When words are inadequate: modern dance and transnationalism in China

In: Oxford studies in dance theory

Abstract

"By that time, Duncan had commenced her experiment on "Greek dance" (later known as early modern dance), often performing in the semi-private salons of her patrons, a close circle of wealthy noble American Grecophile expatriates. Though yet to make a name for her dance, Duncan had already become a controversial figure in the Parisian upper-class society, as she danced in ancient Greek-style tunic that highlighted "her lightly-clad, bare-limbed female body." Sometime around 1902, Yu Rongling took a major role, as a certain "goddess" from Greek mythology, in one of Duncan's Greek dramatic dances performed either publicly or semi-publicly in Paris. A teenaged girl from the Manchu court of the Qing Empire - characteristically depicted by the Western press as backward, conservative, and xenophobic - danced gracefully as a Greek goddess, barefoot and thinly-clad, in front of a Parisian upper-class audience. This dancing cosmopolitan figure, characterized by temporal, racial, and geo-cultural hybridity, could be norm-defying for the audience at the turn of the century who had just witnessed the end of the Victorian era. Note that about a mere year earlier, when Duncan first performed in Parisian salons, her solo body and simple tunic shocked her unprepared elite audiences "accustomed to very different styles of dance and performance" (such as Anna Pavlova's classical ballet and Loïe Fuller's skirt dance), let alone the broader audiences at high art theaters."