Today I attended Re:generations Conference, ’Dance and the Digital Space’ International perspectives in dance of the African Diaspora, with another Middlesex student who I’m rooming with at the nearby hotel, Scarlett. The day started with an opening ceremony, performed by Dr H Patten and Peter Badejo OBE, who led us to a large room for the keynote address by Karen Gallagher MB. It was here where Karen introduced the theme of the event, Dance and the Digital Space and talked about digital manipulation. I have danced for many years but I don’t identify as a strong dancer nor have I thought about how it would work in the digital space, so coming to this event is a way for me to be able to dive headfirst into a community I don’t fully comprehend and immersive myself on a promising educational journey.
After the keynote, there were different talks available for the first breakout session. I chose to attend ’Using the Digital Age to tell the Human Stories of Dance’ led by Gonzalo Preciado-Azanza, Dr Adesola Akinleye and Louise Katerega, facilitated by Vivine Scarlett. Gonzalo, over Skype, and Adesola started the presentation of their work presenting ’A Quarreling Pair (2007)’ by Bill T. Jones in a reference in dance and the digital age. Gonzalo is a former Middlesex student who was taught by Adesola and after graduation they started working together exploring algorithms and asking ”how artists are using new technology?” and in this wanting to learn how far away from the skin can technology pick up movement, interestingly enough Adesola and Gonzalo have only met in person once or twice and have talked and conducted research over Skype, inherently showing how important the development of technology has come.
Following this, Louise presents ’The Voice and Presence Survey – Women of the African Disapora in Participatory Dance’ in this Louise showed us how she collected data in a snapshot research study using SurveyMonkey. We were showed the results of this research, talked about owning the discourse and how we need to give ourselves permission to be artistic.
After a lunch break, I made my way over to attend ’Visibility and Representation on Screen’ presented by Susannah Simons and Ghislaine and facilitating by Dr Sharon Watson. These industry experts shared their experience and work enhanced by technologies to produce live and recorded mid-scale to mad productions. Susannah is a director of partnerships to Marquee TV, they are taking dance out of the confines of the stage and distributing stage performances worldwide. They are capturing existing works and extending their life beyond a live run. A review of this which I find quite accurate is that ’Marquee TV is Netflix for Performing Arts’. Ghislaine followed this and discussed devising work for human-led tech interactions and how a complex back end equals a simple front end.
To end the day I went to an African Drumming Masterclass led by Dr Sylvanus Kwashie Kuwor, which I was highly looking forward too. During this session, we were taught several rhythms, a song and were invited to dance. For me, this is the first time I felt like I connected with what was being taught and talked about. We talked about how African people are connected through life with music and sound, and I truly felt with within this session. We viewed each other as brother and sister and connected through the vibrations we created. As someone from a mixed heritage background and having no interaction with my Caribbean and African side, being told by Sylvanus that we were the future, that we were connecting with our ancestors and we’re able to pass what we have learnt on was incredibly comforting.
There has been a lot of information giving today and processing it has been quite difficult, I am glad that I was able to take away a positive feeling and memory that I will remember and use in my future work.
Quote of the day: “If we know where we come from, we know how to go forward”
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