Paper short abstract:

The French dance research project Raw. Expression brute de la rage will be presented as a model for collaborative ethnography by placing "la rencontre", the encounter, through shared sensory experience as the basis for knowledge construction.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will present the experimental dance research project Raw. Expression brute de la rage as a model for collaborative ethnography through its creation of a shared sensory experience as the basis for knowledge construction through trust. Funded in 2018 by the French Centre National de la Danse, it was spearheaded by krumper Emilie Ouedrago Spencer, then known as Lady MadSkillz, and dance-artist Laurence Saboye in collaboration with her colleague Isabelle Dufau. Ouedrago Spencer is an established participant in the Parisian krump scene, also performing onstage outside the krump sphere. Saboye and Dufau are established figures within the more intellectually oriented contemporary dance milieus. The project instigators were joined by a team of colleagues, krumpers and others including myself as an anthropologist of dance who contributed from the margins. From the outset, no status distinctions were made amongst team members considered as dancer-researchers, the project having strong ethical foundations at the heart of which lay understanding by doing and sharing. The aim of the project was to document krump in order to "reveal its aesthetic identity, ethical values and its educational and even curative dimension" (Laurence Saboye, 2020). From its inception the project was grounded in "la rencontre", the encounter, a method to avoid objectification and asymmetrical interaction among participants. Relational reciprocity was generated not only through dialogue, demonstration and observation but through moving together using Authentic Movement, a Jungian based system designed to connect individuals to themselves and in this instance connecting individuals to each other.