Abstract
This thesis examines vibrant experiences of light and the dancing body, and does so by focusing on how their coalescing energies inform choreographic decision-making. It is grounded in three practice research projects: an open-ended experimental process, Dazzling Mesh (2017); Elektri(c)k (2019), an international circus project in the round; and Ghostlight (2022) a solo performance with a singular Tungsten lightbulb. This PhD is rooted in the embodied processes, reflective analysis, and detailed critical accounts of my own qualitative experiences with lighting as a dancer and choreographer. Key to the practice of this research and its emerging philosophy is that from the outset of each of the projects, lighting has been present and considered a poetic collaborator when choreographic decision-making was happening. In order to articulate the specific interdisciplinary approaches of choregraphing with light, I call this a practice of ‘choreoluminosity’ which forms the basis of my overarching contribution to knowledge. The aim of this thesis is to articulate how choreoluminosity emerged, how it works in practice, and the new knowledge it can bring to the scholarly fields of lighting in performance, and choreography. Grounding my work is a proposed notion that light may behave as an “eradicator”, which disturbs the understanding of light as a theatrical element that reveals the form, colour, and texture of a performance. To unpack my arguments, I use choreoluminosity as a framework for sensitized critical inquiry during my processes, where questions of agency, identity-making, and performing with the other-than-human are activated in order to allow for distinct ways of being with light. Finally, I posit Light and the choreographic: dancing with Tungsten within what I suggest is an imminent post-Tungsten era, emphasising the timeliness of this research, which coincides with the current phasing out of production, and therefore usage of this incandescent source.