"Tropical Spirit: Biography of a Jasmine Garden" is a site-specific performance piece I developed as my final M.F.A Project. This paper outlines a chronology of the making of the piece in addition to presenting critical frameworks through which the project can be analyzed and situated in relation to contemporary aesthetics. I use critical frameworks borrowed from a variety of sources. Recent research done on borders by Performance Studies scholars Ramon Rivera-Servera and Harvey Young provide the basis for the analysis in this paper. In addition, anthropologist and cultural theorist Michael Taussig’s treatise on colour as well as recent research done by Emilie Conrad and Susan Harper in the field of Somatics help articulate somatic strategies at work in the piece. Using frameworks from heterogenous sources, this paper attempts to provide an interdisciplinary analysis of the piece which can be understood as a highly layered theatricalization of borders.
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