Mellon Foundation Supports SLIPPAGE

Laboratory at Northwestern University Race, Black Dance and the Embodied Geographies of Freedom

2023-2025

This research output is a part of the Mellon Foundation-funded project Race, Black Dance, and Embodied Geographies of Freedom, a humanities-driven initiative that explored how we gather histories of social dancing as living documents of practice embedded within ever-emergent Black Life. The initial three-year project took on manifestations of social dance in six cities as a way to characterize and understand Black Thought through the practices of people engaged in embodied arts. The question of “freedom” a temporary possibility made manifest in dance acts as a grounding assumption available to researchers who joined into the project.

This book reflects research presentations from the first four meetings of the project. A fifth, summary symposium took place November 6-9, 2025 at Northwestern University.

At these meetings, embodied researchers, all specialists in Black Dance and Black social formations, gathered to imagine relevant research methods that underscore the theoretical and experiential complexity of movements we call Black Social Dance. Six research cities were been chosen to provide a wealth of information about how Black Social Dance Moves: Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

The project continues to produce a number of research outputs, including this special anthology of original writings featuring materials from the participating researchers of the first four symposia, and a larger, separate volume of research, each edited by Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Webster B. McDonald and Principal Investigator Thomas F. DeFrantz. For more information about the project, and to access moving image documentation of the research symposia, please see slippage.org.

Contributors: Thomas F. DeFrantz, Michelle “Mz. G” Gibson, Rosemarie A. Roberts, Junious L. Brickhouse, Gabrielle “Queen Gabby” McLeod, “Queen Dinita” Clark, Kyle “JustSole” Clark, Xavier Livermon, Kemi Adeyemi, DJ Celeste Alexander, F. Moncell Durden, Raquel Monroe, Naomi Bragin, Gianina K.L. Strother, Melanie George, Imani Kai Johnson, Julie B. Johnson, Ra/Malika, Cici Kelley, Anuli Akanegbu, Webster McDonald, Wills Glasspiegel, Meida McNeal, Aaliyah Christina, Jen “Po’ Chop”, Ayo Walker, Jamal “Litebulb” Oliver, Danielle Roper, Michael “Mike D Chicago”.