The Christena Lindborg Schlundt Lecture Series in Dance Studies

DANCING BLACK ATLANTIC BLUE PACIFIC

Weaving the Indigenous and Diaspora 

Ojeya Cruz Banks

Combining auto-ethnography with dance, sung-poetry, and music- this performed research takes you on a journey into the Black Atlantic Blue Pacific.  Family stories and memories are gathered to assemble a portrait of a Black Pacific daughter.  With lineage from the island of Guåhan to Alabama, diaspora and indigenous worlds are not binary, the ancestral oceans are interconnected. This oral history employs dance and chant to map out a shared destiny of Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty.  Weaving Black Pacific worldviews together, the performance investigates what late legendary poet scholar Teresia Teaiwa calls the ‘the ocean in our blood,’ and aims to activate deep relationship building, and sensorial activism.

This event is part of the 2023 "ICR Pachappa: Navigating Place" Indigenous Choreographers at Riverside Gathering Project.

The Schlundt Lecture was endowed by Christena Lindborg Schlundt, a founding faculty member of UCR and of the Department of Dance. The fund is to support annual lectures on new research in critical dance studies and dance making.

Download the poster here

EVENT SCHEDULE

Friday, April 7

Time: 4:00 p.m. PST

Location:

ARTS 166 (Performance Lab)

Format: in-person

Free and open to the public

Advance registration required

PARKING

Complimentary parking is available in Lot 1 Blue for this event. Permits will only be valid for 2 hours, from 3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., on the event date. To reserve your free parking permit, follow these steps:

Step 1: Click on this link.

Step 2. Select Filters & Access Codes on the top left.

Step 3. Enter this code at the bottom of the pop-up window: CODE COMING SOON

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Step 5. Click the green Reserve button for the assigned parking lot.

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If you have trouble reserving your permit through ParkMobile, you may request assistance with using ParkMobile at the Lot 1 kiosk. Plan to arrive at least 30 minutes early if you require assistance. Please note that the kiosk does not sell parking permits.

For any other questions about event parking, please email parking@ucr.edu between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, and allow up to one business day to receive a response.

Bio

Ojeya Cruz Banks (PhD) is a dancer-anthropologist-choreographer.  She works as an Associate Professor of Dance at Denison University. Her research is inspired by her African and Pacific Islander (Guåhan/Guam) American lineages. For over a decade, she worked at the University of Otago in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Cruz Banks’ research and teaching focus on Black/African, Black Pacific and Indigenous Pacific dance education, choreography, and performance. Her research includes topics such as West African dance and Pacific Island dance as sources of pedagogy, somatic practice, spiritual well-being, artistic practice and decolonization. Cruz Banks publishes widely and has worked with people around the globe in locations such as Cuba, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Guinea, Senegal, Fiji, Australia, Guåhan, and Aotearoa/NZ.

Information: dance@ucr.edu