Europeana content used for Re-Generations OneDance UK biennial conference where academics & artists shared current practice & research in the field of dance of African Diaspora.

CultureMoves (https://www.culturemoves.eu/) is a European-funded project which explores the intersections of dance, technology, site, tourism and the Europeana online library. The project runs for 18 months and aims to develop a series of digital tools that will enable new forms of dance educational resources by leveraging re-use of Europeana archival content. CultureMoves aims to demonstrate the value of reimagining the ways in which content can be used to encourage dancers to develop their creativity. Central to the project is a consideration of how dance can create new forms of engagement to spread the knowledge of cultural heritage and also the history of a territory.
 
The material body and the digital platform is a meeting place where the user can consider archives and the immaterial. As Sondra Horton Fraleigh suggests, ‘dance is a form of participation in culture and a way of creating culture’ (Fraleigh, 1995/6 [1987]: 23). The CMoves tools allow opportunities for artists, dancers and choreographers to reflect on different forms of collaboration and encourage new horizons for their practices through the creating of digital scrapbooks. Through the exploration of the digital content which may include still or moving images, Europeana and the CMoves tools hope to encourage users to reflect on how we archive, remember the past and engage the live body. Eze-Orji & Nwosu (2016) claim that ‘the fluidity, flexibility, and permeability of culture, does not allow it to be static’ (2016: 2), thus allowing for artistic traditions and practices to cross-fertilise one another. Visual arts can have cross-cultural meaning and so Europeana’s digital content may instigate the live body to appreciate various cultural contexts. The user can come to know more about themselves, site, and cultural heritage legacies of that site, through the unique process of engaging in a hybrid practice that the digital platform of the CMoves toolkit offers.
 
Butler (2001) suggests it is important to distinguish diasporas from other groups and consider diaspora as a framework for the study of specific process of community formation. Dance can be seen as an embodied cultural heritage which makes it useful in studying diaspora. Through choreography and muscle memory that lives within the body, there is a relationship that reflects nationalist histories, stories and pasts that are tied to several geopolitical locations. Still and moving imagery has the potential to capture this embodied knowledge and histories and through digital platforms these stories can be retold. Memories and standpoints from which narratives are told can be explored via digital platforms and we propose an interactive workshop where participants can engage with the project’s materials but also have the space to discuss dance, diasporic digital content, the CMoves digital tools and site practice in relation to their own work on diasporic communities. The workshop aims to capture the voices of dancers, choreographers and other artists and researchers in the space and offers them an opportunity to learn about the project, the two digital tools being developed, Europeana as a case study for how digital technologies can be used for artistic innovation and creative practice through reusing their digital content. The tools also lend themselves to thinking about the way that content is curated online within social media platforms and open up possibilities of what digital storytelling and counternarratives around communities might look like.

  References:  
Butler, K.(20012), “Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 10:2, 189-219  
Fraleigh , S. H.([1987] 1996) Dance and the Lived Body. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press  
Eze-Orji,B. and Nwosu, C. (2016) ‘Dance Hybridity and the Challenges of Indigenous Dance Forms: An Appraisal of Calabar Carnival’ 
 

Details about the Re:Generations Workshop hosted by OneDance UK

In November 2019, the team also presented the project and the toolkit with an interactive session and hands-on workshop One Dance UK’s international conference, Re:Generations 2019 in Salford, UK. This biennial academic and artistic conference aims to share current practice and research in the field of dance of the African Diaspora and to explore further research, documentation and approaches to education in the field. It was an exciting opportunity for the team to share the tools with a wide range of dance artists, practitioners, scholars, teachers and students from across the Caribbean, Africa, the United States, Canada and the UK. The CultureMoves team held a practical and interactive workshop, inviting delegates to engage with the project’s materials, but also to have the space to discuss dance, diasporic digital content, the CultureMoves digital toolkit and site practice in relation to their own work.

Image: "A Phalanx Dance by Mazamboni's Warriors". An African warrior dance celebrating the victory over the Musiri tribe, Henry M. Stanley sits and watches with his men. Welcome Collection. CC BY 4.0

Overview of the discussion

The workshop aimed to offer delegates an opportunity to learn more about the project, the digital tools being developed (MovesCollect, MovesScrapbook and MotionNotes), and Europeana as a case study for how digital technologies can be used for artistic innovation and creative practice through the re-use of digital content. The emphasis here was also on how the tools also lend themselves to thinking about the way that content is curated online within social media platforms and can open up possibilities for what digital storytelling and counter-narratives around diverse communities might look like. The LabDay culminated in useful discussion about the utility of the toolkit for dance artists, choreographers and educators and pointed to ongoing thinking around ownership of digital dance material / IPR etc.

Image: Dabuo African Dance Company of Ghana. Dabuo African Dance Company flyer. Battersea Arts Centre. CC BY-NC-SA 

The African Diaspora in Canada: Negotiating Identity and Belonging

This book addresses the conceptual difficulties and political contestations surrounding the applicability of the term "African-Canadian." In the midst of this contested terrain, the volume focuses on first-generation, black continental Africans who have immigrated to Canada in the last four decades, and have traceable genealogical links to the continent. The rationale behind highlighting the experiences of the first generation of African immigrants within Canadian society is to address the empirical, conceptual, and methodological gaps in the literature that tends to homogenize all black people and their experiences. The book, thus, seeks to highlight the peculiar characteristics of continental Africans which may not be shared by other blacks or non-black Africans. The chapters examine the social constructions of African-Canadians and their experiences within the political and educational systems, as well as in the labour market. They also explore the forms of cooperation and tensions that characterize the communities, and how they negotiate and adapt to the multiple transnational spaces that they occupy. The book also explores the circumstances of their children, as they try to define their identities vis-à-vis their parents and the larger Canadian society.

Representation and Resistance: South Asian and African Women's Texts at Home and in the Diaspora

Representation and Resistance: South Asian and African Women's Texts at Home and in the Diaspora compares colonial and national constructions of gender identity in Western-educated African and South Asian women's texts. Jaspal Kaur Singh argues that, while some writers conceptualize women's equality in terms of educational and professional opportunity, sexual liberation, and individualism, others recognize the limitations of a paradigm of liberation that focuses only on individual freedom. Certain diasporic artists and writers assert that transformation of gender identity construction occurs, but only in transnational cultural spaces of the first world-spaces which have emerged in an era of rampant globalization and market liberalism. In particular, Singh advocates the inclusion of texts from women of different classes, religions, and castes, both in the Global North and in the South.

Africa Roots Festival 85 een vijfdaags festival van Afrikaanse muziek, dans en kultuur

Programma: 10-14 juli.

omskärelse, dans, mask, fotografi, photograph@eng

Nyomskurna pojkar dansar med maskerad ledare, klädd i dräkt av nät, i omskärelseläger. Pojkarnas ländkläde är gjorda av bastfibrer. Jmf. planscher hos W. Hambly: The Ovimbundu of Angola. Bol. dia 322. Bol. neg. 168.
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Magasinet - En etnografisk skattkammare
Magasinet - S

Mladi levi Festival 2009 Nelisawe Xaba Photo Suzy Bernstein

Performance Sakhozi says NON to the Venus in Plasticization by Nelisawe Xaba (Republic of South Africa), Mladi levi Festival, 2011

dans, fotografi, photograph@eng

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Maskdans SV Angola.

dans, ovimbundu, mask, fotografi, photograph@eng

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Maskdans i samband med initieringsceremonier i SV och centrala Angola. Jmf. W. Hambly: The Ovimbundu of Angola. Jmf. 758.175-176. Bol. neg. 159.

Lauri Hemmi matkalla Etelä-Afrikassa. "Alkuasukkaiden esityksiä oli monessa paikassa. Kävimme myös maailman syvimmässä kultakaivoksessa lähes 3000 m syvyydessä ja monella luonnonsuojelualueella." (Lauri Hemmin alkuperäinen kuvateksti).

ovimbundu, mask, dans, fotografi, photograph@eng

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Maskdans SV Angola. Jmf. planscher hos W. Hambly: The Ovimbundu of Angola. Bol. neg. 170.

ovimbundu, dans, mask, fotografi, photograph@eng

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Maskdansör vid initieringsceremonierna. SV Angola. Jmf. W. Hambly: The Ovimbundu of Angola - planscherna. Bol. dia 313.

dans, fotografi, photograph@eng

0758.0186.a
Maskdans SV Angola.

dans, mask, fotografi, photograph@eng

0758.0186
Maskdans SV Angola. Jmf. bild 758:185. Jmf. planscher hos W. Hambly: The Ovimbundu of Angola. Bol. neg. 169.

Zulu Tribe-men's sandals.

Antilopeskin upper, car-tire sole.

Zulu tribe. Men's sandals.

All cartire rubber.

Ladies slippers.

All leather, silk embroidery.

Zulu Tribe-men's sandals.

All car-tire rubber, pvc insole.

The African house

Extended description: Il loge à la Maison africaine dans le quartier de Matonge, à Bruxelles, et fréquente l’Eglise Saint-Boniface et le café katangais.  
Information: "Au Quotidien" était un magazine de début de soirée consacré à l’information régionale dans ses aspects les plus variés. Il a été diffusé de 2005 à 2011.

African Look: abito lungo

African Look: abito lungo in organza di seta stampata disegno "Kilifi" nei toni del grigio, linea sirena, spallina sottile. Abbinato scialle.

African Look: abito cappa

African Look: abito cappa in jersey di seta nei colori viola, verde e fucsia, con cappuccio, linea ampia.

Exposure The Genius of Colour, Rjeka 2012. installation Africa

Archivio Missoni Exposure The Genius of Colour, Rjeka 2012. Installation Africa