Mellon Foundation Awards SLIPPAGE Multi-year Funding

SLIPPAGE is honored to receive a multi-year grant to fund its project “Race, Black Dance, and the Embodied Geographies of Freedom.” SLIPPAGE Director Thomas F. DeFrantz, a professor in the School of Communication and a fellow in the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering, is overseeing one of 26 projects sharing more than $12 million in new grant funding from the Mellon Foundation through its inaugural Higher Learning Open Call for civic engagement and social justice-related research.

As principal investigator on the grant awarded to Northwestern, he plans to use the University’s share of the funding — $500,000 — to expand a research project examining Black dance practices across the U.S. and how those practices help represent African American identity and Black freedom.

“We are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for supporting this project, which represents the intellectual labor of some 325 researchers affiliated with the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, a SLIPPAGE project,” DeFrantz said. “We will continue to explore how Black dance matters and how its variegations of place predict an abundance of performance method and dance styles.”

chicagoland moves

Winter 2025 Mellon Symposium

The fourth Mellon-supported symposium is a knowledge-generating gathering of scholars and artists dedicated to exploring the intersections of Black identity and social dance in the context of Chicago. We are thinking about social dance in Chicago as a life-organizing , community-building practice, which opens a way of theorizing black social dance as relational, discursive, and embodied. It allows us to frame social dance as a method of inquiry into Black life—how people gather, resist, and exist in moments that do not seek to be captured or valorized but instead stand as repertoires body knowledge.

Participating Researchers: 

E. Moncell Durden, Embodied Historian, Filmmaker and Author

 Meida McNeal, Director of Honey Pot Performance 

Danielle Roper, Assistant Professor, Romance Languages and Literature, University of Chicago

Ayo Walker, Assistant Professor of Critical Dance at Columbia College Chicago

Jen “Po’ Chop” Freeman, Artist

Jamal “Litebulb” Oliver, Chicago Footwork 

Aaliyah Christina, Writer, Curator

Mike D Chicago, Chicago Footwork 

 

queer social dance in atlanta

Fall 2024 Mellon Symposium

On Friday and Saturday, September 27 and 28 2024, researchers gathered 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. 

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

 

Dancing a black social II 

Winter 2024 Mellon Symposium

February 16-18, 2024, SLIPPAGE and the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance convened its 6th bi-annual conference themed “BODY GEOGRAPHIES|MAPPING FREEDOMS.” In addition to interdisciplinary keynotes, awards presentations and performances, selected papers, panels, films and workshops explored the intersection of Black dance practices and geographical contexts and posed questions about the relationship between place and creative expression. A second, smaller convening of Mellon researchers met over four sessions during the larger conference, again allowing conference attendees to witness the proceedings.    

Participating Researchers: 

Naomi Bragin, Associate Professor, University of Washington 

Thomas F. DeFrantz, Professor, Northwestern University 

E. Moncell Durden, Associate Professor of Practices, University of Southern California 

Melanie George, Founder, “Jazz Is…” Dance Project 

Imani Kai Johnson, Associate Professor & Vice Chair, UC Riverside 

Raquel Monroe, Associate Dean/Professor, UT Austin College of Fine Arts 

Gianina K.L. Strother, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University 

 

Dancing A Black Social 

Fall 2023 Mellon Symposium

The first symposium of the multi-year SLIPPAGE project Black Dance and Geographies of Freedom convened by SLIPPAGE artistic director Thomas F. DeFrantz and supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation occurred at Northwestern University’s Chicago Wirtz Center October 12-14, 2023.  Twelve embodied researchers, all specialists in Black Dance and Black social formations, gathered to imagine relevant research methods that underscore the theoretical and experiential complexity of movements we call Black Social Dance.  Events included individual presentations by each research, formal group explorations and responses, and many opportunities for informal social discussion and movement.  In addition, approximately 5-10 ‘witnesses’ – graduate students and other interested publics – attended each session. 

Participating researchers: 

Kemi Adeyemi, Associate Professor, University of Washington  

DJ Celeste Alexander, Mix Artist/ DJ / Vibe curator 

Junious L. Brickhouse, Urban Artistry Inc. / Next Level 

Kyle “JustSole” + “Queen Dinita” Clark, Clark Method  

Thomas F. DeFrantz, Professor, Northwestern University 

E. Moncell Durden, Associate Professor of Practices, University of Southern California  

Michelle “Mz. G” Gibson, Professor of Practice, Southern Methodist University 

Xavier Livermon, Associate Professor, UC Santa Cruz 

Gabrielle “Queen Gabby” McLeod, Dancer, Choreographer, Teacher, Ambassador 

Raquel Monroe, Associate Dean/Professor, UT Austin College of Fine Arts 

Rosemarie A. Roberts, Professor of Dance, Connecticut College