As part of the Stanford Colloquium on Dance Studies, I will present a lecture-performance based on my solo show, blood run, to investigate the relationship between migration, indigeneity, and settler-colonialism.   blood run investigates my Han Chinese colonizer and Taiwanese plains indigenous heritages within the context of larger political histories, asking: “What is the difference between an immigrant and a colonizer?” “How do the colonizer and colonized live inside the same body?” “When does survival require disappearance?”  blood run asks what hidden histories are contained in the body, while poignantly acknowledging the impossibility of fully reclaiming what has been lost.

photo: Scott Trafton

photo: Miyuki Baker

photo: Miyuki Baker

Curated by Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Heather Rastovac, the theme of the series is “Dance on the Move: Migration, Border Zones, and Citizenship.” The Colloquium’s engagement with interdisciplinary scholars and scholar-practitioners will foster critical dialogue concerning the ways in which dance performance and practice are sites for examining the mobilities and immobilities that shape and are shaped by various forms of transnational migration and citizenship. We will examine how (im)migrant bodies – as subjects constructed through political-economic power relations of race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and religion – negotiate, contest, and affirm experiences of belonging/unbelonging in daily life and artistic practice across diverse geographical sites. The rigorous scholarship and performance praxis of this year’s presenters will allow us to assess shared aesthetics between various performances and practices emerging from and within migrant, refugee, and other displaced populations, while critically discerning the historical and situated distinctions between migrant subjects and experiences.

5:30-7 pm, Prosser Theater / Memorial Auditorium / Stanford University
For event info, parking, and more, visit: https://stanforddancestudies.wordpress.com/