Our Dance Democracy (ODD)
ODD was Merseyside Dance Initiative (MDI) and Liverpool Hope University's (LHU) conference focusing on Dance, Performance, Culture and Civic Democracy. Here, conference organiser’s,
Dr Sarah Black and
Karen Gallagher MBE, introduce the following articles which are contributed by some of its speakers
Image: Art of Attachment. Photo: Vincent Dance Theatre
Liverpool’s LEAP Dance Festival 2018 celebrated
the theme of suffrage, marking 100 years since some
women won the right to vote. Merseyside Dance
Initiative (MDI) and Liverpool Hope University (LHU)
presented a two-day international conference, Our
Dance Democracy, to open the festival. Organisers,
Dance Lecturer at LHU Dr. Sarah Black and former
MDI Artistic Director Karen Gallagher MBE, reflect on
the conference which had a particular focus on Dance,
Performance, Culture and Civic Democracy
We really wanted Our Dance Democracy
(ODD) to focus on dance and performance as
the main discipline, with the interrogation of a
socially engaged practice to confront the topic
of democracy and civic responsibility through
the arts and academia. Through an open call out
we explored the question of what it means to be
democratic in the 21st Century and in an everchanging
world, for both artists, academics and
the wider community. Ultimately the conference
supported the theme of LEAP Dance Festival 2018,
hosted by LHU, celebrating female artists and the
power for transformation in contributing to dance
practice and its engagement in communities. As
with the festival the contributors were 98% female.
We invited four key note speakers for their
contribution to performance representing the worlds
of academic and professional contexts:
Professor Victor Merriman, Professor of Critical
Performance Studies at Edge Hill University,
Lancashire, opened the conference with his stunning
paper Performance, Democracy and Deficit Culture.
Victor discussed the overarching themes of the
conference, which at its core discussed the ways
artists and academics engage in performance as a
means to enable human flourishing.
Dr Fiona Bannon, senior lecturer at the
University of Leeds and Chair of DanceHe, lead
our second day examining the role of ethics
in participatory dance practices. She engages
with relational ethics as effective modes used in
qualitative learning experiences and the way ethics
informs dance and participatory practices. Her
paper presented the delegates with a framework in
which to listen to and appreciate the participatory,
academic and performance related papers which
were to follow.
Rosemary Lee, award-winning choreographer,
shared ethics of engagement and processes in her
large-scale site-specific performances including
Without – a video screen installation capturing
a panoramic and intimate portrait of Derry-
Londonderry in Northern Ireland.
Charlotte Vincent, choreographer and Artistic
Director of Vincent Dance Theatre, reflected
upon her role as a choreographer whose work
makes significant claims for gender politics, and
increasingly for social change.
We are delighted to share a collection of texts
which include, papers, interviews, passages of
creative writing and images in this special edition
of Animated. Collectively they highlight the themes
and the ways in which the conference spoke to
the lived-challenges, importance and ethics of
participatory dance and art practices. From these
texts we are able to gather together narratives
and storytelling, consider the ethics of our practice
and the impact of a lived experience and consider
our role and responsibility in making what we do
relevant.
The conference was generously supported
by the dance department at Hope University, Dr
Rachel Sweeney and Dr Declan Patrick, without
whom it would have not been possible, and with a
contribution by Professor Vida Midgelow who pulled
together the vast territory we had covered over the
two days. Thank you to all who contributed, for your
energy, passion and commitment to dance and art
practices. Our aim is to develop and nurture this idea
and the partnerships we have made by presenting
an ODD 2 conference in February 2020.
Info
blacks@hope.ac.uk
ourdancedemocracy@gmail.com
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Animated: Spring/Summer 2019