Configurations in Motion

Performance Curation and Communities of Color 

How do we imagine twenty-first century configurations of performance curation and presenting that acknowledge the particular concerns of audiences and artists of color? How does performance that relates to people of color fit into trends of contemporary curatorial practice? In our current climate of violence, fear, outrage and grief, in what ways can we curate experiences that enliven possibilities for healing, reparation and liberation?

This gathering of presenters, performers, scholars, curators, and managers examines how their work can focus on the involvement, investment, and creative growth of people of color. Over two days, participants share their work and insights to produce focused thinking about the future of live art/performance/performing arts curation, with special attention to communities of African, Caribbean, and Latin@ interests. 

Hosted by SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture, Technology in residence at Duke University (Durham, North Carolina) as well as the African and African American Studies Department and the Franklin Humanities Center at Duke University, this annual symposium, which first convened in June 2015 and again July 2016, offers invited professionals in dance and its related fields the opportunity to participate in a focused, working-group event. This opportunity to collectively discuss, reflect and envision together intends to help us develop important collaborative opportunities, and to model language and points-of-view that might help enliven discourse in these important areas. The event points towards a small publication with online documentation of its contents, available to those who are unable to attend: our essays.

Convened by Thomas F. DeFrantz, Dasha A. Chapman, and Jane Gabriels.