Community Conversations

Community Conversations Logo

Founded in 2020 by Dr. Nadine George-Graves with the department's Anti-Racist Working Group, Community Conversations is a lunchtime event series expanding our mission of social justice and community wellness, centering the voices of local and national dance creators and educators.

All are welcome to join us for "Community Conversations," a department initiative to strengthen our commitment to anti-racism and collective action by fostering dialogue and critical thought in the service of an equitable, affirming, and sustainable arts ecosystem. “Community Conversations” brings together a network of artists, scholars, practitioners, and activists to propagate small-scale creative solutions to impact our communal environment. What emerges from this space is the intentionality of working together on purpose to think, dream, confront, heal, envision, trust, connect and grow our capacity as a community to build and embody the just and liberated worlds we want, long for, and deserve.

Weekly 12:00-1:00PM EST in Sullivant Hall and/or Zoom 
Dates as indicated below

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend using the links specific to each conversation, below. 

If you require an accommodation to participate in any of these conversations, please contact us at dance@osu.edu at least 10 business days before the talk. The department will make every effort to meet requests.

Community Conversations Spring 2022 Schedule

Spring 2022

About Dr. Nadine George-Graves

Dr. Nadine George-Graves

Wednesday, April 20, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Zoom

The Slow Drag: or, How I Got Through The Trump Years By Watching Black Dance

The slow drag is a dance for when you just can't dance anymore, but you also can't go home. It is for the people ... Black people ... poor Black people. It is the dance of low-down/down-low jukes where polite society lose interest. This discussion is a microhistory, an autoethnography, and a critical analysis of the potential work of dance in society and culture during an important historical moment. Pausing at this moment allows us to ask how the political landscape challenges us to experience, analyze and create work differently.

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 


About Abby Zbikowski

Abby Zbikowski

Wednesday, April 13, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Department of Dance Office Lobby and Zoom

Abby Zbikowski creates contemporary dance works that pay homage to the effort of living, tactics of survival, and the aesthetics produced as a result, utilizing the physical aspects and psyche-emotional experience of her rigorous training background in African and Afro-diasporic forms, as well as playing sports and performing requisite acts of manual labor. She founded her company, Abby Z and the New Utility, in 2012 and received the 2017 Juried Bessie Award for her “unique and utterly authentic movement vocabulary in complex and demanding structures to create works of great energy, intensity, surprise, and danger.” In 2018 Dance Umbrella UK awarded her a “Choreographer of the Future” commission and is the recipient of a 2020 United States Artists Fellowship. Abby has created commissioned work for the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, as well as numerous universities nationally. She is an inaugural Caroline Hearst Choreographer-In- Residence at the Lewis Center of the Arts at Princeton University, current artist in residence at New York Live Arts, and has been in residence at Bates Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, and the STREB Lab for Action Mechanics. She currently an Associate Professor professor of Dance at The Ohio State University and has been on faculty at the University of Illinois and the American Dance Festival. She has taught at the Academy of Culture in Riga, Latvia; at Festival Un Pas Vers L’Avant in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; and studied at Germaine Acogny’s L’École de Sables in Senegal. Her company has been presented nationally, performing at venues such as Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, MA, and the Fuse Box Festival in Austin, TX, among others. Join Associate Professor of Dance and founder of Abby Z and the New Utility, Abby Zbikowski, for a conversation about creative process and dance research. 

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 


CoCo Loupe Infographic

CoCo Loupe, Mina Estrada, Nicole Garlando, Noelle Chun

Wednesday, April 6, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant 390 and Zoom

Benevolent Instruction 

Benevolent Instruction (Bl) is a gentle, guided movement practice for anyone interested in physically engaging with language in the moment. The intention of Bl is to provide an opportunity for people to listen and translate their own bodily experience as well as enjoying the presence of a supportive community where movement, language, listening, responding, creating, and sharing are valued.

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 


 

Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown and Selene Carter Infographic

Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown and Selene Carter

Wednesday, March 30, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant 390 and Zoom

Co-conspirators share experiences of collaboration, dismantling racial structures in the academy as university faculty.

Collaborators, Carter and McCarthy-Brown will share a short dialogue about their collaboration journey; then they will share their upcoming empirical dance research project “Dance-oply”: a sociometric experience to examine structures of oppression through an embodied interactive process.

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>


Anti-Racist Working Group Infographic

Anti-Racist Working Group

Wednesday, March 23, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Zoom

The Anti-Racist Working Group (ARWG) functions as a part of DiGS (Dancers in Graduate School) a student organization formed in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University. The DiGS ARWG is a community of accountability that interrogates how racism is institutionalized and internalized. The group is composed of students and alumni from the Department of Dance who seek to: first, examine their own role as institutional gatekeepers within an educational system that has historically subjugated marginalized populations; second, confront how structural racism shapes dance history, curricula, and pedagogy; and, third, cultivate conscious-raising spaces that build resilience through self- and collective-care.

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 


Dr. Valarie Williams and Crystal Perkins teaching

Crystal Perkins and Dr. Valarie Williams

Wednesday, March 9, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Department of Dance Office Lobby and Zoom

Archiving Black Performance

Join Professors of Dance Crystal Perkins and Dr. Valarie Williams as they discuss the Archiving Black Performance project at Ohio State. They will discuss highlights of the fall semester as well as upcoming spring semester details. Come hear about how they're engaging with Bebe Miller, Carylon Adams, and Michelle Fleet, and how their time with with Ursula Payne and Pearl Primus's work continues to inform their research.  

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 


About Trevor Boffone's Community Conversation

Trevor Boffone

Wednesday, March 2, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Zoom

''Moving as One: TikTok as Culturally Responsive Teaching''

Research highlights from his book, Renegades: Digital Dance Cultures from Dubsmash to TikTok. Using his face-to-face classroom as a case study, he explores how hip hop dancing on TikTok can help teachers and students create stronger relationships and a more formidable sense of community. This presentation analyzes how unison movement and muscular bonding create an affective response in students and teachers. He argues that dancing in unison with students on social media creates an affective response that helps build stronger relationships between students and teachers. The result is an anti-racist pedagogy that centers students in the learning experience. As such, this work is a testament as to how social media apps can be used as tools of hip hop education and culturally-responsive teaching.

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>


Dancers in a studio infographic

Jackie Sochacki Pittman

Wednesday, February 23, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant 390 and Zoom

Mental/Body: A Choreographic Conversation

Join 3rd year MFA Jacqui Sochacki Pittman and dancers as they share their choreographic investigation of emotional wellbeing and mental health wellness, followed by a guided discussion about dance and mental health. 

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 

 

 


Alon Karniel

Alon Karniel

Wednesday, February 16, 2022
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Department of Dance Office Lobby and Zoom

Israel Institute Visiting Artist Alon Karniel shares how the Feldenkrais Method informs his creative process and discusses his 2017 solo work, "Surrounding," which was performed in the archaeology wing of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. 

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 

 

 


Autumn 2021 

Nile Jones

Nile Jones

Thursday, September 16, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant Hall Room 225 or Zoom

Coach for The Dancing Dolls of Atlanta on Lifetime's BRING IT discusses his training and career in commercial dance

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend>

 

 

 


 

 


Gamal Brown

Gamal Brown

Wednesday, September 22, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Barnett Center Collaboratory (Sullivant Hall Room 141) or Zoom

Acclaimed native Columbus choreographer and Ohio State Department of Dance guest artist discusses his work

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend>

 

 

 

 

 

 


Susan Bradford-Kounta

Suzan Bradford-Kounta

Thursday, September 30, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant Hall Room 225 or Zoom

Ohio State Department of Dance Lecturer and Founder and Artistic Director of the Thiossane Institute

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend>

 

 

 

 

 


Crystal Perkins and Susan Petry performing

Susan Petry and Crystal Michelle Perkins

Tuesday, October 5, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Barnett Theatre (Sullivant Hall Room 320) or Zoom

Fish-bowl group conversation around their collaboration "Land, Sugar, Bone & Other Illustrations"

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend>

 

 

 

 

 


Ursula Payne dancing

Ursula Payne

Monday, October 11, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant Hall Room 225 or Zoom

Professor of Dance at Slippery Rock University shares about her research of Pearl Primus's work

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend>

 

 


Ori Flomin dancing in the woods.

Ori Flomin

Tuesday, October 19, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant Hall Room 390 or Zoom

"Dance and Healing - the importance of self-care"

A somatic workshop that incorporates self-massage and stretches that release tension in the body and promote the natural flow of energy. 

All are welcome to these free discussions. Please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 

 


Alice Blumenfeld dancing

Alice Blumenfeld

Wednesday, October 27, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Barnett Center Collaboratory (Sullivant Hall Room 141) or Zoom

"Flamenco as an act of resilience" - learn and experience how flamenco inherently builds resilience

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 

 

 

 


Charles O. Anderson standing

Charles O. Anderson

Wednesday, November 3, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Barnett Center Collaboratory (Sullivant Hall Room 141) or Zoom

Head of the Dance Program at UT Austin presents "(Re)current Unrest: Emergent Strategies in Kinetic Storytelling"

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 

 


Photo of Dr. Natasha Davis

Dr. Natasha Davis

Wednesday, November 10, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Barnett Center Collaboratory (Sullivant Hall Room 141) or Zoom

Associate Professor of Dance at Morehead State University discusses inclusive education

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 

 

 


Photo of Dr. Ojey Cruz Banks in the woods

Dr. Ojeya Cruz Banks

Tuesday, November 16, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Barnett Center Collaboratory (Sullivant Hall Room 141) or Zoom

Associate Professor of Dance and Black Studies at Denison University discusses her creative and scholarly research

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>

 

 

 

 

 


Dancers animation graphic

8 out of 8 Artists Collective

Wednesday, December 1, 2021
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Sullivant Hall Room 316 (Department Office Lobby) and Zoom

Join the 2nd year MFAs as they discuss their recent production, Inevitable Circling: the work of dreams.

All are welcome to these free discussions, but please register to attend on Zoom>