“Moving to Live and Migrating to Survive Through Inclusive Digital Dance Practices,” an article that presents a conversation between Associate Professor of Dance Kim Jones and Fen Kennedy, a dance professor at the University of Alabama, was recently published in the journal Dance Education in Practice. In their conversation, recorded in April 2021, Jones and Kennedy discuss the virtual dance community that Jones’s company, Movement Migration, established during the pandemic.
Jones founded Movement Migration in 2017. The intergenerational dance company includes former principal dancers from major companies, such as the José Limón Company and the Martha Graham Company, where Jones danced from 2001 to 2006. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Jones established a successful virtual international dance education program that ultimately attracted more than 300 students and 35 instructors who represented 14 nations. The classes served dancers across a wide range of experience levels and with classes in many different techniques, including Colombian traditional dance, hip-hop, Latin ballroom, Afro-Brazilian, Graham technique, Odissi Classical Indian dance, and ballet.
In the article, Jones discusses how the virtual program created a diverse dance community of participants and the pedagogical and organizational approaches that contributed to that community. Read the full article here.
Pictured above, a screen shot of a Movement Migration virtual dance class.