We are delighted to share that Tia-Monique Uzor’s essay “Tidalectic Un/mapping and the Performance of African Diasporic Imagination in the Repertory of Katherine Dunham” has been short-listed for the Lynette Goddard Award for Research Excellence.
This prize, awarded jointly by DramaHE and TaPRA, celebrates a single piece of short-form research in the public domain from scholars at any stage of their career from Black and Global Majority heritages that makes a significant contribution to our understanding of performance and its broader interventions, be they disciplinary, cultural, political or otherwise. For more information, visit: http://tapra.org/lynette-goddard-award-for-research-excellence
“Tidalectic Un/mapping” was published open access in Dance Research Journal as part of Dunham’s Data. You can read more from Tia-Monique about her essay here: https://dunhamsdata.org/index.php/blog/uzortidalectic.
UPDATE! Tia-Monique's essay was chosen as a co-winner. Here is the award citation:
This essay, which sheds light on the Brazil-inspired choreographic works of Katherine Dunham through digital tools and Kamau E. Brathwaite’s concept of ‘Tidalectics’ is rigorously developed and persuasively argued. It brings attention to Dunham’s Brazil-inspired choreography, a part of her repertory that has received little critical attention compared to her more widely studied Caribbean works. Extending Brathwaite’s concept of Tidalectics beyond its original framing, Uzor explores how imagination works as a creative and political tool in African diasporic dance. By combining digital data sets and archival materials from the Dunham’s Data project, Uzor revisits Dunham’s choreographic process as a deeply imaginative response to histories of displacement and erasure. Uzor’s integration of digital humanities methods with Black Caribbean theory offers a compelling model for future research, one that is both historically grounded and methodologically expansive. It could also serve as a good pedagogical example of how to integrate digital tools, theory, and performance analysis in the classroom, and open up new pathways for teaching interdisciplinary approaches.
Congratulations, Tia-Monique!