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Year of Graduation
2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MFA: Dance
Directing Professor
Jeffery Bullock
Abstract
Humlåo Evans works in movement studies, poetry, installation, video, and performance. With dreams of a more just future, the work that manifests from their integration of autoethnography and somatic action into research as practice methodology contends with the political histories and inherited violence our bodies carry while honoring both ancestral and contemporary lineages. Evans has defined Odori no Omiya Jima as a somatic embodied practice that shares stories of origin, indictments of nationalism and war, histories of atrocity and resistance, and most importantly, a call for peace through movement and aesthetics of submission. Unrestrained in its cathartic expressivity, the research explores the implications that language usage, semiotics, and naming/labeling can yield concerning the power dynamics of the occupied body and its indoctrination by colonial and imperial forces. Evans’ research manifestation, entitled Whispers on the Waves of the Weaponized, functions as an opportunity to project light and warmth to the lands and waters that have been expropriated within the Pacific, most specifically to those of the Marianas Islands with which Micronesia can be located. In acknowledging how the fight for decolonization, clean water, and self-determination in Oceania reflects issues of gentrification and social injustice within the continental mainland of the United States, the aim of the practice of Odori no Omiya Jima begins to offer insight into cultural memories and identities that are transmitted through action alongside the contested role of public space in the perpetuation of harmful agendas, premised on settler-colonial ideologies, and attendant human rights violations in local policy.
Recommended Citation
Evangelista, Shawn, "Whispers on the Waves of the Weaponized" (2022). Dance (MFA) Theses, Hollins University. 12.
https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/dancetheses/12
Performance Access Statement
If you wish to see the creative piece or performance that accompanied this thesis, please complete the Request Form, and you should receive a response from the Dance Department within two weeks.