Bodies in Motion
The RAI's Discover Anthropology Programme Presents:
A series of evening events and exhibitions that explores the relationship between human movement, space and expression
Place: The RAI, 50 Fitzroy St, London W1T-5BT
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm
Dates: Friday 13th April, Tuesday 17th April, Wednesday 18th April, Thursday 26th April, Monday 30th April
The way in which we move our bodies can express our multiple identities as well as our social and cultural backgrounds. Whether dancing, walking or playing sports, movement can be an affirmation of society’s norms, a celebration of community cohesion and a vehicle for expressing national and international affiliations. Equally, human movement can be a means of resistance demonstrating social and political unrest or an avenue for innovation and cultural change.
Bodies in Motion, is an initiative that explores the relationship between human movement, space and expression. Using photography, ethnographic film, art and presentations, the project aims to engage the public in exploring the meaning of movement in urban, digital and natural landscapes.
Book your ticket for all five events and get 20% off-http://bodiesinmotion.eventbrite.com
FRIDAY 13th APRIL 2012
Temporary Sanity: Jamaican Dancehall Culture
Temporary Sanity: the Skerrit Bwoy Story is a film produced by Dan Brun in 2006, as part of his Visual Anthropology Masters at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester. The film explores the cultures, gendered performances and political expressions that form part of Jamaican Dance Hall in New York. By following “Skerrit Boy” a Bronx based performer and promoter of Dance Hall music, the film gives an insider’s view into the dancing, history and social roles of Dance Hall clubs in the lives of the Jamaican and Caribbean Diaspora in the United States. The film has won international recognition amongst dance enthusiasts and film makers. Tonight’s screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the RAI’s Education and Communications Officer Nafisa Fera and Dr. Lez Henry.
* Special Guest*
The RAI is very lucky to have anthropologist and educator Dr. Lez Henry join us this evening.
Dr. William 'Lez' Henry was born in Lewisham, South east London, England of Jamaican Parents and is an experienced youth worker, a poet, writer and is Lezlee Lyrix, one of the pioneer, British, Reggae-dancehall Deejays. Dr. Henry is a Social Anthropologist who lectured in the Department Of Sociology, Goldsmiths College for a number of years. Dr. Henry is a researcher, consultant and staff trainer for Nu-Beyond Ltd: Learning by Choice! Dr. Henry is currently a Lead Trainer on the Mayor of London's Capital Men Mentoring Programme which will train 1000 volunteers to mentor 1000 black boys between 2011 - 2014.
Under Dr Henry’s guidance Nu-Beyond Ltd completed a Heritage Lottery Funded summer school project, 2006, entitled ‘The Tru Reggae Story, a hidden history’ of Reggae Dancehall Culture in London during the 1970s to 1980s. The research project entailed training a group of 15-17 year olds in research and filmmaking techniques, from which they produced a documentary, an interactive CD Rom, a website and an informational booklet, all of which were exhibited at the Black Cultural Archives in London from October 2006 – January 2007.
For more information about Dr. Lez Henry and his work visit https://www.proflez.co.uk/
Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands where people come together to celebrate movement.
Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotiondancehall.eventbrite.com
Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission
* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks
Become an RAI Member or Fellow and come to our events for free!
TUESDAY 17th APRIL 2012
Dancing Gender: Gesture and Identity among Native American Two Spirits
This presentation explores how Native American gay, lesbian, and transgender people (Two-Spirits or GLBT) find culturally acceptable ways of conveying their gender and sexual identity through dance and performance. Using photographs, clips and over 10 years of research, the presentation shows how ethnicity, gender and sexuality, converge through performed gestures and movement amongst the Native American Two-Spirit community.
Presentation and Q&A with Max Carocci
Dr. Max Carocci has conducted research among Two Spirits since 1991 in several US cities. On the subject he published in 2010: ‘Textiles of Healing: Native American AIDS Memorial Quilts’ Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture; in 2009: ‘Visualizing Gender in Plains Indian Pictographic Art’ American Indian Culture and Research Journal; and in 2004: ‘Reconfiguring Gender in Contemporary Urban Pow-wows’ in The Challenges of Native American Studies B. Saunders and L. Zuyderhoudt (eds.), Leuven: Leuven University Press. His forthcoming publications on the subject are: ‘Native Americans, Europeans, and the Gay Imagination’ in Tribal Fantasies D. Stirrup (Ed.), Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (2013), and ‘Sodomy, Ambiguity, and Feminisation: Homosexual Meanings and the Male Native American Body’ in Indigenous Bodies J. Fear-Segal and R. Tillett (eds.) SUNY Press (2013).
Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands where people come together to celebrate movement.
Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotiontwospirits.eventbrite.com
Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission
* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks
Become an RAI Member or Fellow and come to our events for free!
WEDNESDAY 18th APRIL 2012
Speeding Bodies and the City: From Skateboarding to Car Driving
This presentation explores some of the various ways in which bodies in motion – from skateboarding to walking to automobile driving – produce different experiences of cities and landscapes. Photographs, film clips and music are used to explore the transitory nature of our mobile interaction of the world around us, while also introducing themes of urban politics, bodily senses and mobile aesthetics.
Presentation and Q&A with Dr. Iain Borden
Dr. Iain Borden is Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he is also Vice-Dean for Communications for the Faculty of the Built Environment. His wide-ranging research includes explorations of architecture in relation to critical theory, philosophy, film, gender, boundaries, photography, bodies and spatial experiences. Authored and co-edited books include Drive: Automobile Journeys through Film, Cities and Landscapes (2012), Bartlett Designs: Speculating With Architecture (2009), Manual: the Architecture and Office of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (2003), Skateboarding Space and the City: Architecture and the Body (2001), The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space (2001) and InterSections: Architectural Histories and Critical Theories (2000).
Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands, where people come together to celebrate movement.
Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotionspeeding.eventbrite.com
Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission
* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks
Become an RAI Member or Fellow and come to our events for free!
THURSDAY 26th APRIL 2012
Invisible and Visible Bodies in Ceremonial and Ritual Dance in Java
This presentation will explore dancing in the royal courts and remote highland villages of Java. What are the different layers of meaning behind these dances? And how do Javanese people explain what is going on? Illustrated with film clips and photographs the presentation will draw upon over 30 years of research into Javanese ceremonial and ritual dance, human movement and expression.
Presentation and Q&A with Dr. Felicia Hughes-Freeland
Dr. Felicia Hughes-Freeland is an anthropologist and a documentary filmmaker who has published widely on performance, including Embodied Communities: Dance Traditions and Change in Java (2010) and the films The Dancer and the Dance and Tayuban: Dancing the Spirit in Java (1996). Most recently she edited ‘Gender and Creativity in Southeast Asia’, the guest issue of Indonesia and the Malay World 115 (November 2011). She is currently working on cultural heritage and documentary film as Research Associate at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at SOAS, London.
Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands where people come together to celebrate movement.
Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotiondancing.eventbrite.com
Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission
* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks
Become an RAI Member or Fellow and come to our events for free!
MONDAY 30th APRIL 2012
The Creation of a Ciné Parkour
This presentation explores the transformative aspects of Parkour through film - how one experiences, moves, connects and participates in the environment, challenging notions of normative behaviour, socialisation, identity and self-determining actions through explorations of the self. The films range from quiet observational pieces to montages and first person POV, reflecting Parkour as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Through Parkour led films (as opposed to films about Parkour) this presentation aims to demonstrate how Parkour encourages self-reliance and mutual co-operation whilst enabling participants to reclaim the wonderment and magic of the human experience.
Dr. Julie Angel is an independent filmmaker, directing, shooting and editing self-initiated projects as well as commercial commissions. Julie specialises in documentaries and participatory, shared cinema in a variety of contexts. With a keen interest in visual anthropology, her work has been screened internationally at festivals, in galleries and has a large following online (www.julieangel.com/screenings.html www.youtube.com/slamcamspam). She recently completed a practice-based PhD that documents parkour through the visual anthropology of space, place and the body. Her work involves participant observation and a feedback loop of collaborative production. She explores the documentary form using a range of styles and techniques to create 'parkour led' films where the participant’s voice is heard. Julie is part of the parkour collective Parkour Generations and continues to work and travel with them, exploring new ways to communicate parkour.
Tonight’s event includes a photo and art exhibition illustrating sport, dance and play in diverse landscapes from concrete jungles to remote highlands, where people come together to celebrate movement.
Book your ticket here: http://bodiesinmotionparkour.eventbrite.com
Tickets: Free for RAI Members and Fellows, £3 Students/Concessions, £5 General Admission
* Tickets include a glass of wine, refreshments and snacks
Become an RAI Member or Fellow and come to our events for free!