A journal and archive of dance, memory & culture
Moving Grounds is an independent journal, archive, and research platform dedicated to documenting, examining, and making accessible the knowledge produced through dance in Nigeria and across Africa.
We look at how movement carries memory, shapes identity, challenges power, creates community, generates knowledge, and participates in the making of culture.
Seven lenses
The histories we inherit, the histories we lose, and the histories we create. We investigate dance histories, cultural memory, lineage, heritage, forgotten practitioners, traditions, and the ways movement carries the past.
Explore theme→How movement becomes composition, performance, and meaning. From traditional forms to contemporary choreography, we examine processes, aesthetics, dramaturgy, space, time, authorship, and the ideas behind performance.
Explore theme→What happens to movement when people move? We explore African dance across borders, the circulation of bodies and practices, migration, cultural exchange, hybridity, belonging, and the evolving relationship between Africa and its diasporas.
Explore theme→Movement does not exist outside society. We examine dance in relation to politics, religion, protest, community, class, citizenship, social change, cultural identity, and power.
Explore theme→What makes a dance scene possible? We investigate funding, labour, careers, entrepreneurship, cultural markets, festivals, institutions, infrastructure, audiences, and the economic conditions surrounding dance.
Explore theme→The systems around dance matter. We examine cultural policy, institutions, public funding, education systems, intellectual property, labour structures, cultural diplomacy, and the decisions that shape the future of dance.
Explore theme→Latest from the journal
Stay in the conversation
What is not documented can be forgotten.
What is not studied can be misunderstood.
And what is not accessible cannot easily be carried forward.
We believe that free and decentralised access to valuable knowledge can contribute to a more equitable, sustainable, and thriving future for dance.
