Dance & Academia: Moving the Boundaries and Oxford Dance Forum present:

Individualising Cultural Knowledge in Clay Body Sites

Debbie Fionn Barr with Vidya Thirunarayan

Interactive presentation and discussion on Vidya Thirunarayan’s interlocked practices of clay pottery and Bharata Natyam dance, and how these can illuminate an understanding of entry points to a migrated cultural form.

Saturday 30 March 2019, 2-4pm

Ark T Centre, Crowell Road, Temple Cowley, Oxford OX4 3LN

£12 (£10 for Oxford Dance Forum members)

Pay cash on the door, reserve in advance by emailing miranda@mirandalaurence.co.uk

In this interactive presentation and discussion, choreographer and researcher Debbie Fionn Barr explores the practices of Bharata Natyam dance artist and potter Vidya Thirunarayan, questioning how this Diaspora artist has negotiated dislocation from the cultural, religious, historic and social moorings that support her Bharata Natyam form and practice. Furthermore, she investigates the ways Vidya reclaims specificity of her migrated classical practice through clay and dance.

Working across the physical mediums of clay and dance has led Vidya to consider common aspects of the individual forms. Reclaiming specificity of a migrated cultural form in a way that is meaningful to the practitioner can be difficult in an arena of modernist arts’ sector consciousness and globalised dancing bodies, where cultural forms can become flattened and differences erased. The artist’s curiosity has led to a proposition that each medium might in fact unlock aspects of and access to the other, creating new entry points and different lenses. Clay is thus examined as a catalytic and transformative medium that enables Vidya’s relationship with Bharata Natyam to evolve.

This workshop is open to all, including dance practitioners, academics in any field, and anyone interested. The presentation will include demonstration and participative activities, and will conclude with plenty of time for discussion. Refreshments provided!

Dance & Academia: Moving the Boundaries is an Oxford-based project, aiming to facilitate dialogue between practitioners, academics in any field, and lay people, who have an interest in any aspect of dance or movement.
Oxford is a city with a rich academic heritage and is also host to a strong community of professional dance practitioners. Dance & Academia aims to be a genuinely interdisciplinary platform where intersections between research and practice in dance can be explored. The group welcomes everyone regardless of background, and intends to be an egalitarian space respecting and exchanging all kinds of different ways of knowing.