Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Clark, Maribeth

Keywords

Sexuality, Dancing, Gender, Objectification, Race

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

This thesis critically examines the representation of the female nonwhite dancing body through and in relation to the white male gaze, specifically the white male colonial gaze. Drawing upon numerous theorists such as Laura Mulvey, Michel Foucault, and dance scholars Judith Lynne Hanna and Stavros Stavrou Karayanni, this thesis analyzes the colonial origins of sexually-charged tropes of the nonwhite female body - such as the Latina mulatta, the Eastern odalisque, and the African/Black jezebel - and how contemporary music media functions as a site of neo colonial reinforcements, and a method of subversion and erotic empowerment for the nonwhite female dancer. This thesis suggests that these tropes which eroticize and exoticize the nonwhite female body render herself, her cultural identity, and her body and erotic power as interchangeable and subject to the white man’s desires and anxieties for power. On a broader and more abstract level, I explore these concepts in the creative film component of this thesis.

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