Dreaming the Impossible: reimagining Blackness through dance improvisation
Lead Research Organisation:
Birmingham City University
Department Name: ADM Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Abstract
This practice research PhD will investigate how blackness can be reimagined through dance improvisation. The term 'Black Dance' suggests a singular style or genre of movement that is separate from others, and as Adair & Burt note (2018) this makes it difficult to recognise the broad range of approaches developed by dancers who are black.
Research questions:
- How can reimagining Blackness support a (re)definition of black bodies in contemporary dance practices and scholarship?
- What can dance improvisation as a tool to access ancestral and culturally embodied knowledge offer?
- What is Black feminine experiential knowledge?
- How can dance improvisation facilitate a (re)conceptualisation of the term 'Blackness' within the field?
The project engages with several current issues in different disciplines, drawing upon key scholars in contemporary dance, social sciences, gender and sexuality, and Black studies including Hay (2016), Gottschild (2018), Hall (1990) and Andrews (2016). It is also informed by feminist discussion, and will interrogate these areas of scholarship to facilitate an expansive articulation of blackness. Underpinned by an auto-ethnographic, socio-intertextual exploration, the creative methodology consists of a series of solo movement performances centralising embodied and lived experiences of (my) black female body, supported by a written thesis.
The black female body's lived experience is often hyper sexualized: the policing of sexuality is a colonial infraction, where bodies that articulate a corporeal sensuous carnality are deemed as indecent and contemptible (Carey 2016). Navigating (my) black femininity, and taking a positionality of the body as a vessel of embodied knowledges containing a plurality of presences, the research will explore how accessing one's archive through movement allows dance to become a display of 'cultural memory' (Patten 2018).
Potential impact of the research:
- A (re)contextualisation of current terminology and of definitions of Black bodies in contemporary dance scholarship; specifically (re)considering preconceived viewings of blackness and the categorisation of 'Black Dance'.
- (Re)defining the black body in the moment of performance to produce alternative histories of itself: through accessing Black ancestral embodied knowledge, allowing these to transfigure in live space and time.
- (Re)outlining parameters of Black female bodies through a refusal of colonial viewings of the female body in practice which engages with sexualised movement vocabulary; moving the body from an object to actively reclaiming erotic agency.
Recent global dialogues around 'Black Lives Matter', racism and inequality witnessed othered bodies demanding space and (re)negotiating their presences. This enquiry is a continuation of socio-political actions for change, celebrating black bodies via structures and practices from contemporary dance improvisation and applying these in ways which are informed by black culture and their lived experiences (Adair & Burt 2018). Therefore (re)defining blackness through a refusal of the colonized gaze and proposing new ways to read the black body in contemporary dance and beyond.
Years 1 - 4
- Attend appropriate research seminars/conferences
- Develop dance improvisation Practice Research
- Case studies
- Writing of thesis chapters - finalising in year 4
Years 2-4
- Creation & performance of solo practice - One or more per year
Year 4
- Preparation and delivery of viva
Research questions:
- How can reimagining Blackness support a (re)definition of black bodies in contemporary dance practices and scholarship?
- What can dance improvisation as a tool to access ancestral and culturally embodied knowledge offer?
- What is Black feminine experiential knowledge?
- How can dance improvisation facilitate a (re)conceptualisation of the term 'Blackness' within the field?
The project engages with several current issues in different disciplines, drawing upon key scholars in contemporary dance, social sciences, gender and sexuality, and Black studies including Hay (2016), Gottschild (2018), Hall (1990) and Andrews (2016). It is also informed by feminist discussion, and will interrogate these areas of scholarship to facilitate an expansive articulation of blackness. Underpinned by an auto-ethnographic, socio-intertextual exploration, the creative methodology consists of a series of solo movement performances centralising embodied and lived experiences of (my) black female body, supported by a written thesis.
The black female body's lived experience is often hyper sexualized: the policing of sexuality is a colonial infraction, where bodies that articulate a corporeal sensuous carnality are deemed as indecent and contemptible (Carey 2016). Navigating (my) black femininity, and taking a positionality of the body as a vessel of embodied knowledges containing a plurality of presences, the research will explore how accessing one's archive through movement allows dance to become a display of 'cultural memory' (Patten 2018).
Potential impact of the research:
- A (re)contextualisation of current terminology and of definitions of Black bodies in contemporary dance scholarship; specifically (re)considering preconceived viewings of blackness and the categorisation of 'Black Dance'.
- (Re)defining the black body in the moment of performance to produce alternative histories of itself: through accessing Black ancestral embodied knowledge, allowing these to transfigure in live space and time.
- (Re)outlining parameters of Black female bodies through a refusal of colonial viewings of the female body in practice which engages with sexualised movement vocabulary; moving the body from an object to actively reclaiming erotic agency.
Recent global dialogues around 'Black Lives Matter', racism and inequality witnessed othered bodies demanding space and (re)negotiating their presences. This enquiry is a continuation of socio-political actions for change, celebrating black bodies via structures and practices from contemporary dance improvisation and applying these in ways which are informed by black culture and their lived experiences (Adair & Burt 2018). Therefore (re)defining blackness through a refusal of the colonized gaze and proposing new ways to read the black body in contemporary dance and beyond.
Years 1 - 4
- Attend appropriate research seminars/conferences
- Develop dance improvisation Practice Research
- Case studies
- Writing of thesis chapters - finalising in year 4
Years 2-4
- Creation & performance of solo practice - One or more per year
Year 4
- Preparation and delivery of viva
