allison fall proposal

Social Networking within the African Dance Communities in the Chicago Area
A proposal by Allison Fall

Through action research of African dance that is happening now I will create a “Tap Room” at the SAIC event at the SSCAC that will share insight of how dance now connects to the past. By participating in African dance classes for the next two months I will become connected to a network of dancers and musicians. I will gain a greater understanding of movement that is passed on from generation to generation. The South Side Community Art Center, SSCAC, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SAIC, have a relationship that has continued to grow overtime. As a grad student at SAIC I will foster this relationship by adding to the community of artists that I will connect with during my action research within the African dance community in the Chicago area.

I propose to have a “Tap Room”, where I will facilitate small tap dance workshops. I will teach people various tap dance steps, which has deep roots within African traditions. In an effort to expose people to the action research I collect, I will create a Powerpoint presentation of interviews and music that I find. I will also share stories of my experience of networking within the African dance community. The tap dance learned becomes a vehicle to present an insight into the history of African dance as well as a present representation of dance.

My experience of researching Traditional Italian Folk dance and doing field research and interviews over the past seven years will help contextualize the beginning phases of the process of my research. Within the following nine weeks I will only begin to tap into what the African dance community in the Chicago area has to offer. I will create a social network of dancers and musicians and use the knowledge I already have of tap dance to provide the beginning of using dance as a resource to understanding our past while remaining focused on the present and the future.


Timeline:
3.17.09
-Group collaboration discussions
3.20.09
-African dance class: action research
3.21.09
-Research articles online about Mutu Dance Company and possible interviews
3.24.09
-Group collaboration discussions
3.27.09
-African dance class: action research
3.28.09
-African dance class: action research
3.31.09
-Group collaboration discussions, possible visit to Mutu dance studio?
4.3.09
-African dance class: action research
4.4.09
-Interview day if no articles are found
4.7.09
-Group collaboration discussions, possible visit to Mutu dance studio?
4.10.09
-African dance class: action research
4.11.09
-Start organizing interviews and begin work on Powerpoint presentation
4.14.09
-Group collaboration discussions
4.17.09 and 4.18.09
-African dance class: action research
-Talk to drummers/musicians about possibility of coming to SSCAC for our event
4.21.09
-Group collaboration discussions
4.24.09
-African dance class: action research
4.25.09
-Reconnect with drummer/musicians about coming to the event at SSCAC
4.28.09
-Final discussion before the event happens
4.30.09 and 5.1.09
-Finish PowerPoint presentation
-Choreograph 10 tap dance combinations for the “tap room”
-Take last African dance class