Call for Contributions 2027

In November 2024, the first edition of New Dancing Epidemics was held around the theme “Dance by/for everyone?”. The discussions that unfolded over those three days brought the question of the frame to the fore as a sufficiently significant and transversal issue to become the starting point for this second edition.

The same sequence of movements, when danced on stage, on social media, during a flash mob, at a carnival, on a balcony, in a museum, at a world exhibition, by a “different” performer or in front of a “different” audience, generates neither the same expectations, nor the same interpretations, nor the same reactions. Thresholds and transgressions shift according to spaces, temporalities, bodies and dispositifs. These contribute to regulating the ways in which bodies are used, making certain gestures expected, legible and legitimate, while others may surprise, unsettle or disturb. What happens, then, when dance resists these frames, crosses their thresholds, emerges where it is not expected, or is translated from one frame into another?

A frame does not disappear simply because dance changes location. It may shift, be reconfigured or become less perceptible. In the street, a few dancing bodies and a few gazes coming to rest upon them may be enough to create a stage anew; elsewhere, dance may infiltrate the gestures and spaces of everyday life to such an extent that the boundary between performance and ordinary behaviour becomes uncertain. Being “out of frame(s)” lies precisely in this instability: not in the absence of frames, but in their displacement, blurring or being brought into tension.

The frames that organise dance and make it “legible” are not merely spatial. Digital platforms have multiplied the production and circulation of danced gestures, as well as their movement between physical and digital spaces: choreographies are reproduced, imitated, diverted, remediated and transferred from screen to stage or from stage to screen. These practices are themselves embedded within specific formats, conventions and regimes of visibility. A gesture that is immediately recognisable within a digital environment may thus acquire an entirely different status when reproduced or translated into another context.

Some dispositifs temporarily make possible uses of the body that would, elsewhere, break with expected forms of behaviour. Carnivals, celebrations, balls or demonstrations may thus allow — or even prescribe — gestures and behaviours that would ordinarily be considered outside the norm. Yet this suspension does not imply the disappearance of norms: on the contrary, it may generate its own codes, sometimes extremely restrictive ones. Paradoxically, the “out of frame” has frames of its own. Under what conditions is it still possible to move beyond them when the very forms of transgression are prescribed?

Changing frames also means changing the way a body is looked at, or the position from which it is viewed. The circulation of a bodily or choreographic practice across territories, periods, cultural contexts and institutions may subject it to new categories and expectations. What constitutes a situated practice may, once displaced, be presented or received as traditional, folkloric, exotic or “authentic”. Reprises, quotations and borrowings also raise questions about their limits: when do they constitute circulation, homage or dialogue, and when do they tip over into caricature, the reproduction of stereotypes or cultural appropriation? Questioning frames therefore also means asking who frames, who is framed, who looks, and from where. The positions from which bodies are viewed, programmed, described or studied themselves contribute to the production of their meaning.

Through the performing arts, but also through ordinary, festive, ritual, activist and digital practices, Out of Frame(s) invites us to consider dance as a privileged site from which to observe the construction, displacement, resistance to and reinvention of spectacular, bodily, social and political norms.
The conference-festival will address these different dimensions through a programme that will seek, as far as possible, to reflect a diversity of topics and contributors, as well as a balance between the proposed formats.* Contributions drawing, in particular, on anthropology, ethnography, history, political science, sociology, semiotics, dance and performance studies, cultural, postcolonial and decolonial studies, gender studies, urban studies, or information and communication sciences are welcome, as are interdisciplinary approaches combining several of these perspectives.

Contributions may take the form of a conventional academic paper, a lecture-performance, an artistic intervention, a film/documentary screening, a participatory workshop, etc.

1. Beyond the Stage: Thresholds, Frames and Everyday Spaces
This strand welcomes proposals focusing on dance practices that inhabit different spaces and interrogate the boundaries between ordinary and danced gesture, performer and passer-by, performance and everyday life. Contributions may explore the various ways in which the spectacular frame can be displaced, reconstructed, blurred or infiltrated.

2. From One Frame to Another: Translations, Reprises and Resignifications
This strand focuses on the circulation and transformation of dance practices across dispositifs, media and contexts: digital platform and stage, stage and screen, street and theatre, ritual and performance, private and public spaces, etc. It may address processes of translation, reprise, quotation, imitation, diversion, remediation and recontextualisation, as well as the transformations in meaning and reception that they produce.

3. Normed Bodies, Disruptive Bodies: Shifting Norms
This strand brings together research on the bodily, spatial, social and political norms that dance reveals, negotiates, displaces or disrupts. Contributions may notably address questions of gender, age, class, disability, racialisation or identity-based categorisation, as well as activist and artivist practices that mobilise the body and dance as forms of political intervention.

4. Transgression under Control: Celebrations, Carnivals and Frames of Exception
This strand welcomes research on the spaces and temporalities in which unusual uses of the body become possible, expected or prescribed: carnivals, celebrations, balls, demonstrations, collective gatherings, flash mobs, etc. It will notably examine the codification, ritualisation or institutionalisation of transgression and their limits: under what conditions is it still possible to move beyond the frame when the very forms of transgression are prescribed?

5. Who Frames Whom, and from Where? Gazes, Circulations and Power Relations
This strand focuses on the power relations involved in the circulation, production and reception of dance practices. It may notably address processes of exoticisation, folklorisation, spectacularisation, heritagisation or cultural appropriation; expectations of authenticity or “typicality”; and colonial and postcolonial legacies. Particular attention may be paid to the positions from which practices are viewed, named, programmed, legitimised or studied.
These five strands are neither exclusive nor self-contained. Proposals may intersect them, displace them or question their boundaries. More broadly, New Dancing Epidemics: Out of Frame(s) seeks to make the frame itself an object of inquiry: not merely as that which contains dance and makes it visible, but as that which contributes to giving it meaning, organising its reception and determining the conditions under which bodies may appear, circulate, resist and act.

• In continuity with the first edition of New Dancing Epidemics, the project will combine scholarly reflection with practical experimentation. Academic papers will thus enter into dialogue with workshops, performances and other proposals that enable participants to put into practice, experience or disrupt the questions raised by the conference.
• Proposals for contributions* should be approximately 300 words, accompanied by a short biographical note of approximately 100 words.
• Proposals for papers and contributions should preferably be submitted in French; presentations in English are also welcome, provided that they are accompanied by presentation materials (PowerPoint or equivalent) in French.
• Proposals should be submitted by 15 November 2026 via the online form: https://forms.gle/8XkhXqMBqfTHGAwK8

• DE LAET Timmy, Universiteit Antwerpen
• DIAZ OTERO Antia, Université libre de Bruxelles
• HELBO André, Université libre de Bruxelles 
• VANHAESEBROUCK Karel, Université libre de Bruxelles
• VERLINDEN Elodie, Université libre de Bruxelles/ La Cambre / Arts²  --> elodie.verlinden@ulb.be

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• DUVIGNAUD, Jean, 1967. Sociologie de l’art, Presses universitaires de France, Paris.
• GINOT, Isabelle, & GUISGAND, Philippe,2021. Analyser les œuvres en danse : partitions pour le regard. Centre national de la danse, Paris.
• GOFFMAN, Erving, 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
• GRAHAM, Amanda Jane, 2013. “Out of Site: Trisha Brown’s Roof Piece”. In: Dance Chronicle, 36(1), pp. 59–76.
• GUELLOUZ, Mariem, 2013. « De la danse contemporaine au Maghreb à une danse contemporaine maghrébine », in : Marges 16 : pp. 60-72.
• HANNA, Judith Lynn,1979. To dance is human : a theory of nonverbal communication, University of Texas Press, Austin.
• HAMMERGEN, Lena, 2020. «A Contested Corporeality: Solidarity, Self-Fulfillment, and Transformation through African-Derived Dancing», In: Dance Research Journal, 52(1), 7–19, Published online by Cambridge University Press.
• HELBO, André. (2022). Lire le spectacle vivant, Académie Royale de Belgique, Bruxelles
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• QUIROZ, Lissell (Dir.), 2021. Féminismes et artivisme dans les Amériques, XX^e-XXI^e siècles, Presses universitaires de Rouen et du Havre.
• LAUNAY, Isabelle, 2017. Les danses d’après, Centre national de la danse, Paris.
• LÉGERET-MANOCHHAYA, Katia, 2025. Performing arts at the museum. Geuthner, Paris.
• LEPECKI, André,2013. « Choreopolice and Choreopolitics: Or, the Task of the Dancer », in: TDR/The Drama Review, 57(4), pp. 13-27.
• MANNING, Susan, 2004. Modern Dance. Negro Dance : Race in Motion, University of Minesota Press, Chicago
• MASSIAN, Léa, 2017, « Danse, la cité. Infiltration chorégraphique d’une place publique», In : Ambiances , 3
• MENSAH, Ayoko, 2005. « Corps noirs, regards blancs : retour sur la danse africaine contemporaine », in : Africultures 62, n°1: pp. 164-171.
• MONTAIGNAC, Katya, 2013. « Le fantasme de la participation du public ». In : Jeu, (147), pp. 124–130.
• POUILLAUDE, Frédéric, DOBBELS, Daniel, DUPUY, Dominique, RABANT, Claude (dir.) 2003. Danse et politique : démarches artistiques et contextes historiques, , Centre national de la danse, Paris.
• ROQUET, Christine, 2020. Vu du geste : interpréter le mouvement dansé. Centre national de la danse, Paris.
• ROUX, Céline, 2010, « Sylvie Clidière, Alix de Morant. Extérieur danse : essai sur la danse dans l’espace public », in : Critique d’art [En ligne], 35
• SAID, Edward W., 1980 [1978]. L’orientalisme : l’Orient créé par l’Occident, trad. MALAMOUD, Catherine, Éditions du Seuil, Paris.
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• VADORI-GAUTHIER, Nadia, 2017. Danser. Résister. Une minute de danse par jour, Ed. Textuel, Paris.
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Numéros spéciaux :

• • Coll. Danse(s) et politique(s), Recherches en danse [En ligne], 4 | 2015, mis en ligne le 15 novembre 2015
  • Coll. Danse et politique, Nouvelles de danse, n° 30, Bruxelles, Contredanse, hiver 1997.