ALL Welcome
School of the Arts
University of Surrey
Dance Research Seminar NEXT WEEK

with Guest Lecture by Professor Tommy DeFrantz
author of Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance and Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture & founder and artistic director of SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology, a multi-disciplinary arts collective at MIT

Wednesday 14th May

2:30-4:00 pm
Staff presentation: Jennifer Jackson
Movement Elsewhere – the older dancer’s practice and the ballet aesthetic : Reflections on somatic attention to ballet principle and creative development of a mature dance repertoire
Location: Teaching Block building, Room 13 (TB13)

5-6 pm
Visiting Dance Lecture: Professor Tommy DeFrantz
Black Dance After Race
Location: Teaching Block building, Room 13 (TB13)
Abstract: What happens when race ceases to be a primary marker of identity used to categorize experience transformed into artmaking?  What might “postblack” dance convey? What are the sources and sympathies of a “fugitive” black, and what debt does “black dance” convey?  This essay explores the inevitably radical capacities of Black Dance in a speculative future when race matters differently than it does in 2015. The essay includes discussion of recent offerings of theatrical dance made by African American men that imagine an ‘outside’ to racial identification, alongside assessment of contemporary performance that seeks to align and elude racial labeling. The essay suggests the limiting strictures of language and categorization in defining dance along lines of race.
Bio: 

7:30 pm
Dance Performance: Wendy Houstoun – 50 Acts
Location: PATS Dance Studio
Tickets: