Schedule (printable document)

Abstracts (printable document)

Friday, November 14

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. PST

Keynote - Sumud: Some Notes on Music, Movement, & Resilience from Port Said to Gaza

Ann E. Lucas, Associate Professor, Music Department, Boston College 

10:30a.m.  – 12:00 noon PST 

Panel - Tips on Publishing

Roberta L. Dougherty, Librarian for Middle East Studies, Yale University Library

Anthony Shay (Moderator), Professor Emeritus, Dance & Cultural Studies, Pomona College

Trevor Naylor, Author & student, MA Creative Writing, University of Hull

12:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. PST

Dance in Egypt

The Role and Significance of Dance in Ancient Egypt

Faiza Sakr, Professor of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University

Vibrating Together: Egyptian Belly Dance and Community in a Socially-Mediated World

Margaret Morley, Appalachian State University

Nationalism, Cinema, and Staged Folklore: The Reda Troupe and the Making of Egyptian Identity in Gharam fi al-Karnak (1967)

Naiara Assunção, Ph.D. student in Social History, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

3:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. PST

Iran, Central Asia, SE Asia

Improvisation as an Indeterminate State: Political Instability and the Predisposition to Improvisational Expression

Shahrzad Khorsandi, Independent Dance Artist/Scholar

The Endangered Kum Pishik Dance and Its Uniqueness

Abduvali Yuldashev, Department Chair, Institute for Cultural Research and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICRICH), Uzbekistan

Performance as Archive: Reflecting on Southeast Asian Islamic Histories in Performance through Malay Zapin

Katia Chaterji, Assistant Professor, Loyola Marymount University

Embodied Avaz: Reimagining Iranian Dance as a Contemporary Cultural Voice

Banafsheh Amiri, Independent Artist/Scholar

Saturday – November 15

9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon PST

Panel – State-Supported Dance Ensembles: Politics, Nationalism, and Gender

Syrian State Ensemble

Shayna Silverstein, Associate Professor in the Department of Performance Studies,  Northwestern University 

Tunisian Folk Arts Ensemble 

Mariem Guellouz, University of Paris Cité and a researcher at CERLIS 

Reda Company of Egypt 

Barbara Sellers-Young, Professor Emerita, York University, Toronto 

Bahor Ensemble of Uzbekistan and State Folk Dance Ensemble of Turkey

Anthony Shay (Moderator), Professor Emeritus, Pomona College

1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. PST

Music and Performance in the MENACASEA Region

Diegesis Derailed?: The Soundscape of the Egyptian Musical Film

Roberta L. Dougherty, Yale University Library

Qayroq and Castanets: A Comparative Analysis of  Form, Function, and Performance Techniques     

Saodat Nazarova, Institute for Cultural Research and Intangible Cultural Heritage, Tashkent

Hayedeh, Iranian Vocalist

Richard Nedjat-Haiem, Ph.D. candidate at UC Santa Barbara

4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. PST

Performance and Resistance

Zionist Choreo-racism and Choreo-politics in the Palestinian Dabke

Francisco Montero Lahsen, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Tidal Memory: Dance Rituals between Morocco and Brazil

Yasmine Benabdallah, Ph.D. Student, UC Santa Cruz

Musical Resistance behind the Prison Walls of Colonisation: Palestinian Stories of Exile and Steadfastness

Louis Brehony, Independent Scholar

Playing the Street: Syrian Musicians in Istanbul

Jonathan Shannon, Professor of Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY

6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. PST

Panel - The International Egyptian Belly Dance Industry: Improving Collaborations with Egyptian Artists

Moderator: Margaret Morley, Appalachian State University

Panelists: 

Zara Abdelrahman, Dancer 

Reda Henkesh, Musician 

Heather D. Ward, Independent Scholar

Sunday – November 16

Movement Workshops 

12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. PST

From Village to Stage: How Context Changes the Dance

Aubre Hill, Independent Artist & Scholar

1:45 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. PST

Rooted in Reng: Persian Dancing to Contemporary Music  

Delsie Khadem-Ghaeini, Dance Artist, Choreographer & Educator 

3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. PST

Sama: From Sacred Ritual to Embodied Liberation

Banafsheh Sayyad, Dance Artist & Spiritual Embodiment Teacher

All times are given in Pacific Standard Time (PST). 

Convert your local time into PST: https://www.worldtimebuddy.com