SLIPPAGE: Performance | Culture | Technology

Where Black Studies & Artistic Research Forge New Social Possiblities

SLIPPAGE, led by Professor Thomas F. DeFrantz at Northwestern University, is a global think-tank exploring connections between performance, history, and technology; fostering critical interactions and staying at the forefront of innovative thinking.

Featured Projects:

Social justice + civic engagement

Mellon Foundation + SLIPPAGE +  Higher Learning

SLIPPAGE is thrilled to announce funding support from the Mellon Foundation to support our work in Black Dance Studies from 2023-2025. 

This multi-year grant expands a research project focused on local Black dance practices, national African American identity, and global Black freedom, gathering 30+ embodied researchers in four US cities over three years and producing a volume of future-forward thoughtOpens a new window reflecting both hyperlocal yet universally relevant cultural production and practice.

Read the announcement or learn more about each gathering in each link box to the right.

 

Virtual and Emphatically Live! Fall 2025 Black Social Dance Symposium - SLIPPAGE Lab

FALL 2025 Symposium

How does Black social dance operate as a lever in the bridge between virtual and in-person social dance spaces?

SLIPPAGE Mellon Winter 2025 symposium

WINTER 2025 Symposium

How does Black social dance operate as a lever in Chicago for life-organizing, community-building practices?

Black Queer Social Dance in atlantaFINAL-August21

FALL 2024 Symposium

SLIPPAGE Mellon postdoctoral associate Dr. Webster McDonald organizes this assembly of researchers studying queer Black social dance in Atlanta and the South.

CADD 2024 Final Draft Conference Flyer

WINTER 2024 CADD Conference

Researchers gather at the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance's 6th biannual conference for "Dancing A Black Social Part II."

Flyer

FALL 2023 Symposium

"Dancing A Black Social" convened researchers from across the nation to establish a research foundation at Northwestern University's Chicago Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts.

SLIPPAGE IS A

 National Performance Network Partner

The National Performance Network is a vibrant network of artists and organizations committed to advancing racial and cultural justice through the arts.  Since 2025 we have activated this resource to support Chicago and Evanston community-based artmaking.

Learn more about our NPN projects

Recent Announcements

…IN MOTION…

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Who We Are

SLIPPAGE:

Performance | Culture | Technology

SLIPPAGE is a think-tank, an interdisciplinary performance research group that explores connections between performance, history, theater, and emergent technology.

Under the direction of professor Thomas F. DeFrantz, SLIPPAGE builds on the urgent need for intentional, critical, and timely interaction among artists, researchers, audiences, engineers, faculty, students, and general publics in the arts. Located in the Evanston campus of Northwestern University, SLIPPAGE, has a special imperative to organize cultural events that help us all imagine how creativity and expression operate at the core of artistry, humanity, technology, and social possibilities. SLIPPAGE produces conferences, symposia, workshops, and artist exchanges in events that mark social progress via research in performance.

Recognized globally, SLIPPAGE remains at the forefront of innovative thinking.

Learn More about SLIPPAGE