Searching for Something Else: On Choreography and Poetics / Oluwaseun Olayiwola (2020)

This thesis attempts to blur the lines (if there is one) between the poetics of choreography and the poetics of language. Through the analysis of text, poems, and choreographies, I create a
choreo-poetic practice that is both generative in the studio, and reflective as a mode of analysis.

I illustrate connections between choreography and language through the use of poetry and poetic thinking. I ponder on whether the body is capable of translating and transforming
language and the benefits of one versus the other. I try to articulate the way composition was thought of as an active activity of performance within my own practice. I resist closing and meditate on different ways closure might come without actually landing, situating in one place.

This is all done in parallel with writers I admire, so much so that, textually, I mimic their style of writing to add another level to poetics present within this thesis. These writers include: Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, CAConrad, and new Nobel Laureate Louise Glück.

This, I believe, is a poet’s project; it is an inquisition to see if the lenses and understandings I have garnered as poet can be used, hybridized, and further, expanded to include the choreographic or, perhaps, reveal the choreographic that is inherent within language already.