MOMENT + MOVEMENT What Is Contemporary? Symposium

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago presents

Thursday ,October16,2025-9:00 am

Event Description

Modern / Contemporary

Workshop

180Running Time

What is Contemporary? Symposium, co-curated by Keesha Beckford and Dardi McGinley Gallivan (Thursday, October 16, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM)

Dance technique, a foundational specificity that is able to be repeated, is a form of entrainment – making something part of a flow and carrying it along. It is the source of all codified dances and how all codified dances are created and embodied. Anything that flows or carries forward is naturally susceptible to adaptation, alteration, and evolution. Contemporary is the continuously adapting, altering, evolving expression of dance’s codified forms…or is it? Is contemporary dance more of a how than a what? Is it open and available to more styles, techniques, and points of view, to visual, aural, and aesthetic conflation? Is it about being relevant in the moment and the movement? Is contemporary synonymous with innovative or radical? Should it be?

Through performances by acclaimed Chicago companies and artists and sessions selected from an international call, let’s discover and uncover together what is contemporary in dance.

What Is Contemporary? Symposium Day of Sessions Schedule:

Session 1 – LIVING RITUALS (9:00 AM – 10:20 AM) Dance Center Theater
What is Contemporary Dance, and How Might It Guide Us Back to Nature? | Nejla Yatkin – embodied workshop
Rehearsing the contemporary: from history to now and back again | Michael Landez (Northwestern University) – paper presentation

Session 2 – LINEAGE + RUPTURE + RETURN (10:30 AM – 11:50 AM) Dance Center Theater
Spirals of Cultural Mobility: Contemporary Dance as Cultural Exchange | Timothy Tsang (University of Michigan) – embodied workshop
Vessel 03: Translated Vase | Irene Hsiao – screening and discussion

Session 3 – CREATIVE ACCESS (12:00 PM – 12:20 PM) Dance Center Room 106
Contemporary dance aesthetics within crip time framework: a dramaturge’s perspective | Giulia Cristofoli – paper presentation

Session 4 – CONTEXT + IMPACT (12:30 PM – 1:50 PM) Dance Center Theater (note: Session 4 and Session 5 are concurrent)
Body Language | Maya Odim – workshop
Memory Fleet: All of them | Jasmine Hearn – lecture/demonstration

Session 5 – CENTERING + REFRAMING (12:30 PM – 1:50 PM) Dance Center Studio 300 (note: Session 5 is concurrent with Session 4)
Centering Lived Experiences: A Somatic Approach to Contemporary Dance and Movement Practice | Elizabeth Shea (University of Indiana) – embodied workshop
Recovering Doris Humphrey: Disability as Method in Dance History & Technique | Maggie Bridger (University of Illinois-Chicago) + Deborah Goodman (Loyola University) – paper presentation

Session 6 – REPRESENTATION + RESISTANCE (2:00 PM – 3:20 PM) Dance Center Theater
Understanding the Misinterpretation of Contemporary Dance Styles as Street Dance | Dr. Ayo Walker (Columbia College Chicago + Rennie Harris University) – paper presentation
Non-Technical Movement Vocabularies, Innovation, and Embodied Resistance | Marquita De Jesus (University of Texas at Dallas) – embodied workshop

Session 7 – RESHAPING NOW (3:30 PM – 4:50 PM) Dance Center Theater
Why labels matter: Interdependencies of universities and dance companies | Kate Mattingly (Old Dominion University)
Improvising Community: Building Ecosystems for Contemporary, Multidisciplinary Collaboration | Marie Casimir + Cristal Sabbagh + Joyce Lindsey – embodied workshop and lecture/demonstration

For more information, visit: dance.colum.edu