UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Choreographing “One Country, Two Systems”: Dance and Politics in (Post)Colonial Hong Kong A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance by Ellen Virginia Proctor Gerdes 2021 © Copyright by Ellen Virginia Proctor Gerdes 2021 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Choreographing “One Country, Two Systems”: Dance and Politics in (Post)Colonial Hong Kong by Ellen Virginia Proctor Gerdes Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance University of California, Los Angeles, 2021 Professor Susan Leigh Foster, Chair This dissertation analyzes choreographic negotiations of Hong Kong’s (post)colonial political situation of “one country, two systems” since the end of British colonialism in 1997 to the present. Each chapter addresses a distinct institution and its particular navigation of this political proposal for semi-autonomy in relation to Chineseness, British colonialism, Western imperialism, and the international. Chapter one analyzes the development of the dance curriculum that trains each dancer major in Chinese dance(s), modern/contemporary dance, and ballet at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. I argue that this dance education expresses overlapping colonial, Chinese national, Cold War, and Western imperialist ideologies. The curriculum cultivates neoliberal bodies that can shift easily between cultural forms and can be hired across the globe, mirroring the city’s branding as “Asia’s World City.” Chapter two ii asserts that Hong Kong theater director Danny Yung levels the playing field for China and Hong Kong through collaborations with Nanjing kunqu artists. Yung’s work presents the flexible intercultural Chinese body on the Hong Kong stage by employing postmodern pedestrian movement and Western avant-garde methods of excerpting, subtracting, and reversing gender roles alongside traditional kunqu movement vocabulary. Via Yung’s curation of the Toki festival in Nanjing, kunqu performers participate in inter-Asian exchanges that allow both Hong Kong and China to participate in Chinese cultural heritage, thereby subverting nation-state heritage logic. Chapter three argues that the i-Dance improvisation festival deploys Somatic training of the “natural body” and its discourse of pre-culturality as a strategy for connecting Hong Kong to the international. Through collective workshops and improvised performances, dancers who cultivate this natural body experience a reorientation of their national identities whether from Hong Kong, China, or Taiwan. The festival neither emphasizes Chinese-Hong Kong collaboration nor neglects China completely, but rather, incorporates China into its vision of precultural harmony. It also permits pre-devised choreographic presentation that critiques Chinese cultural sources and expresses ambivalence about Chineseness, thereby undermining the strength of “one country” and Chinese masculinist agendas. The epilogue gestures to the future of dance in Hong Kong after the national security law of 2020 and the subsequent end of “one country, two systems.” iii The dissertation of Ellen Virginia Proctor Gerdes is approved. Anurima Banerji Daphne P Lei Sean Aaron Metzger Janet M. O’Shea Susan Leigh Foster, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the late Danna Frangione, who knew I would be a dance scholar long before I did. Her interest in Chinese dance and cross-cultural education have forever influenced my life. I will always strive to be the intuitive dance educator that she was. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………….vii Vita…………………………………………………………………………………………………………x INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………….1 CHAPTER ONE Training the Multicultural: Dance Curriculum at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts….........45 CHAPTER TWO Curating the Transcultural: Danny Yung’s Kunqu Compositions and Festivals………………………...125 CHAPTER THREE Improvising the International: Natural Bodies and Ambivalence at the i-Dance Festival……………....201 EPILOGUE Gesturing Toward the Future: Dance in Post-“One Country, Two Systems” Hong Kong……………...264 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………………….279 vi Acknowledgments To my advisor, Dr. Susan Leigh Foster, for her close reading, her steadfast belief in my work, and for pushing me to find my own voice as a scholar. I have learned so much about articulating and sustaining an argument across hundreds of pages. To my committee members, Drs. Anurima Banerji, Daphne Lei, Sean Metzger, and Janet O’Shea, whose teachings informed the conceptualization of this project and whose commitment to social change motivate me as a scholar and educator. To my mentors, Drs. Karen Bond and Katja Kolcio, for treating me as a colleague even when I was a student and for instilling in me strong advocacy for dance education. To all the dance artists in China and Hong Kong who offered their time to speak with me. I am indebted to your insight. I wish you well as Hong Kong’s political climate continues to shift. To Bill Bissell and Josie Smith for first introducing me to Danny Yung and inviting me to his forums in Hong Kong. To Adrian Moore for first introducing me to Y-Space. To Er-Dong Hu for helping me make connections with dance professors in China and Hong Kong. To my UCLA WAC/D friends-slash-colleagues, Drs., artists, and educators, Barry Brannum, Bernard Brown, Jade Charon, Sharna Fabiano, Jingqiu Guan, Claudia Huang, Johanna Kirk, Fangfei Miao, Shweta Saraswat, Gwyneth Shanks, Carl Schottmiller, Brynn Shiovitz, Arushi Singh, Pallavi Sriram, Elaine Sullivan, Rita Valente-Quinn, and Sarah Wilbur, whose good humor, generosity, brilliance, and faith in me as a scholar have made all the difference. To WAC/D mover and shaker, Dr. Mana Hayakawa, who I connected with instantly, for encouraging me to find persistence through her own example, for making me laugh, for not making me share my dessert, for reminding me to be gentle with myself, and for always being there to support me and my family. We will get our in-person hug some day in the future! vii To Dr. Tarryn Li-Min Chun for being my first conference buddy, for her support of my work, and for our conversations about Danny Yung’s work. I hope we share space at many more conferences in the future and share many more photos of our kids growing up. To Dr. Annie Katsura Rollins for showing me the ropes of moms-who-conference. To Monica Guggenheim for helping me find my own resilience during these most challenging years. I cannot imagine finishing this project without her keen listening and gentle guidance. To Lauren Dalke Matthews for helping me connect to my body, and find strength and calm during motherhood, dissertation writing, and a global pandemic. To Robert Een, for sharing his music with me and reminding me to share my gift of singing with others. Our heartwarming time spent singing together grounded me during stressful times. To Laura Barron, Aimee Groener, Amanda Harris, Nina Meonch, Barbara Ollinger, Gina Oster, and Allison Whitacre, for nurturing Felix’s curiosities and creativities, giving me time to write, and supporting me as a parent. To Erin Cairns and Jessica Warchal-King for sharing their journeys as mothers/dance artists/ educators with me and always being there to love, listen, affirm, and cheer me on. To Jessica Bylander, Paige Conn, Lisa DeCerchio, Amy Donahue, Dr. Leonore Fleming, and Rachel Scheckter, whose text messages brought joy, laughter, and commiseration, and helped me navigate the challenges of working on this project while parenting during a global pandemic. To Ziying Cui, Alissa Elegant, Jingqiu Guan, Dr. Yining Lin, Ruby MacDougall, Dr. Fangfei Miao, Yihui Sheng, and Dr. Emily Wilcox, for the intellectual dialogue and Chinese dances. To my parents, Drs. Genie and John Gerdes, for their unflappable support in my pursuit of dance as a career, and, especially to my mother—the best writing teacher. To my spouse, Chris Barron, for relocating for my PhD degree and for putting up with many solo Thanksgivings viii while I traveled to Hong Kong for research. To my son, Felix, for bringing me happiness as his name means. His birth might have slowed my progress on this degree, but his resilience in his first three years of life has truly inspired me. Last, but certainly not least, to my students, past and present, who motivate me to make a difference in this field and in this world. ix EDUCATION Ph.D. Candidate, Culture and Performance, University of California, Los Angeles, CA Graduate Certificate, Urban Humanities, University of California, Los Angeles, CA Ed.M., Dance Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA B.A., Dance, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS Gerdes, Ellen. “Persistence in Pedagogy: Teaching Failure, Empathy, and Citation.” in Lateral Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, Issue 6.2, 2017. Gerdes, Ellen. V.P. “Mediated Meditations: Choreographies of Shen Wei and Kun-Yang Lin” in Contemporary Directions in Asian American Dance. Ed. Yutian Wong, University of Wisconsin Press, 2016, 145-173. Gerdes, Ellen V.P. and Teresa VanDenend Sorge. “Building Humans and Dances: Exploring Cultural Relevancy as Teaching Artists.” in Journal of Dance Education, Volume 15, Issue 2, 2015. Gerdes, Ellen. V.P. “Shen Wei Dance Arts: Chinese Philosophy in Body Calligraphy,” Dance Chronicle, Volume 33, Issue 2, 2010: 231-250. Kolcio, Katja and Ellen Gerdes. “Faking it: The Necessary Blind Spots of Understanding,” Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, Volume 9, Number 2, 2009: 559-569. Gerdes, Ellen. V.P. “Contemporary Yangge: The Moving History of a Chinese Folk-Dance Form,” Asian Theatre Journal, Volume 25, Number 1, Spring 2008: 138-147. SELECTED BOOK REVIEWS, CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, AND ESSAYS: Gerdes, Ellen. V.P. “Toward a Transnational Understanding of Chinese Dance” a Book Review of Shih-Ming Li Chang and Lynn E. Frederiksen’s Chinese Dance: In the Vast Land and Beyond. Dance Chronicle, Volume 40 (2), 2017: 217-220. Gerdes, Ellen. “i-Dance: Tradition, Technology, Memory, and Presence” in dance journal/hk, Hong Kong, Volume 19 (1), 2017. http://www.dancejournalhk.com/.