Gorzo is a traditional Tibetan dance that carries significant cultural value for Tibetans. The study is based on a multisensory ethnographic work in a Tibet city's central square located in Amdo, China, where a group of elderly Tibetan females continued to perform authentic Gorzo dances at the square corner despite being forcibly cleared for political entertainment. This paper focuses on the embodied marginalized status of Gorzo dancing as a form of political space occupation, and I argue it serves as a creative practice of resistance from everyday life in contemporary Tibet.
My theoretical approach to spatial justice and multisensory ethnography provides a nuanced understanding. I compare the authentic Gorzo dancing with the political entertainment dancing that occurs in the same square, and capture the gap between the dancer's actions and words, and how it was expressed through embodiment.
I danced with Tibetan dancers as part of participant observation and built a deep relationship of trust and intimacy. Noticeably, I also present this work through the mapping of spatiality as my creative and aesthetic intertext to the dancing story. With the help of satellite maps and visual tools, I investigate the spatial settings of the city's central square, monasteries, and government buildings in a holistic view, which reveals the power dynamics between religious and secular institutions, Tibetan and Han people, and local emic identity and the imagination of otherness.
The textual and visual ethnographic output suggests that dancing in silence is a way of re-engaging with public space, enabling Tibetan to reclaim their cultural identity and resist political suppression. The study highlights the marginalized circumstances of Tibetan people under political control, where the authenticity of Tibetan culture is being increasingly deprived, and the emergence of resisting political suppression through creative practices.
