“What is Urban Dance on Screen” at the International Symposium on Screendance

In his presentation, Omari ‘Motion’ Carter draws from his postgraduate study which focused on dances within hip hop culture and their relationship to narrative. Additionally, Omari will explore the label of “urban” within a screendance context. As a hip hop dance culture aficionado studying under the roof of a contemporary dance school, Omari was concerned about who his research was going to reach. If his research hopes to be an academic contribution to hip hop culture, will any hip hop practitioners outside of academia actually read it?

Omari will screen his video essay created during his study at the world’s first Master’s Degree in Screendance program. “What is Urban Dance on Screen” is a musical and spoken word provocation that mixes video references with academic prose, resulting in a piece of academia that aims to bridge a gap between the writers and the makers. Could the video essay format be further utilized to diversify how we academize screendance practice in the future?