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Engaged Graduate Student Grants

Writing the Body through Virtual Choreography

Supporting black women in Chicago to use a combination of dance and virtual reality to explore their personal stories

Many of us log in to mobile devices, apps and websites every day, rarely considering what’s at stake as companies access more detailed data about our lives — and use it to their advantage. This universal issue is particularly poignant for black women, who carry a history of having their bodily information captured and commodified by others, illustrated by such cases as Sarah Baartman, Henrietta Lacks and J. Marion Sims.

In this project, Elizabeth Alexander and her community partner, Michelle Penn, are researching and facilitating a weeklong workshop for black women to explore dance and virtual reality as tools to hack this bodily data flow. Participants will have the opportunity to consider the reality and the possibilities of recording and interpreting the moving body through technology.

Topics: Access, Equity and Justice; Arts, Communication, Media and Design; Culture, Language and History

The Team

  • Graduate student:  Elizabeth Alexander, English language and literature
  • Special committee chair:  Kate McCullough, Department of English

    College of Arts and Sciences

  • Community partner:  Michelle Penn

Engaged Graduate Student Grants

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