[dancing score]

Falling Into the Shadow of the Earth explores the possibilities of reconstructing dance practice beyond the dichotomy of dance as education and dance as art. It endeavors to dissolve the spatial and temporal limitations of conventional classroom/stage.

The theme is prompted by David Abram’s essay Shadow (Deep Ecology 1), where he addresses the relationship between humans and the natural world through the symbolic and sensual experience of shadow. While recognizing it as a visible yet intangible manifestation of the deep relationship between humans and cosmic bodies, the dancing score expands Abram’s intellectual and textual explorations into kinesthetic experience.

The scores consist of three parts that approach different features of shadow and human-shadow relationships. Exultation of Light invites one to embody the three-dimensionality of shadow. Doppelgänger recognizes ‘the antimatter of our coalition with light’ existing between the extremes of photophobic and photophilic beings. The last part, with the namesake title of the project, delves into the conceptual puzzle of recognizing one’s shadow as a personal night and its absorption by the shadow of the earth.

The scores are narrated and recorded with an accompaniment of natural soundscapes. They guide a listener/dancer into a personal dance practice while holding the potential to transform it into a participatory performance.

This project was submitted as a professional artefact for the Master of Arts in Professional Practice, Dance Technique Pedagogy at Middlesex University in 2023. It is available on research catalogue.