A new blog, a new beginning, in my hopefully last year of PhD. As I will be less travelling, I felt the need to keep in contact with the world, and gather here the many projects I'm involved with locally in Montreal where my life keeps swinging.
I'll be again, writing mostly in English. I might switch to French from time to time.
I'm intending to post here my DJ sets, performances, maybe some interesting finds, always in the field of jazz dance and jazz music, from now, from then.
I'm not sure how to manage pages/articles, but I'll figure it out along the way.
If you are passing by, hello and welcome. I hope you'll come back again for a little longer. Talk to me, let's exchange about this Magnifique and Grand world of jazz dance!
In this blog you will find :
- An introduction to my on-going academic work on the current revival of interest in Lindy hop.
- Links to the performance troupes I'm involved with:
** In Lindy hop, meet the Northern Lights, a gang of happy feet based in Montreal
** In Jazz dance, meet the W Project, a troupe exploring the various representations of jazz, danced by Women.
** The Chorus Line! Behind this project, you will find Marie N'Diaye, all the way in Stockholm, digging into the extraordinary world of original African American Chorus Lines of the 20's-40's. It's the trans-Atlantic Chorus-line-bound.
- Some of my personal explorations, as a soloist, or in my partnerships.
- My music collection for dancers
- The dance school that has become a home, a place of exploration, a circle of peers devoted to the same passion. There we are enriched by endless discussions about the meanings of dance, the meaning of transmission and preservation, the meaning of community...
- My Pinterest boards, to fulfill my image collection cravings, on jazz dance, jazz music, jazz culture, jazz aesthetics, fashion, art, humanities
- My YouTube playlists, where I gather my audio-visual inspiration
- The latest project, the "Jazz Rhythm Inspiration" FB page, taken over by some passionate kids who keep the spirit alive
All of it are projects of exploration. Non intend to give closed answers or suggest a one-track thinking. I only talk from the place I stand, the choices I make, the relative and humble understanding I have experienced. Whatever the weight you will give to my voice, it is only a voice. I care for the standpoint of jazz dance, I care for its distinct language, space, circle.
Jazz comes from a place of spirituality, from a place of love, from a burst of freedom. It also comes from a place of pain, of grief, of oppression. There is no barriers to the experience of jazz. But it might very well slip away from you if you don't pay attention. It all begins inside the circle. Care for the circle.
"The circle of the dance is a permissive circle: it protects and permits. [dance] may be deciphered, as in an open book, [as] the huge effort of a community to exorcise itself, to liberate itself, to explain itself. There are no limits - inside the circle." (Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1963)
Anaïs.
