Free Poetry and Free Dance: Embodied Sense in Motion

Free Poetry and Free Dance: Embodied Sense in Motion
Departments of Philology, Psychology, and the Arts, of the Moscow State University, organise an
International conference Free Poetry and Free Dance:
Embodied Sense in Motion, on October 1-3, 2010. We invite you to discuss the issues of freedom in
poetry and dance along the following lines:
Dance and/as poetry, poetry and/as dance: basic metaphors and productive analogies in the history of
culture. Defining and redefining freedom in poetry and dance in cultural contexts.
Poetic, "artificial" - as opposed to "natural" - speech, the "art" of dance as opposed to "natural",
spontaneous movement. Rhythm and musicality in dance and movement. "Order vs freedom" and
"canon vs improvisation" dilemmas. Verbal gesture and gesture as replacement of words.
The quest for new expression in poetry and plastic arts in the XIX to XXI centuries. The disappearance
of the boundary between performers and spectators, performativity in poetic speech and dance. The
place of free verse and free dance in the changing ensemble of the arts, in different social and cultural
contexts.
Practices of free dance and poetry in Russia and abroad; the new aesthetics, its self-justification and
expansion. Avant-guard experiment as ground for building subcultures and artistic communities,
alternative life-styles, and alternative forms of trans-national cultural exchange.
Poetry and dance practices in the light of the new possibilities for the mutual production of form and
content and with the post-classic cultural paradigm - altering ideas of the subject and subjectivity,
creativity, rationality, and the body.
Free poetry and dance in cultivating personality. The experience of studying and teaching free poetry
and free dance; the problem of "teaching freedom" and "treating unfreedom".
Paradox of mass-production and commercialisation of individual freedom. Cult of immediateness and
improvisation in the age of technical reproducibility.
In addition to paper sessions and thematic round-table discussions, the conference will include master
classes in free dance, musical movement, voice-and-movement training, sessions of vers libres,
sound poetry, dance and contact improvisation, and site-specific performances. All master classes are
open for participants. The conference venue will be the buildings of Moscow State University, located
at the historical sites of the city.
Please send your proposals for papers or artistic events (up to 500 words) to discours@philol.msu.ru
before March 15, 2010.

e-mail: discours@philol.msu.ru
www.philol.msu.ru/~discours/
+7 495 939 53 28