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Black Performance Theory:

A Working Group

The Black Performance Theory working group is an interdisciplinary colloquium and discussion group that assembles a small group of scholar/practitioners working with and through performance to investigate and articulate black performance theory. 

The establishment of this working group presents us with a unique opportunity to gather and discuss issues, paradigms, and approaches to theorizing black performance. As we make valuable connections as a community of scholars, we will  work towards addressing questions, such as:

What is a black sensibility?

What is black performance?

What is black music?

What is black dance?

What is black oratory? 

In the 21st century, what is a black aesthetic?

This working group continues a conversation begun in 1998 at Duke University, at the one-day conference "Reading, Writing, and Representin': Performance and the Subjects of Race" curated by Richard C. Green.

The bulk of the working group time is devoted to discussion, with the aim of  raising more questions and hopefully establishing frames for black performance critique and analysis.

Announcing a colloquium and discussion group to meet at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, 18-20 2007, sponsored by the Northwestern Department of Perofrmance Studies, ALice Berline Kaplan Humanities Insittute Mellon Grant, SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture Technology at MIT, and hosted by Jennifer Brody, E. Patrick Johnson, and Harvey Young, convened with Thomas F. DeFrantz.

Please contact E. Patrick Johnson at for more information about the event, or Thomas F. DeFrantz to join the group's mailing list.