Lemi Ponifasio, Camille Brown, Prumsodun Ok, Alice Sheppard: Constellatory Heat and Light on Alterity

Chapter 8 underscores the singular focus on individual choreographers in the previous four chapters, and refracts it by references to the very different work of four other choreographers in order to emphasize the multiplicity and difference at the heart of South-South Contemporary Dance. Organized as a constellation, creating both heat and light, this chapter illuminates the work of New Zealand-based Samoan choreographer, Lemi Ponifasio, African-American choreographer Camille A. Brown, Phnom Penh-based Cambodian classical dance choreographer Prumsodun Ok, and Black, queer, disabled choreographer Alice Sheppard. Brief references to their work, politics of dance-making, and locationing practices in this chapter serve to demonstrate their different entrances into innovation and disruption of mainstream diversity-based tactics of exceptionalism and inclusion.