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This Concordia University Research Chair (CURC) in Ecologies of B/black Performance examines how the ongoing legacy of settler colonialism in Canada positions and calls for particular modes of performance among B/black dance and performance artists who work across and against these regimes of embodiment. Engaging with the interrelation of the conceptual pillars of "B/blackness" and "dramaturgy" at the site of geography and the body, this research draws from Bayo Akomolafe’s work (2023), in which he navigates the distinction between "Blackness" (upper case B) which entails the specific processes of embodiment and identification possessed by and imposed upon those of African or Afro-diasporic origin, and "blackness" (lower case b), a decidedly anticolonial positioning and phenomenon that sits beyond ontologies. This research also anchors itself within dramaturgical praxis, which is the process of in-gathering the physical, material and creative elements of a performance according to a logic that is itself emergent. 

Using a necessarily interdisciplinary lens, the research pillars move across and through Black studies; diasporic studies; visual arts, dance and performance practices; process philosophy; postcolonial studies and performance studies to interrogate practices of B/blackness and the ecologies that situate, generate and sustain their performance. Establishing networks of artists and scholars engaged in B/black-focused artistic research, this research creates a directory (and ultimately, a community) of B/black performance practitioner-researchers in Canada interested in collaborative partnerships. Instituting “choreographic conversations” in collaboration with Montreal dance venues and institutions, this work directly engages the wider public with B/black performance practices. Through investigation of these ecologies of B/black performance and their relation to place, this research explores the nexus of circumstances that contribute to the embodiments that inform performative expressions of B/blackness.