HerStory (2007): Falling with Hong Kong in women’s writing and dance
Department
Interdisciplinary Studies
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-1-2021
Abstract
This article analyses Hong Kong-based choreographer Helen Lai’s work HerStory (2007) in the context of Hong Kong’s handover in 1997 and its impact on modern dance and women’s writing. I examine HerStory’s innovation of a gesture – falling – in multiple registers and argue that the gesture of falling enacts a poten-tial field to articulate the unspeakable, unrecognizable bodily experience. I show the ways HerStory, through falling, undid the boundaries of the rural and urban space, the past and the present, the individual and the collective; and expressed the tensions between women’s corporeal experience and gendered social inscriptions. In the end, I discuss why revisiting these relations can help us better understand Hong Kong’s historical moment.
Journal Title
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art
Journal ISSN
20517041
Volume
8
Issue
1
First Page
71
Last Page
86
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1386/jcca_00038_1