Dancing in Postcolonial Spotlights The possibility to perceive postcolonial structures within the dance scenes in India Song and Beau Travail

Abstract

This thesis studies the complex relationship between the concept of art cinema, dance performativity and postcolonial theories, with two dance scenes from India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975) and Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999) as a point of departure. The method is to do a close reading, through the theoretical scopes by among others David Bordwell, Patrice Pavis and Richard Dyer. These scenes respectively will be analyzed and finally, there will come a comparative analysis between these scenes as well as my analysis of them. The conclusion is that these dance scenes proves that the link between the significance of memories of the individual characters and the past of a nation is post colonialism. In the final discussion, I provide some critical reflections especially about the relationship between art cinema and postcolonial theories and suggest that the next step of this step might be discussions about the relationship between art cinema, postcolonial theories and morality.