How will dancers embody the Afrofuture?

CALL FOR CONFERENCE PROPOSALS: 

DANCING THE AFRICAN DIASPORA: EMBODYING THE AFROFUTURE

Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) Conference
Duke University, February 19-21, 2016

How might we imagine the impact and import of Black dance within the context of afro-futurism?

What sorts of movement practices reflect an embodied Black feminist/womanist perspective?

What does Black Dance contribute within the context of ongoing brutality and practices of resistance?

CADD's second conference, Dancing the African Diaspora: Embodying the Afrofuture, aims to re-ignite the discourse on defining Black Dance on a global scale by bringing together scholars, practitioners, educators, and other stakeholders for three days of intellectual and artistic inspiration.  Anchored by critical dialogue and provocative research presentations, the conference will also feature breakout sessions, movement workshops, film screenings, and a performance by Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion culminating their Duke residency.

This three-day conference seeks to center African diaspora dance as a resource and method of aesthetic identity. The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance aims to facilitate an interdisciplinary discussion that captures the variety of topics, approaches, and methods that might constitute Black Dance Studies.

"Dancing the African Diaspora" suggests multiple exigencies and interests. We are interested in papers/presentations that consider dance practices throughout the African diaspora, and the specific contexts that engender them. We are also interested in dance as an approach to the understanding/engaging the African diaspora itself. This convening situates black dance as constituted by theories of black performance. We invite you to explore black movement as a technology of African diasporic identity-making. Presentations are invited along any theoretical line of inquiry concerned with African diaspora dance. We welcome papers that engage any site or topic related to black movement and those that represent a rigorous engagement with a number of disciplinary and methodological perspectives.

Possible topics include:

Black dance, virtuality, and technologies of mediationPedagogical politicsIdentity and community makingCorporeality, gender and sexuality in the African diaspora danceColonialism, neoliberalism, commodification

Deadline for Proposals:  October 1, 2015

Confirmations sent:  October 15, 2015

Click here to submit your proposal. 

For questions, click here.

 
Conference Committee|Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD)Founding Members

Takiyah Amin, Thomas F. DeFrantz,  Shireen Dickson, Jasmine Johnson, Raquel Monroe, C. Kemel Nance, Carl Paris, John Perpener, Will Rawls, Makeda Thomas, Andrea E. Woods Valdés, Ava LaVonne Vinesett

Sponsors for this event include: SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology in residence at Duke; Humanities Writ Large @ Duke; the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance; the Corporeality Working Group @ Duke; the Duke Dance Program; African and African American Studies at Duke.