Post date: Sep 21, 2012 5:51:42 PM
Adesola Akinleye, "The Jingle Dress: Claiming a Philosophical Legacy as a Cultural Act."
Please join the American Indian Studies Interdisciplinary Group on Friday, September 28th, from 2:30-4 p.m., for a writing workshop featuring a paper by Adesola Akinleye. The workshop will be held in G634 Haven Hall.
Adesola Akinleye is artistic director and choreographer of DancingStrong. Her paper is an ethnographic reflection on the experience of creating the performance piece “The Jingle Dress,” a 45-minute dance performance for 3 to 5-year-old audiences. Ethnographic data is drawn from having been a part of traditional dances and ceremonies on the Pine Ridge Reservation for over 20 years, the creative process of making “The Jingle Dress,” and responses to the work. The paper explores how contemporary dance’s physicalised inquiry into meaning and principles of being, impacts on embodied and cultural identity when it draws on traditional dances as a source. Assessing how dance shapes cultural identities and personal philosophy, it asks whether within a contemporary context shared philosophical principles (such as Pragmatism), and shared embodied approaches (such as dance) can create communities of understanding across cultures, or strip cultural identities.
A draft of the paper is available on the AISIG CTools site. Please email Frank Kelderman (fpkeld@umich.edu) for Ctools access and to confirm your attendance.