This web-site connects to the book 'Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices' edited by Dr. Adesola Akinleye
The web-site is a collection of interviews taken by and given by artists and scholars who identify with all or some of the identifiers of black, British or dance(r). The web-site came about as a result of the book project by the same name.
An edited collection includes the work of a range of emerging and established scholars and artists who all offer a response to the notion of Black British dance. As the title suggests the book takes its inspiration from seeing Black Dance as a complex, broad socio-cultural network of relationships and rhythms that reach far and wide. The book is designed to be read in multiple ways: the chapters are not in a specific order although they are grouped together under three sections: Paradigms, Processes and Products. The book could be read from cover to cover or specific chapters can be picked out. The hope is that the micro within the chapters are read against one another in order to construct a critically reflective overview of the field. Themes run throughout the book some of which are captured in the index at the back of the book. The book offers an entryway to discussing Black British dance but is in no way a comprehensive overview. As such this book attempts to create a small archive of narratives crafted through testimony. This serves the multiple purposes of capturing key moments in personal and universal histories, as well as generating a multi-layered picture of dance as a creative process, while widening the constructs for what British art looks like and where it appears. The book and this web-site act as a kind of resistance to the normative constrains of a Grand Narrative for Black British dance through underlining the importance of telling your ‘own’ stories.
The web-site is a collection of interviews taken by and given by artists and scholars who identify with all or some of the identifiers of black, British or dance(r). The web-site came about as a result of the book project by the same name.
An edited collection includes the work of a range of emerging and established scholars and artists who all offer a response to the notion of Black British dance. As the title suggests the book takes its inspiration from seeing Black Dance as a complex, broad socio-cultural network of relationships and rhythms that reach far and wide. The book is designed to be read in multiple ways: the chapters are not in a specific order although they are grouped together under three sections: Paradigms, Processes and Products. The book could be read from cover to cover or specific chapters can be picked out. The hope is that the micro within the chapters are read against one another in order to construct a critically reflective overview of the field. Themes run throughout the book some of which are captured in the index at the back of the book. The book offers an entryway to discussing Black British dance but is in no way a comprehensive overview. As such this book attempts to create a small archive of narratives crafted through testimony. This serves the multiple purposes of capturing key moments in personal and universal histories, as well as generating a multi-layered picture of dance as a creative process, while widening the constructs for what British art looks like and where it appears. The book and this web-site act as a kind of resistance to the normative constrains of a Grand Narrative for Black British dance through underlining the importance of telling your ‘own’ stories.
