This thesis examines the early career and art criticism of Stella Bloch, an artist. dancer and writer who was active in New York City during the World War One era. I focus on Bloch's most important essays from this period: -'Intuitions" (I 919) and Dancing and the Drama, East &. West (1922). In "Intuitions" Bloch developed a theory of aesthetics based on her study of Nietzsche and Buddhism. Dancing and the Drama, East & West incorporated this theory into the concept of an "ideal drama," which I have analysed as "orientalist." Linking Bloch's anti-colonial "orientalism" to that of her mentor, Ananda Coomaraswamy, I demonstrate that though Bloch's "ideal drama" was an ambitious critique of the social and artistic values of Western culture, it was still caught up in the "orientalist" discourses of the period.
