Profile
I am a dance scholar and artist who writes and publishes around issues of identity, cultural traffic, popular culture, and women within African and African Diasporic Dance. I trained in contemporary dance and drama and further supplemented my dance training through international programmes at Ecole des Sables, Senegal. At Central, I teach across theatre, performance, and movement courses. My research combines Africanist performance and technique, Black studies, screendance, digital humanities, cultural geography, and postcolonial theory to highlight how embodied ways of knowing can deepen our understanding of Black identities, cultures, and our society.
My AHRC-funded doctoral thesis, ‘Practices of Rooting and Spaces of Performative Becoming: An Exploration of British Caribbean Identities through Dance’ argues that the choreography of British Caribbean Diasporic artists creates spaces of identity formation and negotiation onstage. I developed the key concept of Tidalectics from my doctoral research during my postdoctoral position on the award-winning project Dunham’s Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Enquiry led by Professor Kate Elswit and Dr Harmony Bench. In this work, I explore how Tidalectic ideas about interconnection and imagination under African Diasporic conditions relate to data analysis in order to better understand the choreographic expression of African American choreographer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham.
I have been privileged to share my research at conferences and symposiums across the world, including the International Associations of Blacks in Dance in the USA, The University of the West Indies, and the Women of Colour in Europe symposium. Additionally, my work has contributed to edited collections within Dance (Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices), Black Feminism (To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe), and Geography (Transactions of Institute of British Geographers).I currently sit on the UKRI Dance Research Matters Advisory Board and Dance Studies Association Awards Committee. I was also a member of the academic board for Dance of the African Diaspora at One Dance UK.
When I’m not working in academia, I act as a research coach for dance artists and write about dance and performance on my own platform and for organizations like Dance Umbrella (Out of the System), Serendipity (Black Ink), and One Dance UK (Hotfoot Magazine). Additionally, I still dance, choreograph, and perform in a variety of settings.
Practice
At the heart of my work lies an investment in Black survival and identities. My current practice is interested in exploring the intersections of ecological and social injustice experienced across Black geographies through digital performance.
In 2022, I produced, directed, and choreographed the short dance film The Noise My Leaves Make which explores Black British women’s intimacy and pleasure in the English countryside. I received funding for the film as a postdoctoral research fellow on the AHRC project Creative Approaches to Race and In/security in the Caribbean and the UK led by Professor Pat Noxolo. The Noise My Leaves Make is currently being screened at festivals worldwide, the film was an award finalist at Dance Camera West 2023 in Los Angeles and won the jury award for Best Experimental Short at the Cannes Short Film Festival 2023.
Research Areas
- African Diasporic Dance
- Black Studies
- Contemporary Dance
- Critical Race Theory
- Digital Humanities
- Embodied practice
- Black Feminism
- Digital Performance
- Interdisciplinary Performance
- Caribbean Studies
- Cultural Geography
- Social and Ecological Justice
PhD Supervision
I am currently supervising two PhD students in the areas of Black British Dance, History, Black Feminism and Digital Humanities. I am interested in supervising potential PhD students in any of my areas of expertise.
Key Publications
2023. Tidalectic Unmapping and the Performance of African Diasporic Imagination in the Repertory of Katherine Dunham Dance Research Journal (Forthcoming)
2021. Rooting through the Generations: Establishing British Caribbean Diasporic Identity through Dance. In: Abiola, O. (ed). Fire Under My Feet: Historical Perspectives on Dance in the African Diaspora. Routledge, pp.47-66.
2021. Dancing through Black British Ballet: Conversations with Dancers (with Adesola Akinleye). In: Akinleye, A. (ed). (Re)Claiming Ballet. Intellect, pp. 255-275.
2020. Roots: An Exploration of British Caribbean Diasporic identity through the Embodied Spatialities of Dance. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
2019. Coming to Movement: African Diasporic Women in British Dance. In: Emejulu, A. and Sobande, F. (eds.) To Exist is To Resist: Black Feminism in Europe. London: Pluto Press, pp. 259–272.
2018. Negotiating African Diasporic Identity in Dance: Brown Bodies Creating and Existing in the British Dance Industry. In: Akinleye, A. (ed.) Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 37–50.
2013. The Evolving Face of the Iwa Akwa. African Performance Review. Vol.7, No.1.
Other writing
2022. Thoughts on Redaction and Care in Interventions. Spring 2022.
2019. Mechanisms of Resilience in the Global Diaspora in Hotfoot Magazine. Spring 2019, pp.44-48.
2019. “Looking for Glory: The Multi-Dimensional Dance Artist” – Commission for Systems Lab, Dance Umbrella, UK.
2015. Werking the Twerk: The Empowerment of the Black Female Body’, in Brookes, P. (ed.) Blurring Boundaries - Urban Street Meets Contemporary Dance. Leicester: Serendipity Artists Movement.
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