A 2024 invitation to Oxford University researchers from dance artist Jane Castree:
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I would like to extend an invitation for an academic researcher to collaborate with me on an exciting interdisciplinary arts project ‘Bye Bye Binary’ (inspired by the work of bell hooks).
There are two strands to the research; one is the academic research strand exploring more deeply the themes and how they will then translate into the development of artistic ideas for the creation of a professional piece of work; and the other involves wider community engagement also around the themes of the work.
I am keen for the local community engagement to be delivered in some of the areas that have been identified as Arts Council England’s priority places, using different approaches to engage communities (e.g. being in-situ within an art gallery to engage local residents and gallery visitors, or through linking up with different locally-based dance groups in the area). Once the professional performance work has been created, the intention will be to then tour it to those areas where community-based research was carried out.
The research element of this project will run throughout the process of the creation of the work, presenting an opportunity for longer-term and more in-depth engagement by a research collaborator.
Bye Bye Binary is a researched based choreographic project inspired by the writings of bell hooks on binary culture. Bell hooks is an American author, theorist, educator and social critic, best known for her writings on race, feminism, and class. The focus of her writing explores the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and what she describes as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination. Her work on binary culture describes how our culture prescribes and promotes establishing two categories and then places one group above the other: enforcing sexism, racism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination based on disability, class, age etc, and explores how binaries help to enforce these cultures of domination.
Bye, Bye Binary will be an ironic work that pre-empts and celebrates the end of binary culture by imagining that it has already happened. I will work with a cast of diverse performers that represent a range of voices past the usual binary distinctions. The work will celebrate how rich and diverse humans are and promote making space for complexity rather than simplifying our natures to conform to binary distinctions. bells’ work formed the basis of my recent residency at Modern Art Oxford (collaborative research opportunity as part of MAO’s Boundary Encounters). My partnership with MAO will continue into 2025.
I hugely value the link between academic research, public performance and the sharing of research; by creating opportunities that are open and accessible. Collaboration, inclusivity and interdisciplinary practice underpins all my work, and my collaborative process is largely research-based with time built-in time for reflection and exploration for the whole artistic team. I am very keen for the academic research strand of Bye Bye Binary to be embedded integrally within the project as a whole and am therefore would like to identify an academic research collaborator as soon as possible.
There are three specific outcomes I’m keen to develop through a collaboration with a researcher: Wider engagement of general public to contribute to the R&D / creation process, Creation of a digital, interactive bibliography exploring the themes of the work (to accompany the tour of the live performance work) and Creation of an academic Bibliography (that would accompany a lecture-dem style workshop that would tour universities to engage with graduate and post-graduate students).
I am neurodivergent and welcome the opportunity to work with an academic that is open to finding communication methods that enable us both to work to reach our full potential. I am excited to explore the meeting points of academia and the arts, to foster an innovative approach to exchanging knowledge and ideas with the wider community.
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If you are interested, please email alex.coke@humanities.ox.ac.uk - please note, we are currently looking for faculty post-holders to join this project.
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