Decolonising the curriculum in theory and practice

A much needed debate...

Decolonising the curriculum in theory and practice - "The call for decolonisation is resonating in universities across the globe today. The most dramatic instance has been the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa, which inspired protests such as Rhodes Must Fall at Oxford and “Why is My Curriculum White” at UCL. These movements have found affinities with expanding struggles around race, gender, and class on North American campuses and with the upsurge of interest in decolonisation within professional academia.  Our workshops and seminars will focus on one particular aspect of today’s demand to decolonise the university: the curriculum. Drawing from postcolonial, decolonial, and subaltern critiques of social science knowledge production and circulation, the research group will aim to explore the “postcolonial turn” or “Southern turn” in different domains of the humanities and social sciences. The series of activities are both inspired by and in dialogue with the increasing attention to the global plurality of particular disciplines, for example, the need to work toward “a world anthropologies framework”, “global sociology”, or non-Western international relations."

HIP HOP IN MY HOUSE - Event with Prof. Thomas F. DeFrantz

Hip Hop in My House: Popular Dance, Identity Politics, and Postracial Physics, a presentation by Prof. Thomas F. DeFrantz UEL - University Square Stratford Studio 1 (USS3.29), Thursday, 17 Nov, 2016 2:00 to 5 pm

How did Hip Hop and House emerge as separate sorts of dance cultures among African Americans and Latino Americans, and how have they reconciled in contemporary global circumstances? What sorts of post-racial spaces are available within these dance forms and their cultures? What are some of the ways that identity still functions in considerations of hip hop and house dance? This talk will explore the important interstices of hip hop and house in academic discourses. In particular, we will consider the implications of race in the articulations of popular dance cultures and their circulations.

Event to be held at the following time, date and location:

Thursday, 17 November 2016 from 02:00 to 05:00 (GMT)

University of East London,
University Square Stratford
1 Salway Rd
E15 1NF London
United Kingdom

 

 

Artists 4 Artists - Friday 14th

“It is necessary to preserve a space where new formations germinate, to avoid assimilation and co-optation of the energies and demands that issue from social movements, to refuse to unsee what difference difference makes in the world”
— Randy Martin, 1998
“Creativity is designated by current modes of biopolitical power, as a site for implementing job creation and, more significantly, labour reform; it is a matter of managing a key sector of the youthful population by turning culture into an instrument of both competition and labour discipline. The word culture fades into the background and is replaced by creativity. (…) It is a matter of putting creativity to work. (…) The social stage where this creativity is played out is also a site of multiple anxieties.”
— Angela McRobbie, 2016
“...a system that sees and values only those aspects that mimic familiar white Western artistic traditions”
— bell hooks, 1994

 

I am honoured to have been invited to talk at this event, and inspired that UK Hip Hop artists are organising themselves to debate the complex space of UK dance and theatre in which they move.

The event runs for three days 13th, 14th & 15th and you can see the full programme by following the link below. Meanwhile here is the schedule for the day I am sharing my research : Unsteady State: Hip Hop Dancers in the Space of UK Theatre. 

 

Friday 14th October 10.30am-6.30pm

Work in progress sharings from early career hip hop artists and discussions/debates from industry experts led by Ivan Blackstock. 

10.30am-12pm Studio Sharing led by Ivan Blackstock 

 

12.30 - 1.30pm Presentation from Paul Sadot with Q&A led by Robert Hylton 

2.30-4.-00pm 3 x Work In Progress Sharings 

4.30-6.00pm Discussion led by Ivan Blackstock

Tickets
Full festival pass £40
Day passes £25 

Day Passes and Full Festival Passes only available to book by calling our box office on: 020 8708 8803 

‘Artists 4 Artists’ is pioneering artist lead network that want to promote change within the dance sector by upskilling & profiling hip hop artists. 

Over 3 days ‘Artists 4 Artists’ are launching a weekender of discussions, workshops, & performances from some of the UK’s leading & emerging hip hop theatre artists.

Whether you want to voice your opinions about the UK hip hop dance scene, develop skills in hip hop theatre or watch ground-breaking performances, there is something for everyone…

http://redbridgedramacentre.co.uk/RedbridgeDramaCentre.dll/WhatsOn?Programme=159628

Artists 4 Artists October Event 2016

 

October 13-15th 2016

An event where UK artists using hip hop dance as an element in the creation of theatre come together to share work and discuss the 'space' in which they move.

I will be presenting a discussion topic on Friday 14th

Unsteady State: Hip hop Dancers in the Space of UK Theatre

Robert Hylton will be leading the discussion

mobility, (im)mobility, agency, legitimisation.........

Venue: Redbridge Drama Centre

 

 

Embodied Artistic Research Opportunity


CALL FOR EMBODIED / ARTISTIC RESEARCHERS

Research Assistant (2 posts)
£26,004 per annum (fixed term appointment for 6 months)
School of Music, Humanities & Media
University of Huddersfield

The Judaica Project seeks two full-time Research Assistants for the period 1 May - 31 October 2017 to participate in an intensive laboratory period of embodied research at the Centre for Psychophysical Performance Research, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom.

Through embodied research, the project will engage with contemporary political questions of identity and heritage. You will work under the leadership of Dr Ben Spatz to develop new embodied 'song-action' technique based on archival Jewish sources. This technique will be shared through live presentations in the United Kingdom, United States, and Poland. The research will also be documented audiovisually and made available through print and multimedia publications.

You will have basic competency in both song (natural voice, extended vocal technique, traditional or folk singing, song-based theatre including opera and musical theatre or other theatres of musicality) and action (physical theatre, movement training, contemporary dance, martial arts, somatic bodywork, clown or circus arts, or other forms of physical culture), with a high level of expertise or mastery in at least one relevant area. Critical or creative writing skills, video editing skills, and postgraduate academic credentials are desirable but not required.

A first degree is required, but citizenship or residency of the UK/EU is not. Applications from individuals representing ethnic, religious, national, gender/sexual, and (dis)abled populations that are underrepresented in the UK or in academia are strongly encouraged.

Application deadline: 31 October 2016
Interviews: 18 and 19 December 2016
Starting date: 1 May 2017

http://urbanresearchtheater.com/site/judaica.htm
 

BLOCK showing at Contact Manchester - January 21st 2016

If you are able to come and see this short research and development piece, we would welcome feedback and thoughts.

BLOCK is a DDT research and development project. It is inspired and informed by engaged research into the effects of displacement and social loss on mental health and community: exploring a territory that comments on the modern day precipices that many individuals and communities balance upon.

DDT (Dance, Dramaturgy Turbulence) is an ongoing research project led by dance dramaturg Paul Sadot in collaboration with a scenographer, a poet, a blogger and hip hop dancers in the space of theatre

Studio 2

Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.

January 21st 6pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/869997966450962/

https://paul-sadot.squarespace.com/config#/pages/5561bc01e4b0b9c71e15e9ae|/block/

email paulsadot@icloud.com

BLOCK - Worse Things Happen At Sea

Worse Things Happen At Sea

Posted on NOVEMBER 28, 2015

A few months ago I went into the very first Block rehearsal.

I sat on a windowsill in the rehearsal room and watched the exploratory beginnings of the process. I watched the dancers warm up, and I watched as Paul set them tasks and investigate their responses. I also looked out of the window to watch people going about the tasks of their everyday Friday afternoons. I watched them in their vans and cars, or as they walked along the pavement alone or in groups. I watched them swig from bottles of Lucozade and fiddle with radios. I watched them stumble in potholes and stare at their phones, light menthol Superkings and ignore cat calls from leering men. I watched this corner of normal, boring, routines of life, and wondered what it would be like if all this was ripped away. I wondered what it does to a person when you are torn from what you know. When all the banal, tedious, traffic-light-shop-window-bin-man-bus-stop familiarity of daily existence just, goes away.

Now the audience sit on mattresses on four sides of the performance space at Cambridge Junction, waiting for the performance to start. They are squeezed together, and they look uncomfortable. Some have opted for the cross-legged position; others have pressed their knees together, clinging onto them in a bid to take up less space. My lower back twinges in sympathy. In the stage in the middle are three more mattresses, made up like proper beds.

The lights dim. A clock ticks loudly, interrupted periodically by an industrial-sounding crunch. The dancers move into the space in a tangle of arms and legs like one being, or like a machine. They keep nearly being separated but finding each other again, clinging on until, finally they are torn apart. Each of them is all alone.

They are whirled about the space. The violence of the movement looks like a shipwreck, like they’re lost underwater and at the mercy of the waves. Jordan, Josh and Christina are washed up onto the mattresses, while Lisa is still tumbling in the shallows.

For some reason The Tempest springs into my mind as I think of the shipwreck and the exile. Perhaps it is something about how small and vulnerable their humanity looks, each alone on their tiny island. The audience are small as well, crouching hopefully on their mattress rafts. The people on stage are performing exile and isolation, while the audience sit in a dark, unfamiliar room, squashed up with strangers, waiting to see what will happen next.

Throughout the performance the characters played by Jordan, Josh and Christina try to express their loneliness. They use language to bridge the gap between their lost selves and the onlookers, attempting to be reasonable, rational, even funny, but their anger and fear spills hopelessly over. Sometimes it spills over in words, like when Jordan is trying to talk about peaceful protest, setting a good example and writing letters to his MP, but then quietly (almost cheerfully) reveals that he would “top himself” if it wasn’t for his kids.

Sometimes, though, the movement belies the fury. Josh’s krumping is so powerful that the audience become almost totally still during it. Only during a pause do I see a man very slowly reach up to scratch his nose and woman carefully cover her mouth with her hands. When Christina speaks during her movement I can hardly hear her, and although I don’t know whether or not this is deliberate, it seems to me unbearably sad that a woman is trying to express her fear, but too quietly to be heard.

Lisa is silent but her presence is loud. She moves around the others. In my Tempest thoughts I wonder if she is Ariel, beleaguered spirit, or Caliban, detested monster, or whether perhaps she is somehow both. She seems as lost as the other performers, but her lack of voice makes her seem different, distinctly other. When she finally gets a mattress the music becomes gentler. She explores the bed like she has never seen one before, doing it all wrong but revelling in its softness. I’m reminded of stories of wild children, raised by animals in forests and emerging, languageless and unused to domesticity.

The others find this softness in one another, when they are allowed. They have moments of connection before being ripped away again, forced to be alone and away from the comforts of normal life.

Jordan’s jokes near the end of the show feel hollow and painful. The audience attempt to laugh at them, generously, but the jokes seem more full of anguish than humour and the laughs fade.

As the performance finishes they are each alone once again on their mattress islands. I can’t see Lisa but I imagine her curled in a tree root, away from any semblance of the softness she was fleetingly allowed.

They wait as the lights dim. The audience applauds, and when the lights come back up the performers have disappeared. Once again I am reminded of the Tempest:

…release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please.

The performers are released by the applause of the audience, away from their islands on the stage. The audience stand up from their mattresses, stretching and chatting. We are released as well, ready to go back to our lives. Our normal lives, full of the comforting realities of Lucozade bottles, car radios and potholes in the pavement.

Cambridge Junction - Views From The 'Bridge' (BLOCK)

http://www.junction.co.uk/views-from-the-bridge-autumn

November 16th 2015

An evening of work in progress including the BLOCK project. 

BLOCK 
A DDT (Dance Dramaturgy Turbulence) Project (Paul Sadot)

Displacement, balance, obsession, social loss, gentrification, hip hop dancers, disorder, in the space of theatre, imbalance, community, compulsion, beneath the modern day precipices, rubble and memory…Turbulence. 
Supported by Arts Council England.