Digital Archive: Archiving with Bare Feet

Archiving with Bare Feet is a digital archive that documents the choreographic process, Climbing with Bare Feet, and the 2007 performance that came from it: Truth & Transparency. This relaxed online launch will include an introduction from artist Adesola Akinleye, navigations through the archive from Renée Bellamy and Natifah White, and space for conversation and reflection.

Truth & Transparency is a choreography for two performers and one dancer who manipulates an image projected onto the stage using a mirror. The work was inspired by Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’ and Adesola’s reflections on bringing-up their own children as two Black youth. The piece researched Step and Crumping dance forms, and foreshadowed new technology using projection in real-time to manipulate the audience’s perception of dancers and space.

Archiving with Bare Feet takes up the challenge of archiving artistic process, from Adesola’s perspective as a Black, female presenting, choreographer – a perspective which placed them outside the British dance mainstream in 2007. Collating various materials – footage, reflections, restagings – the archive reflects on what happens to the work of a dancer or a choreographer when it is/they are archived. Instead of presenting choreographic work as something that lives outside of a particular time; this archive understands it as living, existing through ongoing processes and the artistic knowledge it generates.

Adesola Akinleye is a choreographer artist-scholar creating dance works ranging from dance films, installation, texts to live performance that are often site-specific. They draw on Indigenous/Africanist worldviews to explore how movement demonstrates the intra-connection of body-mind-environment. Adesola’s work is characterized by an interest in glimpsing and voicing peoples lived experiences through creative moving image. A key aspect of their work is the artistry of exchanging creative processes. They co-direct DancingStrong Movement Lab.