Entangled imagination

This dissertation is a performative and embodied inquiry into the idea of "entangled imagination," expressed through a series of dance/performance films, accompanied by diffractive writing and interviews that document the co-creation of the performances. The writing – through dancer interviews and research – provided material that is included in (and which profoundly shaped) the editing of the films. "Entangled imagination" is a practice of imaginative action that undoes the idea that the body and the world are separate. The word "entanglement" is drawn from the writings of physicist and theorist Karen Barad, who puts forth the concept that we, and the universe we inhabit, are not separate entities – rather, in our interactions (which they re-frame as intra-actions), we are mutually constructed. Barad's "agential realism" is not an unfamiliar or new concept; my dissertation acknowledges Indigenous thought and knowledge practices that are ethically grounded in similar human-universe relationality. I co-created with the dancers, designing site-based performances, and inviting them to respond to a variety of outdoor spaces. All of the dancers have some background, in their own dance practices, of dancing outside the frame of the proscenium stage. Research questions that emerged were: How can we imaginatively co-create consciously in the present moment, with the human and more-than-human world, and enact change in the world? What are the types of motives and necessities that drive dancers to continue to dance, beyond the motive to "perform?" What is the meaning of movement, when drawn away from the context of on-stage "spectacle?" My arts-based research practice is rooted in performative inquiry and embodied inquiry. In that spirit, my questions are not resolved as quantifiable "outcomes." What emerges is a series of consciously connected moments – investigations asserted through a series of rearrangements of body, mind, place and universe, enacted by several dancers/beings through their embodied, entangled imaginations – situated in particular places, experienced at particular times, intra-acting in ways that are both ephemeral and ongoing.