Examining the Ethics of Fusion and Collective Cultural Memory in the Age of the Internet

Cultural fusion is as old as contact between peoples, but the subject is now being approached with regard for the Internet as a novel mode of information transmission. The Internet has grown to become supra-national in its scope and influence, eluding government regulation and attempts to control the norms of usage. The digital commons has become a self-selecting, self-regulating, and transnational community through which Transnational Dance participants deliberately search out influences beyond their home culture or nation-state borders. As a community, they formulate a fast-moving global exchange of music, dance and expressive artistry that possesses a distinctly pluralistic approach to art-making. As early pioneers of a new visual and movement culture, transnational fusion participants are now undertaking efforts to collaboratively workshop a theoretical foundation for their art, and define their own signature values. Collectively, all "netizens" are also questioning how using machines for human exchange may dehumanize and pathologize some of our behaviors. These issues will be examined with surprising and often amusing insights about our digital connectivity and emerging global citizenship.

This event will open with a 10 minute transnational dance performance by visiting Colorado University of Boulder Assistant Dance Professor Donna Mejia. After the performance, join Donna Mejia, Henry Daniel, and Adel Iskandar for this pressing and timely conversation about fusion and cultural memory.

This event will take place on the unceded and occupied Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

ASL is available upon request. Requests must be submitted no later than Wednesday November 1. To request ASL please email laura_albert@sfu.ca.

PANELIST BIOS

Donna Mejia is an international touring artist and Assistant Professor of dance at CU-Boulder, Colorado specializing in transnational fusion and traditions of the Arab/African Diaspora, ethnic studies, gender studies, pedagogy and ethics. Donna served as Artist in Residence for fifteen universities, and completed her graduate studies on full fellowship. She has headlined over 50 international festivals since 2012 and received the Fulbright Association's 2011 Selma Jeanne Cohen honor for International Dance Scholarship. She tours globally to teach, lecture, direct and perform. For more information please visit her at donnainthedance.com

Henry Daniel, Professor of Dance, Performance Studies and New Technology, scholar, performer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of Full Performing Bodies, Daniel’s research concentrates on strengthening notions of Practice-as-Research (PaR), Arts-based-Research, and Research/Creation in Canada. He has a professional background in dance, theatre, and new media with a career that started in his native Trinidad & Tobago and continued in the USA, Germany, the UK, and Canada. Daniel’s current choreographic research takes it inspiration from what cultural theorist Stuart Hall calls "the prototype of the modern or postmodern New World nomad, continually moving between centre and periphery” (Hall in Rutherford, J. 234:1990).

Adel Iskandar is an Assistant Professor and co-Director of the Global Communication MA program in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. He is the author, co-author, and editor of several works including Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution; Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism; Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation; and Mediating the Arab Uprisings. Iskandar's work deals with media, identity and politics; and he has lectured extensively on these topics at universities worldwide. He is a co-editor of Jadaliyya and associate producer of academic podcast Status.

ABOUT LUCITERRA DANCE SOCIETY
Luciterra Dance Society is a Vancouver based experimental dance school, founded in 2009. Focussing on isolation technique and dynamic choreography, Luciterra's classes explore histories and socio-cultural implications of the dance forms that have contributed to their practice. Luciterra teaches regular weekly classes, and has performed and taught across Turtle Island.