WHAT MAKETH MAN EXPLORING MASCULINITY IN CONTEMPORARY MALE DANCERS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand notions of masculinity by exploring Singaporean male dancers' participation in contemporary dance in Singapore. Today, Singapore's contemporary dance scene remains primarily a female-dominated domain. The growth of the contemporary dance scene and the increase in Singaporean male contemporary dancers' visibility make contemporary dance a meaningful domain worth exploring. In a bid to understand the positionality of contemporary male dancers within existing notions of masculinity perpetuated in Singapore via national discourses, I explore how male contemporary dancers exhibit plural and fluid masculinity in different social spaces, as they work on their craft, interpret, and redefine what masculinity entails for themselves both on and off stage. Thus, I seek to venture how alternative notions of masculinity exhibited by Singapore contemporary male dancers can exist in both harmony and tension with institutionalised forms of manliness.