本文透過《冪零群》與《薪傳》舞作的分析，反思現代舞在 1970年代的台灣，其所呈現的「發展」現象，進而探討現代性與（後）殖民論述如何介入台灣社會與文化錯綜複雜的關係之中。雖然《冪零群》與《薪傳》體例迥然相異，但在「戒嚴法」及「白色恐怖」的效應下，卻同時呈現了一種「去殖民化」的意味，從而揭露了美、台、中、日間，剪不斷理還亂的歷史情仇。本文探究的是：在去殖民化想像中，現代舞在 1970年代的台灣，其所表述的現代性集體建構為何？而國家機器的檢查制度又如何在不同世代的藝術家間造成取徑的差異？藉由深度訪談與自我民族誌，我認為，《冪零群》與《薪傳》的美感自主，涉及台灣當時的「現代」與「鄉土」之爭，而 1978年的台美斷交，更促動現代舞知識份子突如其來的「啟蒙」，以致出現了康德所謂的「一種機轉意識的自覺」，而集體走出了「未成年」、「受保護」的境界。在這自主成長的過程中，藝術家開始深入探查台灣現狀，有些人決定採取行動，而由「自在世代」轉化為「自為世代」。本研究的結論是，《冪零群》再現了一種確認國族進步的積極信念，而《薪傳》則標誌著一個社會成長的持續。彼此共同參照的是，台灣的現代化軌跡，亦即「第三世界的現代主義」與複數的現代性。

This essay examines Liu Feng-shueh’s Nilpotent Group (1977) and Lin Hwai-min’s Legacy (1978), two modern dance representations created in Taiwan during the late 1970s when Martial Law (1949-1987) was still in effect. During this time, censorship, or the “White Terror,” harshly defined public expression. However, choreographers managed to make their voices heard. The result was the elimination of various de facto Japanese and American markers in cultural production within the socio-cultural complexity of modernity and post-colonial discourse. What makes such erasure in modern dance so compelling is that it reveals the historical love-hate relationships between Taiwan, Japan, China and the U.S. Hence, within the context of a decolonized imagination, what were the prevailing attributes of modernity prevalent in modern dance during the late 1970s in Taiwan? How did government censorship create generational gaps between dance artists that resulted in different approaches within a decolonized frame of reference? By way of autoethnography and fieldwork, I argue that the aesthetic autonomy of Nilpotent Group and Legacy involves artistic debates on modernism and nativism in Taiwan society while politically shielding Japanese inscriptions from the public view on the one hand and attacking U.S. influences on the other. Triggered by the 1978 Taipei-Washington diplomatic break, modern dance intellectuals in Taiwan seemingly released themselves collectively from what Kant called “self-incurred tutelage.” In so doing, these artists began to look into Taiwan’s status quo. Some decided to light torches on their own, turning from a “generation-in-itself” to a “generation- for-itself.” This study concludes that Nilpotent Group represents a positive belief in national progress, while Legacy signifies a continuum of social growth. Both confer a process of modernization in terms of “Third World modernisms” and modernities.