Congratulations to Noemie Solomon, who has been awarded the GSAS Summer Predoctoral Fellowship and Anurima Banerji, who has been awarded the Dean's Dissertation Award. Noemie's dissertation, Unworking Subjectivity: Contemporary European Choreographic Experiments and Body-Metamorphosis, examines works by European contemporary choreographers as they explore alternative modes of subjectivity and question its different dynamics, operations and integrities within contemporary culture, re-figuring the contours and potentials of choreographic practice, philosophy and critical theory.
Anurima's dissertation, Odissi Dance: Paratopic Performances of Gender, Law, and Nation, looks at the transformation of the South Asian classical dance, Odissi, from its historical role as ritual practice to its current status as transnational spectacle, with a focus on the state’s regulation of the dance form and the politics of gender embedded within it. Using an interdisciplinary approach that brings together social history, dance scholarship, and critical legal studies, this dissertation explores three key themes: the idea of law as a choreographic agent; the notion of “extraordinary genders” (those identities and acts that lie outside everyday norms); and the original concept of the “paratopia” - a space of alterity produced by radical performance - to suggest how Odissi subverts dominant cultural codes tied to gender and sexuality.
