Self-Authoring Feminine Blackness: Developing Decolonised Practice Methodologies within British Contemporary Dance

My proposed project will conduct practice-based research, informed by an original socio-intertextual framework which I developed during my MA research, to investigate self-authoring feminine blackness within British contemporary dance. This PhD will build on my academic research at Masters level and my subsequent professional practice to develop decolonised choreographic methodologies and performance modalities with application in pedagogy. Self-authoring denotes the process of gaining autonomy of the representation of one's race, gender, and autobiography by cultivating distinct ways of presenting one's identity within artistic work. This concept addresses the wider issue of misrepresentation highlighted in the dance industry (hooks, 1992, Akinleye, 2016) by providing tools for producing decolonised creative methodologies that facilitate Black women within British contemporary dance.