(Last updated: March 8, 2019)
Saturday, March 9th, 2019
10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Thompson Room, Barker center
This year’s event, entitled Kinetic Folklore explores the idea of folkloristic movement in multiple senses and through various expressive practices. Hearkening back to our Committee’s first major event “Dance, Drum, and Drink” (whose 15th anniversary we will coincidentally be celebrating this year), Kinetic Folklore will examine a variety of embodied, musical, material, and oral traditions, as we think through how folklore moves from place to place, from time to time, and from body to body. Symposium participants will partake directly in the expressive, embodied energy of folklore through the oral presentation of their own works, through intersubjective engagement with one another, and through performances by practitioners who bring folklore to life through kinesis. To this end, we are planning a fittingly kinetic event that will punctuate scholarly presentations with convivial discussions and embodied performances including dance, song, drumming, storytelling, and the exploration of local foodways.
9:30 - 10:00 - Coffee, tea and pastries
10:00 - 10:15 INTRODUCTION (Lowell Brower)
10:15 - 12:45 - KINETICS - THEORY & PRACTICE
- Marcel LaFlamme, "Kinetic Capabilities"
- Bill Westerman, "The African Roots of American Folkloristics"
- Montana Miller, "'Rescue': An Aerialist Recalls Life, Flight, Love, and Trauma through Embodied Personal Experience Narrative"
BREAK
Remarks by Steve Mitchell, David Elmer, Kay Shelemay
- Theodore Longlois, "The Body as a Gift: A Boston Ifá Community's Celebration of Ogún"
- Wayne Marshall, "Why '7 Rings' Rings So Many Bells"
12:45 - 1:45 LUNCH (provided)
1:45 - 3:30 - STORYTELLING
Remarks by Maria Tatar, David Guss, Grete Viddal
- Rebecca Nesson, "'Um, that's not a story!': A Moth-style personal narrative"
- Jake Barton, "Storytelling, Myth-Making, and Small Group Formation"
- Devi Lockwood, "Seven Continents. 20 Countries. 1,001 Stories. How I learned to listen"
- Sara Berliner, "The Deborah Foster Fan Club, 2019 Meeting"
BREAK
3:30 - 3:45 - Kate Chadbourne, "Fairy Dances"
3:45 - 5:15 - MOVEMENT
- Sharon Kivenko, "'I already know what I think, I want to know what YOU think': Doing Kinetic Folklore"'
- Ingrid Monson, "Dancing (and teaching) with Deborah"
- Tomie Hahn, "Foster-ing Body Rituals"
- Nancy Watterson & Lan Tran, “Zhong Xin Dao—Observing Neutral Centers to Connect and Move”
5:15 - 6:00 - DANCE & DRUM
- Jean Appolon Expressions (Haitian traditional dance)
6:00 - 7:30 - DINNER (provided)
(Free and open to the public.)