FALL 2024
Mellon Symposium

Researchers working in embodied research, critical Black consciousness, and  movement theory gather to acknowledge the intricate connections between black social dance and its broader social, political, and cultural implications. RSVP here

Contact Mellon postdoctoral associate, Dr. Webster McDonald, for more information on any of the Mellon events.

 

SLIPPAGE MEllon Fall 2024 Symposium

Black Queer Dance Aesthetics: In the Case of Atlanta

SLIPPAGE is thrilled to announce the third gathering of researchers for the Black Dance and Geography of Freedoms project, supported by the Mellon Foundation.  On Friday and Saturday, September 27 and 28 2024, researchers will gather on the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta Georgia to explore Black Queer Dance Aesthetics: In the Case of Atlanta.

The event has been overseen and coordinated by Dr. Webster McDonald, currently a postdoctoral affiliate in the SLIPPAGE lab.  McDonald has assembled an impressive line-up of speakers and events, including presentations by Spelman faculty Julie B. Johnson, Cici Kelley, and Ra/Malika. The event will also include a walking tour of landmark Black queer social sites in the city.  For more information and registration, please click through here. 

RSVP here

Free and open to the public

 

Friday 9/27/2024 | 5:30pm-9pm

@Dr. Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Building, Room LL31

Saturday 9/28/2024 | 10am-5pm

The Wellness Center @ Read Hall 350 Spelman Lane SW Atlanta Georgia 30314

RSVP here

Sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, SLIPPAGE, and Spelman College

Participating Researchers:

 

Anuli Akanegbu, New York University – Cultural Anthropology, Identity Studies

Raquel Monroe, Associate Dean, UT College of Fine Arts – Black Social Dance

Julie B. Johnson, Dept of Dance Performance & Choreography, Spelman College – Embodied Memory and Abolitionist Feminism

CiCi Kelley, Director, Spelman Dance Theatre – Black Performance Theory

Ra/Malika,  African Diaspora Studies, Spelman College – Black Feminist Scholar

Thomas F. DeFrantz, SLIPPAGE/Northwestern University – Critical Black Studies, Queer Theory

Webster McDonald, SLIPPAGE/Northwestern University – Caribbean Discourse, Queer Theory

 

About the Researchers:

Anuli Akanegbu

Anuli Akanegbu (pronounced: Ah-noo-lee A-ka-nay-boo, pronouns: she/her) is a cultural anthropologist and a researcher for Data & Society’s Labor Futures program. Her primary research interests lie at the intersection of cultural anthropology, identity studies, history, and creative methodologies, focusing on labor and creative production.

With a unique blend of academic training and marketing experience, Anuli approaches projects as a subject matter expert and strategic thinker, helping to bridge the gap between scholarly insights and practical applications. Her doctoral dissertation research project, The South Got Something to Share: A Behind-the-Screens Look at the Work/Lives of Black Creative Contract Workers in Atlanta, was supported in part by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and forms the basis of her forthcoming book on the genealogy of creative contract work, its interaction with identity, and the role of imagination in Atlanta’s city branding efforts.

Anuli is dedicated to advancing public scholarship and ensuring that anthropological knowledge is accessible and relevant to diverse audiences. She has shaped discussions on social media, the arts, and cultural heritage preservation through her multimedia education platform, BLK IRL® and its podcast. Anuli earned her PhD in cultural anthropology from NYU in May 2024 following a successful career as a senior strategist and brand planner at the global public relations and marketing firm Edelman. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and culture from Howard University.

Thomas F DeFrantz performs imadeamess

Thomas F. DeFrantz

Thomas F. DeFrantz directs SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology, a research group that explores emerging technology in live performance applications. DeFrantz received the 2017 Outstanding Research in Dance award from the Dance Studies Association. DeFrantz believes in our shared capacity to do better, and to engage our creative spirit for a collective good that is anti-racist, anti-homophobic, proto-feminist, and queer affirming. DeFrantz acted as a consultant for the Smithsonian Museum of African American Life and Culture, contributing concept and a voice-over for a permanent installation on Black Social Dance that opened with the museum in 2016.

Books include Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture (2004), Black Performance Theory, co-edited with Anita Gonzalez (2014), Choreography and Corporeality: Relay in Motion, co-edited with Philipa Rothfield (2016), the Routledge Companion to African American Theater and Performance co-edited with Kathy Perkins, Sandra Richards, and Renee Alexander Craft (2018); and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Black Dance (forthcoming 2023). Creative: Queer Theory! An Academic Travesty commissioned by the Theater Offensive of Boston and the Flynn Center for the Arts; fastDANCEpast, created for the Detroit Institute for the Arts; reVERSE-gesture-reVIEW commissioned by the Nasher Museum in response to the work of Kara Walker, January, 2017. Recent teaching: University of the Arts Mobile MFA in Dance; ImPulsTanz; New Waves Institute; faculty at Hampshire College, Stanford, Yale, MIT, NYU, University of Nice. In 2013, working with Takiyah Nur Amin, he founded the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, a growing consortium of 300 researchers.

CiCi Kelley

Kelley, a dynamic force in the world of performance arts, has etched her presence across diverse stages, be it in theaters, studios, concert venues, or even on the vibrant canvas of a football field. Hailing from Atlanta, GA and honing her skills under the tutelage of renowned dance educators at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, she has crafted a versatile career that transcends the boundaries of dance genres and extends into various industries. From the realm of sports to the dynamic arena of advertising and the captivating world of entertainment, Kelley’s influence resonates far and wide.

 

Ms. Kelley is a distinguished alumna holding a BA in Dance Performance & Choreography from Spelman College, a professional certification in Trauma & Resilience informed Pedagogy for College Student Wellbeing from Florida State University, Women In Leadership from Emory University (completion November 2024), and a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of the Arts, where she further honed her scholarship & research. Beyond the accolades of placing her choreography on numerous stages, film productions, and with various artists, Kelley is deeply committed to shaping the future of dance. Her specific research interest dive deep into the theory of Diasporic Spidering, and the kinship of Black Womanhood through griot communication and Sankofa theory & practice.

Currently serving as a Senior Lecturer, First Year Advisor, and the Director of Spelman Dance Theatre, she plays a pivotal role at her alma mater, Spelman College—recognized as the #1 HBCU in the country. In the Department of Dance Performance & Choreography, Kelley imparts her wealth of knowledge and experience to eager dance students, contributing to their growth and development. Through her multifaceted roles, Ms. Kelley not only continues to excel in the world of dance but also invests in the education and mentorship of the next generation of performers at the esteemed Spelman College & beyond.

Julie B. Johnson

Julie B. Johnson, PhD, is a dance artist and educator whose work centers on participatory dance and embodied memory mapping to amplify the histories, lived experiences, and bodily knowledge of Black women as a strategy towards collective liberation for all. She does this work joyfully with community partners through her creative practice, Moving Our Stories, and at Spelman College where she serves as an Assistant Professor of the Department of Dance Performance & Choreography. She brings this work to the publishing realm as a Co-Founder/Consulting Editor of The Dancer-Citizen, an online open-access scholarly dance journal exploring the work of socially engaged artists.

Johnson is a 2022-23 Dance/USA Artist Fellow; 2020-23 Partners for Change Artist through Alternate ROOTS and The Surdna Foundation; a 2021 Hambidge Center Distinguished Fellow; and a 2019 Black Spatial Relics Fellow. Since 2019, Julie has focused on the intersections of dance and abolitionist feminism through community-oriented endeavors such as Idle Crimes & Heavy Work, For the Record… Dances to Stop Cop City, and The Georgia Incarceration Performance Project. She earned a PhD in Dance Studies at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance, researching meanings and experiences of ‘community’ in Philadelphia-based West African Dance classes.

Ra Malika Imhotep

Ra Malika Imhotep, ph.d (Ra/They/Them/doll) is an ancestor-accountable living thinker whose work aspires to further the traditions of revolutionary black feminisms and black diasporic theorizing. Born and bred in Atlanta, GA, they are currently serving community as an Assistant Professor of Global African Diaspora Studies at Spelman College. Their intellectual and creative work looks after the ways Black feminine figures across the African diaspora subvert preconceived notions about black womanhood and labor through aesthetic practice. They hold a PhD in African Diaspora Studies and New Media Studies from the University of California-Berkeley.

Webster McDonald

Dr. Webster McDonald recently earned the PhD degree in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Kansas. His dissertation, “Voyages into Colonial Spaces: Unsettling Western Culturality, Constructing Implicated Subjects, Inaugurating Contemporary Human Systems,” focuses on Michael Rothberg’s writings about “multidirectional memory” and, more recently, “implicated subjects.” It expands upon the work of scholars such as Pierre Nora to offer a conceptual framework for studying public and transcultural remembrance of the disavowal of queer lives. Dr. McDonald is an artist-scholar-educator who has taught courses in Acting, Movement, Approaches to World Dance, Post-Colonial Theory, and Drama at The University of Kansas. For three consecutive summers, he has offered Special Topics in Dance, Performance Studies, and Contemporary Arts as a visiting professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada (2021-2023).

Dr. McDonald has presented scholarly works in the US, Iceland, Canada, the UK, and parts of the Caribbean. He is a co-author of the anthology Dubbin Monodrama Anthology I: Black Masculinities in African Diaspora Theatre (2019) and most recently published the essay, “Scripts of Sexual Ethics: Tensions With/In the Performance of Jamaican Citizenship” (Caribbean Studies, Volume 51, 2023). He also has a short essay, “Scripts of Maleness: Tensions Within Homosexual Performances in Jamaican National Identity,” currently under peer review by Keino Senior and Opal Palmer (The University of the West Indies Press).

Raquel Monroe

Raquel Monroe, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary performance scholar/artist/administrator and mother whose research interests include Black social dance, Black queer feminisms, popular culture, and the efficacy of collaboration to create social change. Monroe’s scholarship appears in journals and anthologies on race, sexuality, dance, and popular culture. Her in process monograph Chi-City Moves: Black Queer Feminist Choreographic Praxis in Chicago employs Black queer feminist choreographic praxis to theorize performances and acts of protest by Black femme choreographers in Chicago during the Black Lives Matter era. Monroe realizes her passion for collaboration as a member of the interdisciplinary arts collective the Propelled Animals. Monroe is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Academic Affairs and a Professor in Theatre in Dance at the University of Texas, Austin. She formally served as a professor in Dance and Co-Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Columbia College Chicago.