Critical Correspondence
Paloma McGregor in Conversation with Abigail Levine
While attending and dancing in Ishmael Houston-Jones’s 2012 Danspace Project platform series Parallels, artist-activist Paloma McGregor began to think about the lack of experimental forums in which Black dance artists were well-represented. How had the idea of artistic experimentation and radicality become tied to White culture? And untied from Black culture? Were critics and presenters […]
Photo by Camille McouatDana Michel in Conversation with Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Is there such a thing as a black abstractionist aesthetic in live performance? Can the black body exist in live performance without the concern of euro-centric or westernized legibility? How might the female body behave in the public domain when void of the need to be stereotypically attractive in the eyes of the […]
The Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving, part 2 — A Conversation with A’Keitha Carey and Liana Conyers
To deepen the conversation around issues addressed in Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s discussion with Brenda Dixon Gottschild, we asked two dancer-scholars to share personal stories that point to the racism that often goes unnamed in university dance programs. Here they describe the way assumptions and stereotypes made about their bodies, identities, backgrounds, and interests have affected […]
The Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving, part 1 – Brenda Dixon Gottschild in conversation with Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Curator/choreographer/performer Jaamil Olawale Kosoko talks with Brenda Dixon Gottschild, whose scholarship on the presence and influence of Africanist aesthetics in American dance forms has made an indelible intervention in the genealogy of dance history and contemporary dance. Here they discuss what led her to a career of writing about dance through the embodied perspective of a black female dancer. Their conversation also touches upon Gottscchild's most recent endeavor, the Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving; a nation-wide network of support organized to assist black scholars who have encountered racism in their attempts to attain degrees, tenure, diversity, etc. within U.S. university dance programs. This interview is part one of a two part series dedicated to this issue. Check back for a conversation between two dance scholars who found support through this resource.
Infiltrating the MoMA Atrium Part 2: Ralph Lemon in conversation with Marissa Perel on “Some sweet day”
Artist, choreographer, writer, conceptualist, Ralph Lemon, further discusses his artistic and curatorial concepts in relationship to race, and the work of Deborah Hay and Sarah Michelson for “Some sweet day” in MoMA’s Marron Atrium, October 15- Nov 4 2012 in conversation with Marissa Perel. The first part of this conversation can be found on the Art21 blog.
