Audiovisual Presentations V
Time: 2025-09-18 09:00 - 11:00
Location: Medium Hall B at Auditorium Maximum
Chairman: Mark Wong
Events within this Session
Beyond Words: Crafting Oral Histories in Dance and the Arts
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 09:00 - 11:00
Abstract
Knowledge that is not documented often faces the risk of being forgotten. With the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), knowledge that is primarily non-logocentric—knowledge that doesn’t rely on words or traditional text— risks falling behind in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. In fields like the performing arts, particularly in theatrical dance (the focus of my oral history community), the processes of decision-making, contextualization, and articulating non-logocentric knowledge into oral histories require specific skills. These skills can be shared and expanded, especially within communities like theatrical dance, which transcend national borders and foster deep, personal communication and skill exchange over decades. In this presentation, I will share my approach to creating oral histories in dance, which often reflect broader transnational social and political developments from the 1940s to the present. My methodology aims to articulate this knowledge and create transnational legacy maps that preserve and highlight the richness of non-logocentric knowledge.
Speakers
American Icons: Amplifying Community Voices in Public Art & Education
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 09:00 - 11:00
Abstract
American Icons is a collaborative, socially-engaged art project centering music and stories by Americans that applies a participatory approach to address the mythology behind the national anthem, monuments, public art, and how we view ourselves as Americans. This project resists the “conservatory” model of classical music, asserting community members’ right not just to experience art that reflects their reality, but to also participate in the creation of public art. In 2022, this project spotlighted the Hall of Fame for Great Americans located on the Bronx Community College campus, taking a critical look at the removal of Confederate statues of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson from the Hall of Fame, and reflected on how local residents related to the monument as it stands in the University Heights neighborhood of the Bronx. In 2023, the project centered students and teachers from community partner Brooklyn Music School who shared their experiences of teaching and learning music, thoughts on our national musical heritage, and their reflections on music education’s role in creating a more expansive portrait of Americanness, one that feels true to the multicultural roots of Brooklyn students. The author will speak about how she spearheaded the participatory oral history collection and forged local partnerships aimed at producing creative interventions within institutional structures that center community engagement with NYC residents.
Speakers
Vegetable Tanning in Barrio Arriba, León, Gto., Mexico The Rescue of a Technique in Danger of Extinction
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 09:00 - 11:00
Abstract
The city of León, Guanajuato is currently recognized as the footwear capital nationwide. It currently covers more than 70% of national demand and its exports amount to a total of 186 million pairs annually (Ceballos, 2019). The tannery industry is the basis for developing the manufacturing of leather goods in the entity and with it all the companies that provide direct and indirect materials. This boom is based on a long tradition of the leather working process that can be traced back to 1719 when León had 3,000 inhabitants and there were 67 shoemaking workshops and 29 saddleries (Alvarado, 2019). The population recognizes that the emergence of the activity is located in the Barrio Arriba, a space founded in 1597. Centuries have passed before the tannery jobs jumped to the large industrial parks, leaving in this neighborhood a trail of stories and anecdotes that today are still told and retold by the older adults who continue to live in this area. Forgers of this living history, they express the methods of the past and present, as well as the challenges that urban development requires of them. It is important to collaborate with those who are and were witnesses of a life with tasks and customs that gave identity not only to a neighborhood but to an entire city. Faced with this long process of changes in the tannery and the manifest need to tell their knowledge, the ETNOAI Lab (Interpretive Audiovisual Ethnography) using the homonymous praxis has begun with the video recording of their life stories and now, with the purpose of contributing to local empowerment, other strategies have been applied, the results of which we want to share in this presentation, particularly about the knowledge that exists about vegetable tanning.