Amerta Movement Collaboration and Embodying Allyship Discussion, Form-in-Question Conference
In 2016, Nina Martin organized a three-day Symposium at NYU called form in question, based on her PhD material in Improvisation. Margit co-facilitated and organized two workshops; one was a collaboration with Amerta movers Melinda Buckwalter, Katya Bloom, Sally Dean, Marilin Martinez, Julie Nathanielsz, and Simon Slidders, sharing the practice from different angles:
In session
Marilin offering on ritual movement
margit, Simon, Sally, Julie, and Marilin
Margit also facilitated a conversation in Creative Allyship: Race, Whiteness, Supremacy, and Improvisational Dance Settings, with the support of Hana van der Kolk, after our time co-facilitating and co-curating at seeds | Earthdance 2016 and Gwendolyn Alker. Here are some pictures and notes from that time.
The Creative Allyship panel involved discussion, small groups conversations, time for stillness, movement, and quietude, and free writing. Some earlier email questions brought to the Creative Allyship discussion:
Some ideas and questions I am considering as we go into the panel on embodying allyship:
What kind of structure will allow for people to really listen and speak, to be vulnerable or intimate?
Let’s speak about our own experience, rather than looking at other peoples’ limitations
What are the pitfalls to identify that the participants have experienced themselves?
How do we create an environment that enacts a kind of space we would like to see?
How do we create a space that allows people to speak from their experience, hearts, and minds together, and not get stuck in the language of PC/ academia?
What are people’s current experiences with creative practice, their work and art, and in their own life that lead them to want to address their own privilege and biases?
What kind of structures do we live and work in that re/instantiate hegemonic oppressions?
How to get out of the Liberal loop (and therefore un/consciously supporting “diversity” and “representation” as models) and converse about the potential shifts in power in Performance and artistic ensemble practices?
What do people identify as their biggest challenges/fears/influences/desires in terms of access/race in dance?
What projects have anyone heard of or participated in that inspired new approaches?
How does the radical space of not-knowing that is a part of making art offer a tool or space for new ways of thinking and acting right in this room?
