Black Atlantic Rhythm Map (preview)

International audience Description: 95/100 wordsFrom dance research and decolonial critique emerges an Afrocentric concept of space-time and epistemology. Combining map design with my theory of ‘rhythm codes’ as intangible heritage, I am developing an interactive video map of Black Atlantic rhythms. A prototype has been developed in collaboration with Code Your Future, UK. Software collaboration continues with Gerador, Lisbon, to build a ‘Black Atlantic Rhythm Map’ for a public exhibition in 2024.09. I will present work-in-progress: an interactive demo map, examples of the map content: curated audio/video showing rhythms performed by culture-bearers from Africa, the Americas, or my dance duo ‘Unity’. Relationship to Conference ThemeAs well as celebrating Africanist aesthetics in Black Atlantic dance, this Map is an artistic response to cultural isolation – an attempt to heal the fragmentation of family and culture that flows from slavery into the present day – generation after generation of migrations, a ‘minority’ identity shaped by colonialism, wherever I find myself on the planet. I recognise in hip hop, dancehall, blues, jazz and West African dance (wherever I am), an embodiment of ancestral knowledge, joy and solidarity. Can the Black Atlantic use our rhythmic heritage across space-time and language regions, to find unity?In reply to Euro-colonial erasures and ongoing appropriations of Africanist music and dance, this project aims to unite a fragmented visual, sonic and embodied heritage in a map. The map is based on oral, choreographic and demographic evidence of rhythm origin and lineage – collected through archival sources (maps, museums), and living culture-bearer practices. The first iteration of these ideas was an online exhibition curated of data from my Masters research, presented at CADD 2022 as the website: decodenoir.org. Since 2022, this non-linear story is enriched with more African culture-bearers’ voices and software. It’s becoming an interactive journey of diverse black identities, resilience through trauma, aesthetic heritage, continuity and innovation. With a scope of at least 350 years and many countries, the full realisation of this intangible heritage map could take several years and many more collaborations… so let’s be in touch.PRESENTATION TYPE & RESOURCESPaper Presentation (20 min) using HDMI projector and Powerpoint. i'll distribute a link to the demo site and invite attendees to click on the map to hear/see different rhythms. to facilitate this, attendees would need to bring a device with internet (preferably laptop or tablet) and headphones