Moving Body — Moving Image is partnering with the Movement Lab to host Digital Black Dance Ecologies (DBDE)’s Laboratory (closed to the public), Installations, and a Public Screening.
Laboratory: As part of the project, Digital Black Dance Ecologies will hold two experimental research labs, the first hosted by Moving Body - Moving Image at the Movement Lab, Barnard College. The Lab will explore the theme of Fugitivity in relation to environmental and social injustice through embodied epistemologies. The meeting of technology and Black dance practice creates new opportunities for critical knowledge production. As a form of ancestral technology, Africanist dance enables connections across African Diasporic histories, both sacred and secular, when performed which is then amplified in digital forms. The Lab will be an intimate space consisting of black artist-researchers and academics who will bring insight and expertise. Over three days lab participants will engage in a series of technical playground investigations, round-table discussions, and workshops/sessions led by the group.
Open to the public are:
1) Installations at The Movement Lab
Monday, October 7 to Thursday, October 10 from 3 PM to 6 PM
Monday, October 14 to Friday, October 18 from 3 PM to 6 PM
Featuring works by DBDE artists/scholars: Suspended Relief by André M. Zachery, Descent by Antoine Marc, Imaginal Cells: The Colour of Transformation by Bryony Ella, Sheila by Gabri Christa, FOUNTAIN by Alexandrina Hemsley (Yewande 103), Cygnus by Cara Hagan, and Blues Time by Jonathan González.
2) Film Screening at the Movement Lab
Friday, October 11 from 6 PM to 8 PM
Film Screening features Kankantri by Gabri Christa (Suriname / USA), Terra Mater - Mother Land by Kantarama Gahigiri (Rwanda / Switzerland), and The Noise My Leaves Make by Tia-Monique Uzor (UK).
Please note that seating is limited. RSVP required.
2024 MBMI Schedule
October 7-10 | 3-6pm
Public Installation
of works by participating DBDE Laboratory artists / scholars
October 11 | 6pm
Public Screening
of specially selected films around the black body and environmental justice
October 11-13 | all day
Invitation Only Laboratory
in collaboration with Digital Black Dance Ecologies
October 14-18 | time tba
Public Installation
of works by participating DBDE Laboratory artists / scholars
Reservations for Installations and Screening required
All events will take place at the Barnard College Movement Lab. Access Information and Map
About Digital Black Dance Ecologies
Digital Black Dance Ecologies is an interdisciplinary network, founded and directed by Dr. Tia -Monique Uzor and funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, that centres African and African diasporic dance within discourses on social and environmental injustice across black geographies. Turning to the creative processes of dance-making as a ‘generative and creative source for disorderly power’ (Campt, 2019), the network embraces the prospects of living beyond oppressive systems. In this moment of social and environmental reckoning, the network engages digital Black dance – dance art that utilises Africanist movement through screen dance, immersive realities, virtual realities, and other digital modalities – and positions embodied ancestral dance practices and their contemporary iterations as technology through which to reimagine and reconcile black futures.
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