February 25, 2016

Ashamu Dance Studio

Queer Social Dance, Political Leadership, and Black Popular Culture was a talk by Thomas F. DeFrantz. Professor DeFrantz was visiting Brown as part of the Rhythm of Change Festival, the Mellon Dance Studies Colloquium, and the Urban Bush Women residency with FirstWorks.

In this talk, Thomas F. DeFrantz (Chair, DUKE African and African American Studies; Professor, Duke DANCE, Theater Studies, Women’s Studies) explored the movement of social dances by African Americans and queers of color from the political margins to popular culture and shifting sites of power. It examined the practices of J-setting, Voguing, and Hand-Dancing from marginalized communities to concentrated sites of aesthetic attention and embodied knowledge; “dance moves” by political leaders such as First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that intertwine black social dances and political leadership; performances by commercial and socially-inscribed leaders of popular culture such as Beyonce and Britney Spears that highlight and sanction given gestures. By pointing to the haunting presence of queers-of-color aesthetic imperatives within political mobilizations of black social choreography, DeFrantz suggested these dances continually re-define gender identities and confirm fluid political economies of social dance and motion, thus bringing to light, perhaps, possibilities of creative aesthetic social dissent. Sponsored by Mellon Dance Studies Colloquium and the Rhythm of Change Festival.