Performance, Poetics, & the Story: A Merging of Interdisciplinary Expression and Identity

What occurs when the writer is also the performer, and vice versa? This panel will center performers who are also writers and poets, merging the two mediums. The intersection of both reveals how these artists created pieces that both united people around national identities as much as they were used to navigate expressions of individual experience. 

Rooted in these current conversations, is our attempt to discuss how Blackness and queer discursive methods appear in dramatic styles and in cultural expression. Performance, in its various iterations throughout time and space in the African Diaspora, is rarely encountered as an isolated cultural act for Black people. Whatever shapes they assume, the music from which they are derived, or associated cultural vibrations in their respective societies, dance and other performative acts and literature reveal the interconnectedness of the diaspora. Like literature, dance is a form of storytelling. The merging of both mediums complicates the stories we tell by challenging ideas of play and performance. In so doing, such performative acts were, and continue to be, especially useful catalysts for resistance and social change. 

Panelists will share about their personal and creative experiences with dance: how and when they became involved with dance; other performative acts and experiences; major influences; the connection between dance and creative writing and other creative expressions; the relationship between performance and modern day activism. Many of the panelists also happen to be choreographers. These panelists will be able to speak to the experience of choreographing Black dance and performance, how it relates to storytelling, and can challenge notions and limitations of Black performance. Lastly, panelists will share how art movements, migration, hyphenated identities, and technology continue to transform dance and Black performance.


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