Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Ballroom dance in Hong Kong: culture and politics of appearance

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Leung, Ming Fai (2019) Ballroom dance in Hong Kong: culture and politics of appearance. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP_Theses_Leung_2019.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (4Mb) | Preview
Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3439499~S15

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Ballroom Dance in Hong Kong: Culture and Politics of Appearance analyses how ballroom dancers in Hong Kong transform themselves and the city with their bodies in motion. Ballroom dance is both the subject of study and a method in this research. The changing dance tradition and practices encapsulate the collective subjectivity of the city dwellers, their creative agency and everyday life as a transformative process. The analytic approach in the thesis acts, in part, as a counterargument to cultural theorist Akbar Abbas’ claim that Hong Kong culture appears in the form of dis-appearance. Formerly a British colony and currently under Chinese rule, Hong Kong’s existence is often imagined and narrated in terms of and in relation to the two powers. The persisting colonial structure of this reality, he argues, also prevents the everyday life and practices of the local dwellers to accumulate and be consolidated into social infrastructures and systems. By showing how local dancers transform the city through transforming themselves by participating in and creating a dance tradition, this research calls for a progressive understanding of Hong Kong that sees the city as built by its ordinary dwellers in their everyday life. The research employs archival materials from newspapers, journals, literary works, films and interviews to construct a cultural history of ballroom dance. Critical cultural theories are used to shed light on the contradictions and possibilities. Chapters of this research are chronologically aligned but periodized by the change internal to the dance tradition. Each chapter portrays a specific form of development in ballroom dance and interrogates particular political issues in its cultural production. This process of transition is, this research argues, propelled by the aesthetics of ballroom dance which constantly evolve in dancers’ active embodiment and seeps out of its original social and cultural contexts and physical spaces, thus transgressing the predefined demarcations.

Item Type: Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure
H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Ballroom dancing -- Hong Kong (China), Ballroom dancing -- Social aspects, Hong Kong (China) -- Politics and government
Official Date: May 2019
Dates:
DateEvent
May 2019UNSPECIFIED
Institution: University of Warwick
Theses Department: School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies
Thesis Type: PhD
Publication Status: Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: Haedicke, Susan C. ; Shewring, Margaret
Format of File: pdf
Extent: vii, 250 leaves : illustrations
Language: eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us