January 22, 2020. 

Organized by André Daughtry

This panel intends to speak to an illegibility of the spiritual black body to predominantly white audiences in performance with artists whose work addresses an "epistemic absence” in the performance community. Noting that Experimental performance can be extremely innovative when probing the multiplicitous issues surrounding identity, guest artists will discuss how they address normative approaches to performance – like the performer/spectator bifurcation –when the performers exhibiting work were often raised in spiritually infused movement traditions as participant-observers not as “audience”

Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronted and instigated by the dance and performance community.

For more information on Movement Research please visit www.movementresearch.org

December 8, 2019. 

Moderated by Ni’Ja Whitson
Panelists: Cheryl Clark, Martha Eddy, Kayvon Pourazar, and Sangeeta Vallabhan.

This Studies Project explored how social injustices impact people’s lives and communities; who has access to healing and somatic practices; how we as somatics practitioners are working with offering trauma-informed approaches to our communities.
This event brought together artists and practitioners whose individual somatic and trauma-informed practices were generated from their personal journeys, commitment to healing themselves, and process of sharing their research to hold space for others. Through this conversation we attempted to address how to generate more inclusive, collective and fully accessible healing spaces.

This Studies Project was a part of the Movement Research Festival Fall 2019: ComeUnion. It took place on December 8, 2019 at Movement Research on First Avenue in New York City. 

Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronted and instigated by the dance and performance community.

For more information on Movement Research please visit www.movementresearch.org

December 11, 2019

Moderated and Organized by Rebecca Fitton

Participants: Alexis Convento, Zavé Martohardjono, and Mena Sachdev

A community discussion aimed to amplify the diverse reality of the blanket term “Asian-American.”

Led and organized by movement artists who self-identity as Asian, this Studies Project focused on reframing American Asian-ness, reclaiming the Asian moving body outside of “model minority” and confronting other racial signifying terms such as POC, ALAANA, MENA, AAPI, etc. and their relationships to this conversation. The conversation focused on the broad understanding of Asian-ness in the U.S. in reference to Asian-American and how it can erase the full spectrum of narratives aligned with self-identifying as Asian, in part due to colorism, border politics and ideals of a “model minority” only allowed to succeed on an intellectual level.

This Studies Project took place on December 11, 2019 at Movement Research on 1st Avenue in New York City.

Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community.

For more information please visit: www.movementresearch.org