In this chapter, written with Helen Kindred, we discuss our need to be alert to polarising Western values creeping into our creative processes in the language we use to discuss, describe and facilitate dance. The chapter explores our attempts to extract our ‘dancing bodies’ and choreographic processes from the Imperialist language of Western binaries. Despite our creative processes being informed by our multicultural, trans-national life experiences, how we talk about, or describe our work is often limited by the necessity to describe it using Western mainstream terms which we suggest is a continuing legacy of colonization. The chapter discusses ways we have sort to decolonize the environment of our creative exploration.
Citation: 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.
Contents for context within book:
(editor Adesola Akinleye)
1. Narratives in Black British dance: an introduction – Adesola Akinleye
Part i
2. “I don’t do Black-Dance, I am a Black dancer” – Namron
3. Dance Britannia: the impact of global shifts on dance in Britain – Christy Adair and Ramsay Burt
4. Negotiating African Diasporic identity in dance: brown bodies creating and existing in the British dance industry – Tia-Monique Uzor
5.Tracing the evolution of Black representation in ballet and the impact on Black British dancers today – Sandie Bourne
6. In-the-between-ness: decolonising and re-inhabiting our dancing – Adesola Akinleye and Helen Kindred
Part ii
7. Trails of Ado: Kokuma’s cultural self-defence – Thea Barnes
8. Moving Tu Balance: an African holistic dance as a vehicle for personal development from a Black British perspective – Sandra Golding
9. ‘Why I am not a fan of the Lion King’: ethically informed approach to the teaching and learning of South African dance forms in Higher Education in the United Kingdom – Sarahleigh Castelyn
10. Performativity of body paintingL symbolic ritual as diasporic identity – Chikukwango Cuxima-Zwa
11. Dancehall: a continuity of spiritual, corporeal practice in Jamaican dance – H. Patten
12. Our Ethiopian connection: embodied Ethiopian culture as a tool in urban-contemporary choreography – Ras Mikey (Michael) Courtney
13. Reflections: snapshots of dancing home, 1985, 2010 and 2012 – Hopal Romans
Part iii
14. Battling under Britannia’s shadow: UK jazz dancing in the 1970s and 1980s – Jane Carr
15. Caribfunk Technique: a new feminist/womanist futuristic technology in Black dance studies in Higher Education – A’Keitha Carey
16. More similarities than differences: searching for new pathways – Beverley Glean and Rosie Lehan
17. Epistemology of the weekend: Youth Dance Theatre – Hopal Romans, Adesola Akinleye, and Michael Joseph
18. Transatlantic voyages: then and now – Anita Gonzalez