Are You Dancing or are You Stretching

Let’s get this party started right. Black dance and music are an exact representation of place: out of the migratory hotspots where it has evolved; in the neighborhoods where it originates, through the architecture where it is performed, and in the psychic spaces of those who use it as expression, healing, and joy.

Starting with motion capture and photogrammetry, The Chocolate City Dance Map serves as a mapping of Black somatic choreographic movement, developed in partnership with MIT.nano and the MIT Immersion Lab. This project sits at the crossroads of art, science, technology, and social practice. It will be brought to life through the immersive experience titled “Make Techno Black Again” and by providing access to an open-source digital library of Black dance.

What is a map besides an abstraction of what the body knows innately? Here I posit dance as a type of map, a territorial formation of labor, race, class that maps itself onto the body through movement. Popularized by George Clinton, “Chocolate Cites” refer to the constellation of towns and cities where Black culture is maintained, created, and defended. Places like Detroit, Chi-town, and Philly. Enclaves like Tremé, Harlem and Holly Springs. Places that articulate their own sound and gesture.