DANCING A BLACK SOCIAL II

Part of the 6th biannual Collegium for African Diaspora Dance Conference in February 2024

A meeting of the multi-year SLIPPAGE project Black Dance and the Embodied Geographies of Freedom convened by SLIPPAGE artistic director Thomas F. DeFrantz and supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, gathers advanced thought-in-motion around Black Social Dance practices, to create an organizational scaffolding that can elaborate thinking and moving in narratives of liberation.

Embodied researchers, all specialists in Black Dance and Black social formations, gather to imagine relevant research methods that underscore the theoretical and experiential complexity of movements we call Black Social Dance.  

This second gathering convened as part of The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance 6th biannual conference at Duke University in Durham, NC, February 16-18, 2024.

Winter 2024 Mellon Symposium @ CADD Conference

Conference Program

(downloadable)

 

in their words:

“Dancing a Black Social II” researchers reflect on the breadth of the field:

CADD Conference 2024 Highlights

 

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.