Migration and Memory in Cuban Ballet Pedagogy (2025)
By Samantha Sacks
How does the body express and transmit memory through dance? How does culture inform ballet pedagogy? To what lineages of movement do we belong?
Migration and Memory in Cuban Ballet Pedagogy is a workshop that explores the dialogic encounter between student and teacher, between technique and culture. This project asks how memories are stored in gesture and embedded in pedagogy, and what happens to technique and to dancers when translated or transferred to new social, artistic and political contexts. In interviews with Cuban ballet teachers residing in the United States, I use oral history to emulate and deconstruct the ballet class encounter.
This event will feature the screening of an in-progress film project, and a participatory movement/ writing/ conversation based workshop. We will practice ways of listening for and embodying memory related to movement.
This is an event for dancers and dance people from any movement background