Inspired by historic protests in India’s capital city, New Delhi, queer and Sikh choreographer Mandeep Raikhy devised The Secular Project in 2020. The Secular Project is a performance work and an archive that exists as a series of short reels, posts and story highlights on Instagram. This article analyses The Secular Project as a dissident social practice and the dancing body as a mode of dissent against majoritarian nationalism. I critically reflect on the notion of secularism in the Indian context and where it stands in reference to the rising religious fundamentalist politics in India. I ask: How is secularism embodied and enacted by its citizens, both in private and public spaces, in contemporary India? How does the dancing body intervene or help us understand the values of a democracy shifting into an authoritarian regime? I employ ethnographic research methods – participant observation, qualitative interviewing and field notes – with choreographic analysis of the work on social media to address the politics of secularism and corporeal dissent in this work. I argue that Raikhy’s choreographic work not only brings activism and dance together but also exemplifies the connection between individual dissent and desired collectivity for social change.

S. Ama Wray (formerly Sheron Wray) and Robert Hylton are part of a generation of Black British choreographers who gained recognition in the subsidized arts sector between the early 1990s and early 2000s. Their work was often labelled ‘choreographic fusion’, referring to the deliberate blending of dance styles from distinct cultural traditions. At the time, their work received little critical engagement. This article examines culturally hybrid choreography in relation to cultural policy, highlighting its role as a site of struggle for Black choreographers. It presents brief biographies of Wray and Hylton and analyses Wray’s (1998) Bare Hands, Broad Feet and Hylton’s (2001) Landscapes, focusing on their compositional methods. Stuart Hall’s theory of articulation draws attention to how their choreographies create continuities between artistic practice and cultural histories and resists dominant narratives of rupture-as-innovation. By recognizing them as creators of distinct choreographic methodologies, this article positions their stories within the broader history of contemporary choreography in Britain. Both choreographers remain active today, and their careers offer valuable insights into reinterpreting the UK dance archive of that era.

This interview is a research dialogue between Stephanie Arsoska and Andrew Morrish, focusing on their exploration of Stephanie’s solo improvisation practice. Over the course of a year, they conducted ten, ten-minute solo improvisations via Zoom, analysing emerging patterns over time. Stephanie’s practice, which integrates movement and text, is deeply rooted in acting and physical theatre traditions. Rather than engaging in conceptual analysis, they adopted reflective and descriptive methods to gain insights through lived experience. Their goal was to better understand and articulate their creative processes. The conversation highlights the importance of cultivating a pedagogical awareness within artistic practice, fostering openness and mapping these practices to achieve a deeper understanding. Their methodology involved gathering data from multiple perspectives, promoting a reflective engagement with personal experiences and uncovering new insights through the process of improvisation.

This article examines the disability studies concept of misfit applied to aerial dance choreography. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson defines a misfit as an incongruency between two things, as in a square peg and round hole. Thus, misfit is not a fixed attribute but rather arises from the interaction of those two things. In aerial arts, fit or misfit is located in the relationship between a particular dancer’s body and the aerial apparatus. The aerial hoop, a rigid metal circle, is rife with potential misfits. The dancers in this project are visibly non-disabled, yet Garland-Thomson explicitly invites a broad application of misfit, noting that it is an inherent aspect of all embodiment. The material reality of the aerial apparatus in relationship with each dancer’s particular embodiment reveals misfits that might otherwise go unnoticed, unacknowledged and unvalued in dance practices. In this practice-research, a misfit approach to choreography serves to re-examine virtuosity and highlight the context-specific abilities of the bodies involved. This method guided the research inquiry in three areas: movement invention, spatial design and costuming and provided insight into the particularities of embodiment and perceptions of virtuosity in dance and circus practices.

Belgium is internationally renowned for its vibrant contemporary dance scene. Since the advent of the so-called ‘Flemish Wave’ in the late 1980s, it has been home to not only renowned companies like Rosas, Les Ballets C de la B, Ultima Vez and Damaged Goods but also a thriving community of lesser-known choreographers. Additionally, the country also houses several important art centres for dance, as well as the internationally acclaimed school for contemporary dance, P.A.R.T.S. Amidst this dynamic scene, however, a silence looms – a scarcity of inclusivity, particularly the absence of disabled and crip performers. Even though trailblazing choreographers like Alain Platel and Wim Vandekeybus have long pushed against traditional bodily norms, integrating non-trained dancers into their works, Belgium’s disability-centred dance scene remains relatively small, lagging behind its UK and US counterparts. In this round-table, we – Jonas Rutgeerts and Leni Van Goidsenhoven – joined forces with Fanny Vandesande, Anna Dujardin, Saïd Gharbi, Lisi Estaras and Inge Blockmans to delve into the positioning of disabled dancers and choreographers in Flanders. Together, we explored the burgeoning recognition of disability and crip aesthetics in this vibrant dance landscape.

‘Dancing through the vege patch’ is an artist essay in the voice of choreographer Gregory Lorenzutti that provides readers with a reflection on Theatrum Botanicum: an interdisciplinary project which combined dance and holistic urban farming, commissioned for the third year Bachelors of Fine Arts in dance performance at the Victoria College of the Arts (VCA), University of Melbourne, 2022. Drawn from a series of interviews conducted before, during and after the creation of Theatrum Botanicum; choreographer, photographer and urban farmer, Gregory Lorenzutti provides insights into the relationship between knowledge production, place-based dance pedagogy and interdisciplinary practice with a particular focus on its role in tertiary education. In doing so, Lorenzutti reveals how creative methodologies can slip between disciplines and artistic forms to invigorate practice and deepen the relationship between body, space and place. This artist essay – emerging in and through a series of conversations – seeks to better transmit the embodied and affective dimensions of learning through interdisciplinary practices in dance.

Review of: Skinner Releasing Technique: A Movement and Dance Practice, Manny A. Emslie (ed.) (2021) Charmouth: Triarchy Press, 300 pp., ISBN 978-1-91374-329-1, p/bk, £22.50

The article is a document of artistic research insofar as it invents forms of thinking-in-writing-with-breathing. In addition to that, the article gives insights on breathing’s potential for expanded choreographic practice by drawing on Allan Kaprow’s ‘performance of living’. Choreography turns then into a means to stage everyday actions, such as breathing, in indeterminate frames. Equally important is the somatic bodywork of Ilse Middendorf and its interconnections with other forms of bodywork that emerged at the turn of the last century. Bringing in somatic bodywork reflects the bodily practice-based nature of the ponderings. It is a fertile ground for speculating on the relevance of attention and stillness for choreography through physical rest enlivened by breathing.

Abstract Benjamin Vandewalle and Yoann Durant label their performance as an auditory choreography. Starting from an elaboration on the etymology of choreography I research what the auditory dimension adds and changes to choreography. Choreographing based on auditory decisions inverses sound and movement. This inversion has consequences from the process to the end result. Based on the sonic quality as main decision principle I unravel the creation process of Hear in seven main action: to stand, to walk, to breathe, to look, to move, to disappear and to sound. This division reveals how the actual choreographing doesn't stop at the end of the creation process. In the second half of the paper, I turn to the experience of an auditory choreography, where the body of the audience functions as a resonance box. The discomfort of a blindfold during the experience, leads to the installation of a delicate intimacy and reveals the close connection between sound, touch and movement. The precariousness of the installed intimacy triggers and enforces the audience imagination. Through my own experience of Hear I discover how the audience in an auditory choreography becomes a co-creator.

Abstract This article reflects the process of choreographic making where the choreographer actively decentres her choreographic choices by collaborating with participating dancers and historical inspirations. It explores the creative potential of archives – a set of temple-sculptures found in eastern India called the Alasa-Kanyas (meaning indolent maidens) – as past evidence of historically marginalized bodies of the temple-dancers, also known as Maharis, in the field of the eastern Indian classical dance form called Odissi. Alasa-Kanya: Sculpture in Odissi (AK), a Practice as Research (PaR) experiment, imbricates the historical and the theoretical in choreographic practice, re-inscribing the archival traces of the Mahari as found in the sculptural traces of the Alasa-Kanyas by an inculcated deconstruction of Odissi dance vocabulary. According to philosopher Jacques Derrida, deconstruction destabilizes the hierarchy between the centres and margins of a given area of knowledge. This experiment questions the hierarchical construction of Odissi dance as technically elevated than Mahari performance. Theoretical deconstruction is complemented by an embodied investigation via structured studio improvisations using the Creative Articulations Process (CAP). Choreographic process and analysis of AK deconstructs the technicity in Odissi movement via engaging with the Alasa-Kanyas or the sculptural archives of the Maharis in Indian temples. In this way, the once marginalized interrupts the dominant historical narratives and disrupts the patriarchal construction of a male centre, in turn questioning the agency of the choreographer in the choreographic process.