To do what we have made, MELT Reading Group with Tara Aisha Willis

to do what we have made MELT Reading Group with Tara Aisha Willis Thursday, August 11 7:00pm Abrons Arts Center Studio G05 466 Grand St (at Pitt St) Open to the public with a suggested donation of $3. What race and gender boundaries are re-authored in claiming authorship of choreography? What embodied and social limits do freedom and choice-making in improvisation conceal? What is the complex choreography of willing subjects and willful ones? The readings by Anthea Kraut, Danielle Goldman, and Sarah Ahmed offer different lenses onto the structures of agency and action built into the sinews of our bodies, our performance practices, our social worlds. Readings: Anthea Kraut, Choreographing Copyright: pp. 2-4 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/movementresearch/workshops/AntheaKraut_ChoreographingCopyright.pdf Danielle Goldman, I Want to Be Ready: pp. 3-9 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/movementresearch/workshops/DanielleGoldman_IWanttoBeReady.pdf Sarah Ahmed, "A Willfulness Archive": the short section entitled "Becoming Background" https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/movementresearch/workshops/SarahAhmed_AWillfulnessArchive.pdf Tara Aisha Willis is a dance artist and PhD candidate in Performance Studies, NYU, where she researches black experimentation in contemporary dance. She was Assistant Editor for TDR, is a member of Women & Performance’s editorial collective, and co-editor with Thomas F. DeFrantz of a special issue of The Black Scholar entitled “Black Moves: New Research in Black Dance Studies.” Her writing appears in the Movement Research Performance Journal,The Brooklyn Rail, Women & Performance, and TDR. In 2015–16 she’s danced for Kim Brandt, Megan Byrne, Sarah A.O. Rosner, and Anna Sperber. She is currently a Chez Bushwick artist-in-residence and her choreography has been shown at Movement Research at Judson Church, BAX, Roulette, THROW, Dixon Place, The Painting Center, and AUNTS. She was a co-curator of the Movement Research Festival Spring 2016: Hand Written Note(s), and is Movement Research’s Coordinator of Diversity Initiatives. MELT Reading Groups provide an opportunity to gather socially to discuss critical issues that speak to the work and practices of contemporary dance and movement-based artists. The reading groups are free and are led by various writers, artists and seminal thinkers in our field. Each reading group is anchored by a text or texts made available in advance. Check the website for details and to download readings. RSVP encouraged, space is limited. Open to the public with a suggested donation of $3.