In-the-between-ness: decolonising and re-inhabiting our dancing

In this chapter, Akinleye and Kindred discuss their need to be alert to how Western values creep into their creative processes through the language they use to discuss, describe and facilitate dance. The chapter explores their attempts to extract their ‘dancing bodies’ and choreographic processes from the Imperialist language of Western binaries. Despite their creative processes being informed by their multicultural, trans-national life experiences, how they talk about, or describe their work is often limited by the necessity of describing it using Western mainstream terms, which they suggest is a continuing legacy of colonization. The chapter discusses ways they have sought to decolonize the environment of their creative exploration.

Co-authored chapter published in the book, Narratives of Black British Dance