Chats Vol. 1: Social Choreography in the Digital: where bodies might

Curated by Thomas F. DeFrantz and Al Evangelista, Conversations’ first Chat speaks to our current moment of digital access, potential, and inclusion. A recent Social Text issue asks us to consider the international responses and contexts as they relate to the pandemic. Our inaugural volume of Chats takes inspiration from this issue to consider the digital content of the pandemic from a choreographic lens. Some questions that the contributors address include the following:

• In an unending pandemic, proximity continues to be compounded with technology, but where are our bodies in these digital spaces?

• Why did this technology only become more common during the pandemic when disabled bodies had asked for this technology for so long?

• If the discussion of being “zoomed out” is prevalent, despite the technology providing the most inclusive and accessible option for the global majority, then how do digital dance spaces imagine inclusion? 

This issue is also indebted to the range of innovative digital care practices that the pandemic finally made widely available. This short inaugural volume of Chats helps ground us in the digital as artists and scholars of bodies and movement. The contributions center on forms of digital care.

There are two main components to this inaugural volume of Chats. First is content shared in the form of writing and/or videos:

The second is an augmented reality interface based on each contribution. With the link provided below, you will be able to place digitally-altered worlds right on your phone.

There are many choreographic and digital factors to consider, more than can be can covered here. This is a first step.