Performing Diaspora: African-Derived Dance and Embodied Movements Toward Justice

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Resonate Rhythms of Identity: Engaging Movement, Reflection, and Meditations on Justice (Table 5)

Abstract

Education researchers have called for the need to understand how power moves through, with, and in relation to the physical body within learning spaces (Badaki 2020, Enriquez et al., 2015; Grumet, 1985; Johnson & Vasudeven, 2012; Luke, 1992). Since at least the 15th century, Black bodies have been subjugated to multiple intersecting and compounding injustices inflicted by Euro-American systems of domination and oppression. Yet knowledge about how to resist, persist, and thrive have been preserved in these bodies through the cultural, traditional, social, and folk dances that have enlivened celebrations and performances. This paper inquires into how African-derived dance practices have helped to preserve, spread, and remix understandings of how to work towards more just and equitable societies.

Authors

• OreOluwa Badaki, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Azsanee Truss, University of Pennsylvania