ABSTRACT

This chapter examines these dancing bodies within the historical context of three layers of interactive and interwoven discourses: the liberated female bodies of modern dance, the history of Asian countries’ national project of modernization in a world dominated by Western powers, and the rhetoric of ‘enlightened progressiveness’ narrated by colonial modernity. The dancing bodies of Taiwanese dance pioneers testified to the complex interaction of the dual practices of liberation and discipline characterizing the formation of early modern dance in many cultures while bearing witness to the unique experience of colonial modernity imposed on Taiwan by Japan, the only Asian colonial power in the twentieth century. During the 1920s and 1930s, there were debates about the suitability of physical education for girls in Taiwan. As a response to the debates and controversy, a physical education curriculum designed specifically for female elementary school students was published in 1934 by a Taiwanese teacher.