Disappearing Dance Floors: Imagining Justice through Sonic Politics of Belonging

Speakers: Kareem Khubchandani, Amanda Reid, and Jlin

Now more than two years into the pandemic, we have seen dance floors disappear, re-appear, and, in some cases, disappear again. Moderated by Jacob Mallinson Bird, this panel featuring Kareem Khubchandani, Amanda Reid, and JLin will explore the somatic and sonic (after)lives of these disappeared/disappearing dance floors in order to ask: How can the dance floor act as a conduit for justice, belonging, or alienation? Can the dance floor (in its various literal and theoretical locations) serve as a dialogical tool in times of quarantine and epidemics? How can the sonic rupture differences between people, countries, and politics in order to create bridges for transnational belonging? 

Kareem Khubchandani is Mellon Bridge assistant professor in theater, dance, and performance studies, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2020), which received the 2021 Association for Theatre in Higher Education Outstanding Book award, 2021 Dance Studies Association de la Torre Bueno book award, 2021 MLA/ASA Alan Bray Memorial Prize honorable mention, and the 2019 CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies Fellowship. Kareem is also co-editor of Queer Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2021) and curator of criticalauntystudies.com.

Jerrilynn Patton (Jlin) was born 1987 in Gary, Indiana, where she continues to live and work. Jlin's thrilling, emotional, and multidimensional works have earned her a rank as “one of the most forward-thinking contemporary composers in any genre” (Pitchfork). Jlin's signature sound builds on a Chicago footwork style, expanded and warped into a frequency that is solely hers. Her albums Dark Energy (2015) and Black Origami (2017) received critical acclaim, and have been featured “best of” in The New York Times, The Wire, LA Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Vogue. Referencing a wide range of musical movements and techniques, Jlin's collaborations with contemporary artists are just as relevant to her practice exemplified by “JSLOIPNIE,” the product of JLin and the late, iconic SOPHIE. Additional collaborators include William Basinski, Dope Saint Jude, Holly Herndon, and Zora Jones. Jlin has since remixed works for major artists including Björk, Max Richter, Martin Gore (of Depeche Mode), Galya Bisengalieva, Marie Davidson, Nina Kraviz, Ben Frost, and others. Inspired by movement, Jlin has also collaborated with legendary choreographers: Wayne Mcrgregor (2017), and Kyle Abraham (2021).

“Creole Glitches: Desire, Erasure, and the West Indian Archive” | Amanda Reid (she/her) is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Humanities Center and a Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies. She writes and teaches about dance, queer theory, transnationalism, and post-colonial Caribbean black radicalism. Her current manuscript project, Smaddification: Dance and West Indian Decolonization, explores maximalist queer diaspora aesthetics in Jamaican concert dance to theorize West Indian visions of Blackness, bodily freedom, and cultural autonomy. She received her PhD from the Department of History at The University of Michigan. Amanda will join Yale's Theatre and Performance Studies department as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2022.

Moderated by Jacob Mallinson Bird, Lecturer in Music at The Queen’s College, University of Oxford. Bird’s research interrogates lip-syncing in drag performance with particular interested in how the voice functions in such settings, and what the benefits are for the drag queens who employ this unique mode of voicing. More broadly, Bird’s research interests revolve around phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and queer theory.