A Case for the Two-Dimensional: Balinese Dance, Colonial Shadows, and Feeling Otherwise with Zavé Martohardjono

Abstract

Abstract This article encounters the shadows of coloniality from the vantage point of the two-dimensional. Spotlighting the queer and trans dance of interdisciplinary artist Zavé Martohardjono, the author traces the connections between diasporic gesture, cultural erasure, and land in the context of a shifting Indonesian governance, arguing that the distinct register of the two-dimensional—the flat space of virtual mediums like Zoom—allows the past to touch the present, and enables the viewer to unwind from colonialism’s grip on bodily movement. In doing so, the article observes the dance between dimensionality and embodiment, and the colonial shadows that linger in between, in order to forward new ways of anti-colonial feeling and being within the colonial present.