sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

I research from a postcolonial perspective, understood as an "anti‐disciplinary intervention"
denouncing the creation and fixation of Otherness by hegemonic imperial discourses. 5 Postcolonial is
not meant as a time period after colonialism, but as an epistemic attempt to overcome past and
present forms of colonial‐racist violence such as the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the European
Holocaust and the 21st century persecution of Rroma people. Identifying with Amina Mama's strive
to overcome a "dualistic framework which counterposes black and white, western and non‐western,
masculine and feminine"6, I view all these categories as historically constructed, which nonetheless
makes them real in discursive and material power relations. My epistemology "includes the personal
and the subjective as part of academic discourse"7, in a long lineage of feminist and especially Black
feminist scholars, based on the conviction that everyone writes from somewhere, somewhen,
somehow. Interestingly, this is precisely the reflection underlying Oxana's creative process, especially
since performing memory in "Through Gardens":
It was important for me, to research further and see: How does 'history' work in
Germany ? Who is telling 'history' ? How, when and where is 'history' told? 8
Following Oxana's work and even working with her on stage, I gained a deep interest for the
conscious linking of dance and diaspora, storytelling and struggles, performance and politics,
movement and memory, bodies and battles. Entering backstage, I found many rooms: the knowledge
surrounding the intents of the artist, the acknowledgement of the obstacles met in suggesting
alternative historical narratives 9 on stage and the know‐how to negotiate and overcome them
through diasporic 10 dancing resistance. Now earning the benefits of an "involved embodied
research" 11 , I am very grateful to this exceptional artist for sharing her spaces of feminist reclaiming,
spatial‐temporal queerness 12 and fluid resistance. Oxana compares her working process to the one of
a scientist who permanently needs to keep on "re‐searching".13 Interestingly, her words resonate
with the postpositivist methodology I apply, which reveals particularly relevant in the dance field. 14
Wishing to give dancer's voices the weight they are so often denied, I endeavor to create a dialogue
between my reflections and Oxana Chi's own discourse about her work. I strive for interplay at eye
level between all creative and theoretical sources, the intents stated by the artist, and my own
interpretations.
Dancing & Writing...
Dance's relationship to writing about it [...] has historically been governed by
hierarchical relationships between the verbal and corporeal, the durable and ephemeral,
the mindful and the bodiful. 15
My hope is to produce a writing whose melody and rhythm are at the same time accompanying
the dance and transformed by the dance as they go along hand in hand. Never‐mind speaking from a
queer‐feminist, western‐socialized PoC 16 perspective, situated knowledge means in my case to
remain cautious that my writing and my speech, as they fill an often unattended space in academia,
do not push the dancer away from the mainstage. What difference does it make whether I hold my
paper alone, or whether it is followed by a live performance by Oxana in the language of movement?
How can I "write or speak about the dance without silencing the dance" and the dancer? 17 It is
fundamental for this academic presentation that it be followed by a live performance by the dancer
discussed in the paper ‐ Oxana Chi, bringing together academic and artistic perspectives. This is also a
way of transgressing the boundaries of what is acknowledged as knowledge 18 and encountering
Oxana's dance which itself re‐defines the space of historical knowledge on stage by telling alternative
stories. Jacqueline Shea Murphy's analysis of contemporary Native stage dance in the USA intensely
fits Oxana's work: