Takiyah Nur Amin, Ph.D.

08/22/2023

The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD)
6th Bi-Annual Conference

BODY GEOGRAPHIES|MAPPING FREEDOMS

February 16-18, 2024

Rubenstein Arts Center | Duke University | Durham, NC, USA
Registration opens December 1, 2023

Gathering in Black Dance, we wonder, how does place matter in our practices? How do our environments inform our embodiments of creative gesture? What does it mean to be of Black Dance while living in Washington DC, South Central LA, Niskey Lake, Atlanta, Long Island, NY? How does our dancing predict a temporary freedom that we move through with kin in the Caribbean, at family reunions in the countryside, or at performance festivals in Port of Spain, Chicago, Toronto, Seattle, Kingston, New Orleans? How do we dance differently when we are in the country, out of the city, in the places where grandma grew? How do our dances from the Caribbean and the Continent allow us to feel better about our lives in Minneapolis, Miami, Roxbury? How do we remember through Black Dance the pull towards freedom that drives our relationships?

Proposal Submissions are OPEN!

The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance 6th Bi-Annual Conference

09/21/2021

Knock knock! You will not want to miss this:

dancingBLACKtogether
The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD)
5th Bi-Annual Conference
February 18-20, 2022
Duke University | Durham, NC, USA
***CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF CADD***

The executive board of CADD has been busy arranging things and organizing our work together: to better understand, and document, our modes of dance expression. The conference will include some manner of virtual option, and the in-person, in Durham, NC dates are February 18-20, 2022.
See the call for presenters below!

The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance 5th Bi-Annual Conference

08/26/2019

join us for the collegium for african diaspora dance (cadd) conference, february 2020!

The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance 4th Bi-Annual Conference

04/11/2018

hey ya'll --

have YOU submitted your questions for my Thursday evening livestream? I am looking forward to hearing from YOU and sharing anything you want to know -- academic life, faith stuff, the arts -- anything that's on YOUR mind is fair game! bring it on -- we go live this Thursday at 9:30pm EST!

Submit ANY question below that you'd like Dr. Amin to answer -- it can be about academic life, the arts, faith stuff -- anything YOU want to know is fair game, so bring it! Thank you!

04/03/2018

Super excited to be a part of the leadership for NWSA ‘s Women of Color Leadership Project! ✊🏾

10/12/2017

CALL FOR PROPOSALS:
Dance Studies Association 2018 Conference
University of Malta (Valletta, Malta)
5-8 July 2018
Contra: Dance & Conflict
The Dance Studies Association invites proposals for papers, panels, roundtable
discussions, lecture-demonstrations, movement workshops, dance works using outdoor or
indoor sites, and screendances that address our theme, “Contra: Dance & Conflict.”
While often used as a metaphor for peace, the reality of dancing, dance-making, and
scholarship addressing dance is often one of conflict. Yet, as a venue for interaction,
friction, and potential energy, conflict can be as creative as it is destructive. We seek
scholars, dancers and other performing artists, choreographers, performance-based
activists, and arts administrators and organizers to address questions including:
• How has dance served as a vehicle for reconciliation?
• How has choreography represented, exposed, or challenged practices of violence
and war?
• How has dance staged actions of resistance, choreographies of protest, or
resolution of conflicts?
• What are conflict management techniques within group derived choreography?
How has conflict been productive in dance devising? How might these be applied
to clashes outside the studio?
• What are the conflicts within dance studies? Are there means of reconciling or
using these conflicts productively that are informed by dance practice?
• What are the interventions of choreographic thinking, performing, and dance
therapy within group and individual counseling discourses?
• What are choreographies, techniques, or individual accomplishments that might
not have been actualized had it not been for substantial conflict? How might this
unique process be theorized?
• How is conflict at work in choreographies broadly considered, such as relations
among and antagonisms between bodies in collectives and political movements,
protests, and physical dynamics of democracies?
Abstracts for Proposals are to be submitted via proposals.sdhscordconference.org by 4
December 2017. Application information for graduate student awards, debut panels, and
travel support, as well as full conference proposal guidelines will be available on the
conference website on October 30, 2017: http://sdhscordconference.org/2018-DSAConference
Please email [email protected] with any questions.

09/12/2017

Whoa! I am the member spotlight for the Textbook and Academic Authors Association! *happy dance*

Member Spotlight The Textbook & Academic Authors Association's Member Spotlight program highlights members and how they have benefitted from TAA membership. If you are interested in being highlighted or nominating another member for the spotlight, please complete this form.

09/12/2017

So exciting! An article I co-authored has been recently published in the International Journal of Arts Education (IJAE.) YAY! Here's the abstract:

It is important to advance research that sheds light on surrounding influences impacting student learning, student motivation, and students’ self beliefs as learners. Research indicates that individual student potentials could be better realized with the provision of active, problem-based, and integrated curricula that supports their healthy mindsets as learners. Student-led inquiry is necessary for fostering mindsets as creators, not just consumers. This paper explores a research study conducted in undergraduate, "Art and Society" liberal studies courses at a large university redesigned to be more problem-centered and learner-centered. It was hypothesized that more active learning environments would enhance students’ perceptions about their learning and thinking abilities, toward supporting their motivation and deep learning. Learner-centered classrooms were those designed to include experiential and reflective learning within the constructs of connection-making, inquiry, and self-direction. Active learning strategies involving problem-based and design-based learning were employed. A survey measure was used to understand students’ self-perceptions in relation to their application of knowledge and understanding in more and less learner-centered classrooms. This work extends former research that suggested that intelligence is influenced by the thinking and learning culture, and that those students in more learner-centered environments may also be better at thinking in balanced ways.

08/18/2017

This is amazing. I don't think we've seen anything like this before.

08/17/2017

She is an icon in dance and a leader! I am so proud to see this!

Ms. de Lavallade will be honored by the Kennedy Center, but skip a reception at the White House after “socially divisive and morally caustic” remarks by “our current leadership.”

08/14/2017

CALL FOR CONFERENCE PROPOSALS
The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) third conference aims to carry forward enlivening discussions on the power and politics of global Black Dance by bringing together scholars, practitioners, educators, and other stakeholders for three days of intellectual and artistic inspiration. DANCE BLACK JOY: Global Affirmations and Defiance seeks to center African diaspora dance as a resource and method of aesthetic possibility. It pursues the following lines of inquiry:
How do dance and movement practices across the African diaspora articulate and affirm the lived experiences of Black people?
How might dance function as a tool to critique or confront systemic oppressions faced by people of African descent globally?
What are the limits and possibilities for African diaspora dance/performance to challenge the state?
What new pedagogical pathways for diasporic dance practices are emerging within higher education?
What opportunities for affirmation and defiance emerge when Afro-descended bodies perform non-diasporic dance vocabularies? Or when others perform African diaspora dance?
Anchored by critical dialogue and provocative research presentations, the conference will feature breakout sessions, movement workshops, film screenings, and a performance of CANE: a responsive environment dancework, conceived by Thomas F. DeFrantz and SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology in collaboration with Wideman/Davis Dance.
We are interested in papers and presentations that consider dance practices throughout the African diaspora, the specific contexts that engender them and the ways in which they circulate to affirm Black life and thriving. Similarly, we are interested in conference contributions that imagine various practices of African diaspora dance as a fugitive site for Black joy. We welcome papers that represent a rigorous engagement with a number of disciplinary and methodological perspectives.​
Possible topics include:
African diaspora dance and the Movement for Black Lives
Black dance and the politics of joy, elation, and community building
African diaspora dance geographies and the specificity of place
African diaspora dance in US higher education: opportunities and challenges
How race, gender, class and sexuality inform African diaspora dance communities
The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance aims to facilitate an interdisciplinary discussion that captures a variety of topics, approaches, and methods that might constitute Black Dance Studies.
Deadline for Proposals: October 1, 2017 - Confirmations Sent: October 15, 2017
Submit your proposal here: http://www.cadd-online.org/2018-call-for-proposals.html.

​ CALL FOR CONFERENCE PROPOSALS The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) third conference aims to carry forward enlivening discussions on the power and politics of global Black Dance by...