Dancing Black w/ Margit Edwards (History of Swing, Hip Hop, and Cultural Appropriation)

2pm - 4pm
Register Here

Through discussion and movement, this multi-modal workshop digs into the Black/African aesthetic roots of swing dance and hip hop and their shared history of cultural appropriation in popular culture. Come prepared to move.  All are welcome, especially those interested in the global presence of Black/African dance.

Co-sponsored with the Platt Student Performing Arts House as part of the Theatre Arts @ Platt workshop series. Other workshops in Fall 2022 are: 11/11 Acting for the Camera and 12/2 Audiobook Narration.

Margit Edwards is a Lecturer in the Theatre Arts Program and a Doctoral candidate in Theatre and Performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY, her research interests include 20th & 21st century Africana theatre and performance, theories of coloniality/modernity, and transcultural African dance dramaturgy. She has been a Fellow with the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and Caribbean (IRADAC) and a recipient of the Dean K. Harrison Fellowship. She currently teaches in the Department of Communication and Theater Arts at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and has taught at several other CUNY campuses, including City College of New York and Baruch College. Ms. Edwards recently produced roundtables and Artist Talks, called Africana Dance Dramaturgies: How do we represent? with choreographers and dramaturgs from West Africa, the US and the Caribbean at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. In addition, Ms. Edwards has participated in discussions on the Black Archive with the Institute on Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC), black dance archival practices at Gibney Dance Studio: Long Table Discussion series, and post show discussions, with 651Arts, Inc. Ms. Edwards artistic life includes being a founding member of Viver Brasil Dance Company (Los Angeles), Five Moon Theatre (NYC), and most recently movement choreographer for ALAT – A Laboratory for Actor Training (NYC).  Recent publication: “African Performance in the Feast of St. Francis Xavier in 17th century Luanda, Angola” in The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance (2018).