I Am Black

I Am Black, You Have To Be Willing To Not Know

The discourse of race in contemporary performance falls apart when whites try to understand black performance. This manifestolecture offers strategies for acknowledging how artists of colour and their collaborating audiences of colour operate in several keys simultaneously, but are compelled to reduce their work and experience to the unknowable, shameful category of ‘race.’

Thomas F. DeFrantz is Chair of African and African American Studies and Professor of Dance and Theater Studies at Duke University, Washington, US.

The presentation will be followed by a Question & Answer session hosted by Dr. Shirley Tate of University of Leeds.