Cheerleaders dancing to hip-hop music on ESPN was just one of numerous topics covered at Saturday's conference "Reading, Writing and Representin': Performance and the Subjects of Race." Held on East Campus, the gathering brought together artists and scholars from around the country for debate and performance of their respective arts.
Organized by Richard Green, Ph.D. candidate at New York University and a Duke visiting faculty member, the conference was designed as an intersection of the intellectual and artistic communities, he said.
"This was a chance for the two to combine," he said. "Hopefully the intellectuals walked away with something and the artists did as well."
The panelists, who included filmmakers, dancers, poets and musicologists, spoke about various issues concerning the impact of race on artistic performance. Most speakers were practicing artists or young academics.
"It's avant-garde in a way," Green said, referring to the occasionally racy and personal nature of the discussion. "There were big names that we could have invited in terms of race and representation-people who are known cultural critics. What is difference about this type of conference is that there are a lot of young voices. There are a lot of people who are doing incredible exciting and innovative work but are not yet established. "
Green also emphasized the experimental nature of the conference, calling it a "work-in-progress."
"I wanted people to come here not with finished presentations, not thinking that this was a closed subject," he said. "It wasn't about demonstrating what one knows but a willingness to open up and have a dialogue. Hopefully people will go away and do more conferences like this."
The day-long event was broken up into four panels, each of which focused on different artistic mediums. The panelists relayed their experiences in the areas of dance, poetry, cinema and music.
They also spoke about the ability of performance to cure. "For me, it's healing," said Thema Bryant, a dancer, poetess and graduate student in psychology at the University. "To be able to speak what I'm not able to speak."
Another theme that permeated through the conference was the topic of cultural ownership.
"In terms of representin' who has the right to represent?" Green said. "Is it better to learn African dance from an African as opposed to an African-American? How do people lay claim to cultural forms? Different groups say that's mine and not yours and what does that mean?"
At 8:30 p.m., several of the panelists performed their art in the Ark Dance studio. Green said that the performance segment of the day should accentuate the importance of performance in society. "Performance can change people's lives," he said. "Listening to the roundtable today you realize how transformative performance can be."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.