as essence, “China” motifs became (a)historical in Huang's Taoist Nirvana. Chapter Four and Five deal with the multiple presence of Chinese moderns in the U.S. from the establishment of Asian American Studies programs, the rise and fall of community organizations, and the presence of professional dance troupes. During this golden era (1970s–1980s), “China” motifs became an important U.S. minority voice within an emerging multiculturalism. Chapter Six investigates the aftermath of Tiananmen massacre in which modes of decentering “China” prevail in many Chinese artists' work. The dissertation concludes that the participation of Chinese moderns within the mainstream of U.S. modern dance remains more revelation than revolution. |
