Future Bodies: The Dance that Persists
MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism
About Future Bodies: The Dance that Persists
Welcome to the inaugural symposium of MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism. Launched two years ago, the MA enables a global learning exchange between a community of dance artists working towards social justice and change in their local contexts.
Our Future Bodies symposium centres the pioneer students - our first graduating cohort - who present their research projects. The second cohort of students share creative documentations of their international collaborations. The Curatorial Team, who lead the course, offer invitations to move, make and reflect together. Our keynote listeners: invited academics with related research in protest, eco-somatic practice, speculative futures, and conceptual practices in dance, will engage in deep listening and respond to the student’s research.
The learning community is based in many different countries and thus the symposium seeks to create encounter across time zones – making the impossible, possible.
To persist is to remain steadfast in the face of opposition, to continue to dance in-spite of it all. We can learn from the persistent plants that continue to bear fruit through winter and create root systems and seed banks to sustain themselves in unfavourable conditions. Come water the seeds with us. If you are feeling persistent spend twelve hours, or visit for an hour or two.
— The learning community of MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism
WHAT THE DAY LOOKS LIKE
Session 1 with graduating students Filip Kijowski and Joseph Jeffers
9.00-12.00 UK | 10.00 Poland, 13.30 India, 13.30 Sri Lanka
9.00 Welcome, embodied landing and introducing the keynote listeners
With Course Leader Jo Parkes (UK/Germany) and Curatorial Team members Dr Ruth Pethybridge (UK), Mandeep Raikhy (India) and Dr Amaara Raheem (Australia/Sri Lanka)
10.00 Becoming Allies
Exploring embodied allyship with the parents of LGBTQIA+ people in Poland
With graduating student Filip Kijowski (Poland)
11.00 Echos of Resistance
A dance project centring the resistance and resilience of elders of the Caribbean community in Croydon, London
With graduating student Joseph Jeffers (UK)
Followed by a creative response by the keynote listener
12.00 End
Session host: Jo Parkes
Keynote listener: Thea Stanton (she/her)
Session 2 with Year 1 Students - International Collaborations
12.15-12.45 UK | 7.15 Santiago, Chile and Trinidad and Tobago, 12.15 Morocco, 13.15 Germany and Norway, 16.45 India, 18.15 Cambodia
In the first year of the programme, students take part in a unique international collaboration that bridges geographies, cultures, and ways of moving. Each student engages with a community of practice in their own local context, while simultaneously collaborating with a peer and their community situated in a different country. Through remote co-creation and critical reflection, the first-year students investigate how digital collaboration can foster connection, amplify marginal voices, and spark new formulations of participation and activism.
This online exhibition presents creative documentations of these collaborations. Each film captures the relationships, challenges, and discoveries that emerged during each collaborative process and holds within it a unique story—of coming together, of listening, of moving and making dance across difference.
Session host: Mandeep Raikhy (India) and year 1 students
Session 3 with graduating students Gladys Agulhas, Anno Bolender and Marília Bassetto Coelho
13.30-16.30 UK | 9.30 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 14.30 South Africa, 14.30 Germany, 18.00 India, 18.00 Sri Lanka
13.30 Welcome and embodied landing
With Curatorial Team members Amaara Raheem (Australia/Sri Lanka) and Mandeep Raikhy
14:00 Diverse Bodies
Memory, meaning and inclusion in dance in Eldorado Park (South Africa)
With graduating student Gladys Agulhas (South Africa)
14.30 Intergenerational Encounters in the Dance Project 'CAKE SESSIONS’
On archiving the invisible, reclaiming digital space and the pleasure of sharing a cake
With graduating student Anno Bolender (Germany/UK)
15.30 Eco-mundo
Dialogical observations and practices: immersions in the Atlantic Forest as inspiration for the composition of a collective dance
With graduating student Marília Bassetto Coelho (Brazil)
Followed by a creative response by the keynote listener
16.30 End
Session host: Mandeep Raikhy
Keynote listener: John Chan (he/him)
Session 4 with Year 1 Students - International Collaborations (Repeat)
(Repeat of Session 2)
17.15-17.45 UK | 11.15 Texas, USA, 12.15 Chile and Trinidad and Tobago, 18.15 Germany and Morocco
In the first year of the programme, students take part in a unique international collaboration that bridges geographies, cultures, and ways of moving. Each student engages with a community of practice in their own local context, while simultaneously collaborating with a peer and their community situated in a different country. Through remote co-creation and critical reflection, the first-year students investigate how digital collaboration can foster connection, amplify marginal voices, and spark new formulations of participation and activism.
This online exhibition presents creative documentations of these collaborations. Each film captures the relationships, challenges, and discoveries that emerged during each collaborative process and holds within it a unique story—of coming together, of listening, of moving and making dance across difference.
Session host: Mandeep Raikhy (India) and year 1 students
Session 5 with graduating students Bianca Kruppa and Andrea Carmona Hernandez
18.00-21.00 UK | 11.00 Mexico, 19.00 Germany, 22.30 India, 22.30 Sri Lanka
18.00 Welcome and embodied landing
With Course Leader Jo Parkes (UK/Germany) and Dr Ruth Pethybridge (UK) followed by
This is not another circle!
Shifting social orders and practicing democracy with young people through social choreography
With graduating student Bianca Kruppa (Germany)
20.00 Story Garden
Participatory dance for early childhood
With graduating student Andrea Carmona Hernandez (Mexico)
Followed by a creative response by the keynote listener
Session host: Dr Ruth Pethybridge
Keynote listener: Clare Parfitt (she/her)
20.00 - 21.00 CELEBRATE and RELAX
Whatever time of day it is for you, we invite you to take a break and join us as we celebrate our first graduating cohort and our first symposium. Bring a drink, throw on a cool outfit and come hang out with us.
In several digital rooms you can:
- visit our exhibition of the international collaborations created by year 1 students and chat to them about their work
- dance with others around the world to our (and your) favourite tunes
- Share a drink and a chat with staff, students and other guests in the hang-out room
We will end with some well-earned rest as we come together to do “Submerged: An Audio Score for Collective Rest” created by Dr Amaara Raheem to close this event.
21.00 End
Downloads List
The sessions are spread across the day to decentralise timezones and give you a chance to dip in and out. There will be short breaks between each session. You are welcome to book a spot on as many sessions as you wish to.
Closed captions are available for all sessions.