The Lines of Life A Study of Dancing

National Taiwan Normal University
Department of Fine Arts





iii
Abstract
Dancing and painting are the best evidences of origins of artistic expression, art
is the reflection of one’s soul. Painting has to work with his/her eyes, hands, and mind
together to deliver his/her self-image, in which to please people through vision. The
centre of dancing is the dancer’s spirit, and the object is the body. However, painting
which combines with vision and performance is one of the best methods to reflect
one’s soul. Art techniques are simple, but the art thinking is difficult. Like painting a
portrait is easy, but hard to outline his/her soul inside. I have dedicated myself to the
idea to create art with dancing. Being a dancer and a painter at the same time, I hope
to explore the meaning of life by dancing, the most ancient human language, via the
multidisciplinary researches which includes the development of dance history,
aesthetics of dance, semiotics and phenomenology. Writing is to examine oneself
from a new angle after filling continuously challenging theories, rather than
compensating the pitfalls of one’s creation with the theories supports.
This thesis is divided into five chapters, which are as follows:
Chapter One : Introduction, including research motives, purposes, boundaries, and
methods.
Chapter Two : The supporting theories of my creation. On the theories of dancing
aesthetics, semiotics, phenomenology, Labanotation and other
theoretical basis.
Chapter Three : Concept and analysis of my creation. Throughout this chapter, readers
will find that the central ideas of my creation were originated from
dancing.
Chapter Four :Interpretation of my creation. I will interpret each part of my creation
in light of three aspects: thoughts on my artistic creation, the substance
and form of each work, and the technique of expression.
Chapter Five :Conclusion,to review the process of executing this research, the
reflections and expectations from the author’s own creations.
Key words: Aesthetics of Dance , Body, Line, Heterogeneous Isomorphism
iv



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