Fearless belonging & river-me
Coming from an Afro-Indigenous paradigm, this chapter draws on ‘ecosomatic’ dance practices to suggest that the sensitivities of dance reveal commentaries on and care of global ecosystems. I present an account of lived experiences while dancing in the city. Dance experience that illustrates a fluid and co-created perception of self and environment. I suggest there is not a question of if we belong to us-ness; we cannot step out of the assemblage of it all, it is more a question of how we enact our belonging.
Akinleye, A. (2024). Fearless belonging and river-me. In Sondra Fraleigh, Shannon Rose Riley (Ed.), Geographies of Us: Ecosomatic Essays and Practice Pages London: Routledge. pp. 225-241.
Finding a place for responsiveness, possibility, and emergence in dance education assessment systems
In this book chapter, I discuss the opportunity dance pedagogy has through devising assessment tools that meet dances needs the field can also offer principles and values for assessment in another field.
Akinleye, A. (2024). Finding a place for responsiveness, possibility and emergence in dance education assessment systems. In Noyale Colin, Catherine Seago, Kathryn Stamp (Ed.), Ethical Agility in Dance, London: Routledge pp. 68-80.
The Distance of Education
In this chapter, I use the distance-education course I wrote/co-wrote and directed/co-directed for 12.5 years as a case study. The strangeness of “teaching” performance artists through an online course was often at odds with the main body of the university. However, the use of online mediums to educate was not to replace the physicality of being together familiar to a traditional construction of university. Rather it allowed students to practice arts around the world in early career settings, such as apprenticeships in touring companies.
Akinleye, A. (2024). The distance of education. In Karen Schupp (Ed.), Futures of Performance: The Responsibilities of Performing Arts in Higher Education New York: Routledge. pp. 127-144.
Keeping Movement at the Center as We Dance into Interdisciplinary Research
I contribute chapter 26. In this chapter I discuss dance within Interdisciplinary research.
Akinleye. A (2023) ‘Keeping Movement at the Center as We Dance into Interdisciplinary Research’ in Candelario, R., Henley, M. (Eds.). Dance Research Methodologies: ethics, orientations, and practices. Routledge. pp 389-400
Dancing Un-Visible Bodies
I contribute chapter 8. In this chapter I discuss how issues of marginalization in the dance studio raised by prejudices against age, ethnicity and/or gender have shared lessons of resilience.
Akinleye. A (2022) ‘Dancing Un-Visible Bodies’ in Musil, P., Risner, D., Schupp, K. (Eds.). Dancing Across the Lifespan. Palgrave Macmillan. pp 113-128
For Kaydence and her cousins: Health & Happiness in cultural legacies and contemporary contexts
I contribute Chapter Three to this anthology. The chapter discusses the making of a performance work for young indigenous audiences. I suggest that being a part of and the making together of art is a healing and vital process: one that is particularly important for the next generation’s ability to determine themselves with creative agency.
Akinleye. A (2021) ‘For Kaydence and her cousins’ in Van Styvendale, N., McDougall, J. D., Henry, R., & Innes, R. A. (Eds.). The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-being. Univ. of Manitoba Press. pp 60-75
Bodies of Knowledge: Three conversations on movement, communication and identity
I wrote an introductory chapter “Pondering In Embodiment” as response to the work done through the three interdisciplinary, community projects that the book goes on to review. The chapter ties together the three projects through the notion of being ‘in embodiment’ (rather than being ’embodied’). The chapter also serves to introduce the following sections of the book that discuss and reflect on the projects.
Akinleye, A. (2021). ‘Pondering in Embodiment’, in Purseglove, L. (ed.) Bodies of Knowledge: Three Conversations on Movement, Communication and Identity. Loughborough and London: Radar and Live Art Development Agency, pp. 10-21.
Ballet, from Property to Art
In this chapter, I reflect on ballet using two lenses of property (ballet-as-property) and inheritance (the Manor House of Ballet). I draw on Cheryl Harris’s seminal paper ‘Whiteness as Property’ to explore how ballet could be seen as being treated as the property of a few rather than an art form in its own right. I suggest that being liberated into being ‘an art form’ offers ballet a rich future that avoids the decay of protectionism.
Akinleye, A.(2021) Ballet, from property to art, in Akinleye (ed.) (re:)claiming ballet London: Intellect books pp.21-35
Dancing through Black British ballet: conversations with dancers.
Co-written with Tia-Monique Uzor, this chapter, reflects on conversations with a number of non-white British dancers who have a long standing dance careers in ballet. The chapter maps histories of resilience and resistance in Britain and internationally.
Akinleye, A. & T Uzor (2021) Dancing through Black British ballet: conversations with dancers Akinleye (ed.) (re:)claiming ballet London: Intellect books pp.216-231
Narratives in Black British Dance: an introduction
In order to introduce the narratives in the chapters that follow, this introductory chapter positions a range of approaches to the terms Black, British, and Dance. The chapter discusses how artists who identify are cross contribute to a dance scene whose complexities and stories are often invisiblized.
Akinleye, A.(2018). Narratives in Black British Dance: an introduction, in Akinleye (ed.) Narratives in Black British dance: embodied practices. London: Palgrave MacMillian pp. 1- 17
In-the-bewteen-ness: Decolonising and re-inhabiting our dancing
In this chapter I write with Helen Kindred, we discuss our need to be alert to polarising Western binaries creeping into our creative processes in the language we use to discuss, describe and facilitate dance. The chapter discusses ways we have sort to decolonize the environment of our creative exploration.
Akinleye, A. and H. Kindred (2018). In-the-Between-ness: Decolonising and re-inhabiting our dancing, in Akinleye (ed.) Narratives in Black British dance: embodied practices London: Palgrave MacMillian pp. 65-78.
Epistemology of the weekend: Youth Dance Theatre
With Hopal Romans and Michael Joseph, I remember their experiences in early Youth Dance Companies in Britain. For many young people dancing was a distraction from the turmoil of being a Black teenager in Britain in 1970s and 1980s. Many young people from these early youth companies went on to have distinguished careers in dance internationally.
Akinleye, A., H. Romans and M. Joseph (2018) Epistemology of the weekend: Youth Dance Theatre, in Akinleye (ed.) Narratives in Black British dance: embodied practices. London: Palgrave MacMillian pp.265-276
Play: ‘ideas are statements not of what is or what has been but of acts to be performed’
In this chapter I challenge the perceived divide between doing and thinking, inherited from a Western dualist divide between body and mind. I suggest playful acts of choreography to transgress the separation of physical and mental in the process of creating a theoretical framework for research study.
Akinleye, A. (2019). Play: ‘ideas are statements not of what is or what has been but of acts to be performed’. In J. Bacon, Hilton, R., Kramer, P., and Midgelow, V. (Ed.), Researching (in/as) Motion: A Resource Collection, Artistic Doctorates in Europe: Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki.
Narrating Spaces
In this chapter I discuss creativity: creative processes from the perspective of someone who identifies as a Black, Woman, Artist. Immediately I need to point out that I by no means want to suggest that there is some kind of shared creative outcome that all Black Women Artists demonstrate. The nature of creativity seems to be that it is inherently individual in everyone.
Akinleye, A. (2016) Narrating Spaces chapter in Brookes, Black Women in Dance: Stepping out of the barriers, Serendipity Artists Movement Ltd, pp. 74 – 83
Her life in Movement: Reflections on embodiment as a methodology
In this chapter, my aim is to share thoughts about the design of research and theoretical frameworks that place the bodily experience – movement – as central. In such a short amount of text I hope to merely start a conversation. The book adopts a multi-disciplinary lens, moving beyond the traditional dualism of body and mind, and incorporating the physical with the social and the psychological.
Akinleye, A. (2015) Her life in Movement: Reflections on embodiment as a methodology chapter in Wellard, Ian Researching Embodied Sport: Exploring movement cultures, Routledge, pp.178-196