Naomi Macalalad Bragin brings Waacking/Punking dance research to Paris

April 9 and 11, IAS faculty member Naomi Macalalad Bragin moderated a roundtable and gave a research talk on Waacking/Punking, a dance that derives from the first gay clubs of Los Angeles, California, during the Disco and Funk music era of the early 1970s.

Her groundbreaking work highlights stories of 1970s Soul Train television dancers, as well as young women who are redefining global streetdance culture in the 2000s. « Danscendances de WAACK » (click for video) was a public roundtable featuring young Paris streetdance artists Habibitch, Leï the Night, Bruno Marignan, and Sonia Soulshine, held at Centre Dunois dance studios on April 9.

Naomi’s presentation « Gender & Sexuality Identity in Hip Hop X Waack Dance » (click for video) took place on April 11, contributing to the year-long interdisciplinary seminar Recherches sur le masculin, co-organized by professors Pauline Peretz, Patrick Farges and Ivan Jablonka, at University of Paris Campus Condorcet.

All events were funded by l’École Universitaire de Recherche ArTeC, l’Institut universitaire de France, l’Université Paris Cité, l’Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, l’Institut d’histoire du temps présent (CNRS-Université Paris 8). Naomi’s book, Black Power of Hip Hop Dance: On Kinethic Politics, is forthcoming with the international Dance Studies Association, Studies in Dance series.