What Is Contemporary? Symposium
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 - MOMENT + MOVEMENT Showcase at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, October 16, 2025 - Sessions from 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Co-curated by Keesha Beckford and Dardi McGinley Gallivan
Dance technique, a foundational specificity that is able to be repeated, is a form of entrainment - making something part of a flow and carrying it along. It is the source of all codified dances and how all codified dances are created and embodied. Anything that flows or carries forward is naturally susceptible to adaptation, alteration, evolution. Contemporary is the continuously adapting, altering, evolving expression of dance’s codified forms…or is it?
Is contemporary dance more of a how than a what? Is it open and available to more styles, techniques and points of view, to visual, aural, aesthetic conflation? Is it about being relevant in the moment and the movement? Is contemporary synonymous with innovative or radical? Should it be?
Contemporary means distinctly different things in different dance contexts from concert to community, club to cultural, competition to commercial. Let’s discover and uncover together what is contemporary in dance.
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Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater
Visceral Dance Chicago
Zachary Nicol -
TBA on August 29, 2025
The 2025 Symposium is made possible in part by:
Banner image from When They See Us by Dr. Ayo Walker, pictured: Tiffany Parkerson, Breslin Webb, and Danetra Thomas, photo by Julie Lucas for Columbia College Chicago.
