Black Phoenixing: Dancing Through the Ruins

​The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance Conference (CADD) seeks scholarship that speaks to permanence and subversiveness in Black Dance traditions for its 2026 Conference, “Black Phoenixing: Dancing Through the Ruins.” We ask: how do the dances of our ancestors move through our descendants and how do our legacies inform the way we embody creative gesture? How do we recognize the “Phoenixing” of Africa in our current dance practices? How do we rise to the future? What remains today, and what sustains us? How does our connection to our ancestors transform the way we conjure dance?

Lines of Inquiry

• Dance practices that potentiate the emergence of Black radical infrastructures amid the collapse of traditional institutions.
  
• Exploration of the growth and sustainment of Black Diaspora dance/movements.
  
• The dynamic flow between Black social dance and Black activism
  
• African Diaspora Dance in higher education: opportunities and challenges.
  
• African Diaspora Dance: The New Black Arts Movement
  
• Ways of being brought on by the convergence of Black Queer Life and Dance.
  
•  Communal Black Dance as a counter to systemic anti-Black and gendered violence.
  
• Resistant practices--choreopolitical, communal, and embodied—that emerge through Black Dance as a collective practice.

Selection Criteria

• How well does the proposal reflect CADD’s mission to “facilitate interdisciplinary inquiry that captures the variety of topics, approaches, and methods that might constitute Black Dance Studies?”
  
• How well does the proposal reflect CADD’s 2026 theme, “Black Phoenixing: Dancing Through the Ruins?”
  
• In what ways does the research in the proposal offer a “fresh” perspective on existing Black dance traditions?
  
• In what ways does the proposal potentiate increased awareness and readership of Black dance scholarship?
  
• In what ways does the proposal reveal an innovative and/or effective research design?

​INVITED RESEARCHERS WILL BE NOTIFIED NO LATER THAN
​
DECEMBER 1, 2025.

CADD seeks dance artists, and scholars to present their emergent research in the following modalities.

• Paper Presentation (20 minutes)
• Workshop - Technique (60 minutes)
• Workshop - Other (60 minutes)
• Pre-formed Panel (70-minutes)
• Choreography (5 minutes minimum to 8 minutes maximum)

SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

QUESTIONS

Important Notes for 2026

The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance aims to facilitate an interdisciplinary discussion that captures a variety of topics, approaches, and methods that might constitute Black Dance Studies

• CADD is only accepting proposals for “in-person” presentations for the 2026 Conference.
• CADD will only accept one session proposal per lead presenter. However, a presenter can co-present in multiple sessions.​