An interdisciplinary project-based course to develop dance technique, collaborative choreography, and associated visual and musical arts. We invite dancers, movers, and emerging creators of all styles and backgrounds. 'When we stand in the ocean, we stand in the world'. The AFRICAAM 26-AFRICAAM 27 CHs project will focus on encountering the ocean - not as a surface to cross but as a volume to inhabit. Oceanic thinking introduces suspension, buoyancy, sinking and depth. Terrestrial thinking roots us into the earth with rhythmic, grounded movements. We will stage the powerful tensions between the grounded earth-body and the buoyant, unmoored water-body as the central drama, and in doing so, develop a choreographic vocabulary for the z-axis. While contemporary dance has largely inherited forms organized around a vertical axis, there are oceanic dance traditions that encode differently, centered in a dynamic, radical, and liquid fluency. The Chocolate Heads, at home in contemporary dance and the African American aesthetic, will be inspired by and learn from oceanic dance practitioners, to embody unfamiiar movement pathways and kinesthetic principles, in order to build our own practice and language, while acknowledging collaboration and confluence. Dance is the primary medium through which the sacred ocean is addressed, embodied, and made present. We will treat the body of the ocean as co-choreographer, presence, and sacred being. The Chocolate Heads will continue the practice of creating intermedia installation using dance, projection & set design, alongside an original music score. Strong, self- identified interdisciplinary artists at varying levels of experience are welcome including: dancer/movers, visual artists, visionaries and free thinkers. WEEK 1: TU 9/AFRICAAM 22: Introduction to the Project & CHs Band; TH 9/AFRICAAM 24: AUDITION Workshop. Interested artists are encouraged to contact Artistic Director/Instructor: Aleta Hayes (ahayes1@stanford.edu)
1-2 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit · GER: WAY-CE
An interdisciplinary project-based course to develop dance technique, collaborative choreography, and associated visual and musical arts. We invite dancers, movers, and emerging creators of all styles and backgrounds. 'When we stand in the ocean, we stand in the world'. The 26-27 CHs project will focus on encountering the ocean - not as a surface to cross but as a volume to inhabit. Oceanic thinking introduces suspension, buoyancy, sinking and depth. Terrestrial thinking roots us into the earth with rhythmic, grounded movements. We will stage the powerful tensions between the grounded earth-body and the buoyant, unmoored water-body as the central drama, and in doing so, develop a choreographic vocabulary for the z-axis. While contemporary dance has largely inherited forms organized around a vertical axis, there are oceanic dance traditions that encode differently, centered in a dynamic, radical, and liquid fluency. The Chocolate Heads, at home in contemporary dance and the African American aesthetic, will be inspired by and learn from oceanic dance practitioners, to embody unfamiiar movement pathways and kinesthetic principles, in order to build our own practice and language, while acknowledging collaboration and confluence. Dance is the primary medium through which the sacred ocean is addressed, embodied, and made present. We will treat the body of the ocean as co-choreographer, presence, and sacred being. The Chocolate Heads will continue the practice of creating intermedia installation using dance, projection & set design, alongside an original music score. Strong, self- identified interdisciplinary artists at varying levels of experience are welcome including: dancer/movers, visual artists, visionaries and free thinkers. WEEK 1: TU 9/22: Introduction to the Project & CHs Band; TH 9/24: AUDITION Workshop. Interested artists are encouraged to contact Artistic Director/Instructor: Aleta Hayes (ahayes1@stanford.edu)
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.