Welcome to the viewing space for the digital symposium of MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism

Launched three 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 second Future Bodies symposium centres our second graduating cohort who present their research projects. The third cohort of students share creative documentations of their international collaborations working with dance across borders in the digital space. The Curatorial Team, who lead the course, host the event while our keynote listeners, invited academics with related research interests, practice a deep engagement with the student presentations in order to weave the strands of each project together from their own position.

The learning community is based in many different countries and thus the symposium seeks to create encounter across time zones – making the impossible, possible. From preventing burn out in activist practices in the UK, to feminist cartographies in Chile, to diasporic dances in Canada and the Caribbean, the diversity of praxis is celebrated in this event. Come join us for an hour, or persist with us over thirteen, as we move towards repair…

When so many systems are broken, what does it mean to repair or to 're-pair'? Repair is also about noticing and undoing the deeper habits we carry, especially those shaped by dominance or control… How can we mend without just papering over the cracks and can we use dance to move towards our desires for a better world?

— The learning community of MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism

Watch

9:00-11:45 Research Presentations by Graduating Students

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9:00-9:10 Welcome

9:10-9:40am

Avni Sethi (India)

State Subject; Dance Object

How is citizenship lived, rehearsed, negotiated, and felt through the body? How do bodies belong, to the law, to the land, and to themselves?

9:40-10:10am

Eve Dent (England)

Birdsong Dancing: A Chorus of Voices

Exploring embodied kinship with the more-than-human

10:30-11:00am

Sujeong Seok (South Korea)

The Uracha Project: Dancing to Pull Each Other Together

Rebuilding kinship and social weaving among South Korean youth through community dance.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

11:00-11:30am

Becca Townsley (England)

Rocking it! Adventures in Embodied Matrescence

A creative movement exploration of the lived experiences of mothering.

11:30-11:45

Keynote listener response by Kyra Norman

12:15-12:45 International Collaborations by First Year Students

In the first year of the MA Dance: Participation, Communities and Activism, students take part in an international collaboration that connects communities, cultures, and practices across different countries. Working remotely with a peer and their local community, students explore how digital collaboration can foster connection, participation, and activism.

This online exhibition showcases creative documentations of these collaborations, capturing the relationships, challenges, and discoveries that emerged through processes of listening, moving, and making together across difference.

13:00-15:00 Research Presentations by Graduating Students

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13:00-13:10 Welcome

13:00-13:40

Iona Hannagan Lewis (Cymru)

Pleasure Gardens

Cruising, community and queer choreographies.

13.40-14.10

Manal Tass (Morocco/Germany)

Remaining Otherwise

Dances of relating and resisting in the SWANA context.

14:10-14:40

Rhiannon Colvin (England)

Resourcing Resistance

To sustain our social movements, we must sustain ourselves.

14:40-15:00

Keynote listener response by Shivaangee Agrawal

16:15-18:15 Research presentations by graduating students

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16:15-16:25

Welcome

16.25-16.55

Fernanda González (Chile)

Women Cartography

Dancing in between otros mapas.

Video
Symposium Map

16.55-17.25

Sádé Budhlall (Trinidad and Tobago)

Disobedient Bodies

An exploration of Afro–Indo relational politics in Trinidad and Tobago through a collaborative practice-as-research process between Odissi and Moko Jumbie practice.

17:55-18:15

Keynote listener response by Kate Marsh

18:45-21:30 Research presentations by graduating students

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18:45-18:55

Welcome

18.55-19.25

Melissa Gmuer de Mora (USA)

Derecho de Permanecer

Walking, visibility and belonging across the fault lines of US immigration practice.

19.25-19.55

Hugo Peña (Chile/Germany)

BODY, ARCHIVE, MEMORY

Where borders cross us, where we cross borders — intergenerational and intercultural dances of forced displacement in Berlin.

20.15-20.45

Bronwen Wilson Rashad (Cymru/England)

No Slowing

What can a dance, woven from the land by the women who live there, do?

20.45-21.15

Lisa Mariko Gelley (Canada)

Welcome Back

Choreographies of hosting emergent rituals for intergenerational futures.

21:15-21:30

Keynote listener response by Funmi Adewole Elliott