VIRTUAL & EMPHATICALLY LIVE

The fifth Mellon symposium wonders how Black social dance operates as a lever in the bridge between virtual and in-person social dance spaces.
Video: “The Afters” Closing Party by Isaiah “Thoughtpoet” Brown
Virtual and Emphatically Live! Fall 2025 Black Social Dance Symposium - SLIPPAGE Lab

Virtual & Emphatically Live!

Fall 2025 Mellon Symposium Recap

 

This final convening of the multi-year SLIPPAGE project Black Dance and the Embodied Geographies of Freedom gathers embodied researchers to share advanced thought-in-motion around Black Social Dance practices, with the goal of creating an organizational scaffolding that can elaborate thinking and moving in narratives of liberation.

Convened by SLIPPAGE artistic director Thomas F. DeFrantz and supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation,  this gathering wants to draw a theoretical landscape for understanding how black social dance operates as a lever in the bridge between virtual and in-person social dance spaces. 

 

 

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Opening Reception

Thursday 11/6 6-9PM – Wirtz Chicago

 

 

Research Presentation Sessions

Friday 11/7 11AM-1:30PM & 1:30-4:30 PM – SLIPPAGE Lab

Saturday 11/8 11AM-1PM & 3-6PM – Wirtz Chicago

 

 
 

Closing Art Party

Saturday 11/8 6-9PM – Wirtz Chicago

 

 

ALL EVENTS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

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.