Encountering disability through contemporary dance in Africa

该项目响应了2018年制定的2030年联合国可持续发展目标，该目标强调了特定少数群体的需求，包括“残疾人”;并坚持“不让任何人掉队”（Murphy，2018：1）。然而，正如我们在新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情中看到的那样，残疾人被抛在后面，往往是死亡。这加剧了非洲的极端不平等问题，因为其他因素已经使残疾人边缘化。它将探讨综合/残疾人舞蹈作为一种体现形式的方式，可以突出和揭示非洲公民身份是如何通过独立后背景下未经询问的殖民框架在社会上构建和概念化的。它旨在追踪能够挑战和改变这些观念的方法，从而追踪非洲残疾人的生活经历。该项目分为两个部分-第一部分是概念和方法。我们将开始考虑从不同的角度残疾的不同方法，采取关键的残疾研究方法，包括后殖民和土著的观点。然后我们会问，如何将身体，学习或神经功能不同的身体放在非洲的舞蹈背景下，可以破坏关于传统人体的统一性，普遍性和有用性的规范性叙述，特别是当社会身体主要通过经济生产的资本主义框架来表达时，就像定居者/殖民主义和种族隔离一样，人们的价值是由他们对社会做出贡献的感知能力来定义的，而不是需要它的支持，身体，经济等舞蹈是一种理想的形式，通过它来使可见和挑战这些关于残疾的观点，因为“舞蹈有利于能够工作的身体，一个控制的身体”（Loots）;当残疾人的身体进入这个超能力的空间时，它的存在本身就挑战了社会、性和政治规范的文化表征。本研究的第二部分将通过肯尼亚、尼日利亚、乌干达和南非的特定综合/残疾人舞蹈公司和编舞家如何在实践中发挥作用。我们还将考虑这些方法如何与英国和欧洲-爱尔兰，荷兰，意大利和弗兰德斯-通过2022年10月在约翰内斯堡Sibikwa艺术的首届综合舞蹈节进行的类似工作进行比较，其中一些公司正在与残疾人和健全的舞者合作创作新作品。我们将通过表演，研讨会和圆桌讨论来探索他们多样化的综合舞蹈实践-追踪综合舞蹈作品的复杂艺术实践的多样性，-阐明舞蹈如何具有独特的能力来阐明现代公民概念的实质性缺陷和排他性，并提供一种途径来解决这些问题，通过这种综合形式的舞蹈，允许自适应的舞蹈编排，- 考虑综合舞蹈如何/是否能培养家庭/归属感（公民权）对于那些因残疾而被边缘化的人，把非洲和欧洲做个比较我们将追踪这些艺术家开发的特定舞蹈方法，以探索与残疾和公民身份相关的问题并通过为期2天的在线座谈会（第一年）和由UKZN主办的残疾人舞蹈节-实践座谈会促进这些做法的分享，我们的合作者将面对面地交流和分享工作。这将使我们能够对舞蹈、残疾和公民权采取非殖民化的做法，并更广泛地传播现有的良好做法。其成果将是一本书和视听材料，可通过项目网站查阅，这些材料用从业人员自己的话反映他们自己的工作和经验。

This project responds to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, set out in 2018 for 2030, which highlights the needs of specific minorities, including 'people with disabilities'; and insists on 'leaving no one behind' (Murphy, 2018:1). Yet, as we have seen with Covid-19, people with disabilities have been left behind, often to die. This has exacerbated issues of extreme inequality in Africa where other factors already marginalise disabled persons. It will scope ways in which integrated/ disabled dance, as an embodied form can both highlight and expose how citizenship in Africa has been and is being socially constructed and conceptualised through uninterrogated colonial frames in post-independence contexts. It aims to trace methodologies that can challenge and change these perceptions and thus the lived experiences of disabled people in Africa. This project is set out in two parts - the first is conceptual and methodological. We will begin by considering different approaches to disability from diverse perspectives, taking a critical disability studies approach that includes postcolonial and indigenous perspectives. Then we will ask how placing the physically, learning or neurologically differently-abled body in a dance context in Africa can disrupt the normative narratives regarding the unity, universality and usefulness of the conventional human body, particularly when the social body is articulated primarily through a capitalist frame of economic production, as was the case under settler/colonialism and apartheid, where peoples' worth is defined by their perceived ability to contribute to society, as opposed to needing support from it, physically, economically, etc. Dance is the ideal form through which to make visible and challenge these views on disability because 'dance favours the able working body, a body in control' (Loots); and when the disabled body enters this space of super-ability, its very presence challenges cultural representations of social, sexual and political norms.The second part of this study will work through practice by how specific integrated/ disabled dance companies and choreographers in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa are engaging citizenship in and thorough their work. We will also consider how these approaches compare to similar work being done in UK and Europe - Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy and Flanders, via the inaugural integrated dance festival at Sibikwa Arts in October 2022 in Johannesburg, where some of these companies are collaboratively creating new work with disabled and able-bodied dancers. We will explore their diverse integrated dance practice via performances, workshops and roundtable discussions to - trace the diversity of the sophisticated artistic practices of integrated dance work, - articulate how dance has a unique capacity both to illuminate the substantial flaws and exclusionary nature of modern concepts of citizenship, and offer a path to resolving these issues through this integrated form of dance that allows for adaptive choreographies,- consider how / whether integrated dance can foster a sense of home/ belonging (citizenship) for those that have been marginalised due to disability, and- and compare African and Europe/ global integrated dance practices.We will trace the specific choreographic methodologies these artists have developed to explore issues related to disability and citizenship in their contexts and facilitate the sharing of these practices via a 2-day online colloquium (year 1) and a Disability dance festival-colloquium of practice hosted by UKZN, where our collaborators will meet and share work face to face. This will enable us to decolonise approaches to dance, disability and citizenship and disseminate existing good practice more extensively. The outcomes will be a book and audio-visual material accessible via a project website that reflects the practitioners own work and experiences in their own words.