Drifting Bodies in Cities Disoriented Dance on Street

Abstract

Living in hyper-modern cities, urban space directly influences the body and these influences are materialized as rigid movement patterns. This thesis discusses that through a choreographic lens, drifting with dynamic moving rhythms can be artistic practices as everyday resistance in urban space. By generating bodily acts of improvising dance on streets, the process of dancing changes urban space into a playground and challenges rigid movement patterns. This thesis starts with the analysis of visual perception pattern and rigid movement pattern in urban space in chapter 1. It explains the features of movement pattern of pedestrians, like limited space, fast speed, and linear routine, are addressed by the ideology of efficiency and consumption. In chapter 2, the theoretical framework is constructed through notions of performativity, dérive, and urban choreography across theoretical bodies from cultural study and performance theory. I position drifting as a way of challenging the dominance of visuality and speed within the movement pattern in a societal context of consumption through the lens of urban choreography. In doing so, I also indicate the political potential of drifting and dancing on streets, examining its capacity to question everyday habitual modes of moving in the urban space. In chapter 3, I uncover the choreographic logic within Stadterweitern by Sabine Zahn, examining political meaning of the reinvented playful urban space to question functional and efficient movement pattern. By analysing choreographic tactics in Stadterweitern as an example of alternative movement pattern, I assert that structured urban space can be changed as a playground with dynamic rhythm and critical awareness through everyday artistic bodily practice in a neoliberal context.