Year of Graduation

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Major

Dance

Directing Professor

Jeffery N. Bullock

Abstract

Through their lifelong passion for genealogy, Brooke “Uisce'' Howton researches a way to dismantle White supremacy and colonization through analyzing and reconnecting to their heritage. This involves learning about the nature of White supremacy, which is ever present in American society, and gaining a better understanding of what the history of racial formations in the United States looked like. Through this new lens, she revisits old traditions that she had been able to experience, mostly through her maternal family; all while learning new traditions that she has been unable to experience due to the adoption of her paternal grandmother, mystery of her paternal grandfather’s identity, and the assimilation of her maternal grandmother’s family. Some of this was through making culturally significant clothing items, looking into specific cultural dances, and focusing on the importance of languages to cultures. Choreographic works that influenced this process include Bill T. Jones’ Still/Here and What Problem?, Pina Bausch’s Cafe Müller and The Rite of Spring, and Olivia Camfield’s (Muscogee) Which Way Is Up I’ve Never Been Here Before. These informed the approach to the subject in a performance context.

Mapohicv cehere tos.

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