Speaking of Books with Sinclair Ogaga Emoghene & Kate Spanos: Dancing in the World: Revealing Cultural Confluences

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How can we create more inclusive spaces in the field of dance?

Sinclair Ogaga Emoghene and Kathleen A. Spanos present a framework for dance practitioners and researchers working in diverse dance cultures to navigate academia and the professional dance field. The framework is based on the idea of “cultural confluences,” conjuring up an image of bodies of water meeting and flowing into and past one another, migrating through what they refer to as the mainstream and non-mainstream. These streams are fluid categories that are associated with power, privilege, and the ability (or inability) to absorb other cultural forms in shared dance spaces.

In reflective interludes and dialogues, Emoghene and Spanos consider the effects of migration on their own individual experiences in dance to understand what it means to carry culture through the body in various spaces. Through an analysis of language, aesthetic values, spaces, creative processes, and archival research practices, the book offers a collaborative model for communicating the value that marginalized dance communities bring to the field.

Sinclair Ogaga Emoghene, M.F.A., is a choreographer, dancer, researcher, and assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.

Kathleen A. Spanos, Ph.D., is a dancer, educator, and scholar who is a co-founder of the arts non-profit EducArte and assistant director of communications for the University of Maryland Honors College.

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