Corstoreal: Dance as Archiving Systems

Corstoreal: Dance as Archiving Systems explores the idea of dancer's bodies as an embodied archive; how choreography functions as a site of embodied archival practice where memory, history, and subjectivity are stored, transmitted, and reinterpreted through movement. This joint Dance and English thesis investigates the intersection of corporeality, ephemeral dancing, and archival theory. Through a literature review, embodied studio research, and choreographic experimentation, this project examines how dancers' bodies operate as living affective repositories. Corstoreal culminated in a dance piece, developed in collaboration with a cohort of student dancers and a musician, featuring "codified" solos, unison movement, and improvisational structures meant to interrogate authorship and the transmission of embodied knowledge. Corstoreal was presented as part of Rituals of Return: Senior Dance Concert on April 24th and 25th, 2025.