CORD

My first real conference is shaping up to being quite an interesting experience. I can't say this necessarily defies my expectations, but actually being here feels different. The words that keep coming to mind - fraught and bifurcated.

The theme of the CORD conference is Dance and Global Feminisms, which has brought in a really diverse group of presenters. So I have sat in on sessions about Brazilian samba, the Thriller YouTube video of Filipino prisoners, among others. I have gone to quite a few sessions about pedagogy from the dance perspective. Met some really interesting people. Here is what I have learned so far:

• I think I have found the home for my tango research. There was one whole session today analyzing social dance in larger contexts. Holy crap!
• But at heart, I am still a theatre kid. Attending the jam last night really confirmed that.
• Which puts me in a weird place in my work. I know that that technically my degree would be in "Theater & Dance," but it feels more like a concession or something. The only connection I have really noticed between the two is the ampersand.
• The UCSB theatre theory people have enough separation (and for some, contempt) for theatre practice. I can only imagine trying to force them to talk to dancers.
  
• In case I wasn't already thinking it, transfer is now a recurring word in my vocabulary. Then again, I don't know where, since a) I am not the same kind of dancer as all the rest of them, b) I do love theatre and c) who's to say it would be any better/worse. There are some really exciting looking programs out there, I just don't know about practicalities and fit.
• There's a lot of tension about the relationship with technology especially in the live/body field of dance.

Overall, I feel like I have a much better vocabulary to discuss my research, and ways to communicate with scholars. And I feel much more justified in my research, and less like the novelty act in the theatre department.

(sorry for posting the photo after-the-fact.
A session about dance pedagogy.
I love how dancers naturally gravitate to the floor - all the better for stretching.)