Join us for a pre-performance conversation on Afro-Diasporic movement practices! Featuring a panel of local artists and practitioners, alongside company members of Rennie Harris Puremovement, we will explore how Hip-Hop, Afrobeats, Vogue, House, Drag, and more are in conversation with each other. From their historical roots to contemporary practice, these very different styles remain influenced and inspired by Black/African aesthetics and value systems. Moderated by Dr. Adanna Kai Jones, this panel ultimately seeks to reveal the vital ways in which these contemporary artists are using these various dance practices to uplift and connect our communities today.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8
5:30-6:30 PM at Westbrook Performing Arts Center
Free, no registration required
ACCESSIBILITY
ASL available upon request.
ABOUT DR. ADANNA KAI JONES
Adanna Kai Jones (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Dance and Dance Studies in the Department of Theater and Dance at Bowdoin College. She received her Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and her BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts—Rutgers University. As a scholar, her research generally focuses on Caribbean dance and identity politics within the Diaspora, paying particular focus to Trini-styled Carnivals and the rolling hip dance known as winin’. Nicknamed the “Doctor of Winin’,” her artistic and scholarly work remains rooted in the many dances of the Caribbean, paying particular attention to the multiple ways we roll our sweet waistlines! With regards to her own creative pursuits, she has choreographed dance-theater pieces that were not only based on her research but were also used as tools for generating more research questions. Lastly, as an educator and member of the Un/Commoning Pedagogies Collective, she remains committed to anti-racist pedagogic praxes and works to tackle, endure, unravel, and combat the pangs of white supremacy within academia and beyond.
