Transversal Re/Configurations: Flesh, Bodies, and Matter in Motion

2026 Current Topics in Dance Research Colloquium Series 

January 08 - March 12, 2026
 

Working within and against the categories of dance, music, embodiment, and aesthetics, this series explores the in/commensurability between (un)worldings through transversal re/configurations of flesh, materiality, and entanglement; objects and/as bodies (and vice-versa); spectral, spectacular, and telluric agencies; digital and diasporic transits; and ceremony on ruins and across dreamscapes as survivance against catastrophe.
 

Following the transversal, the 2026 Colloquium “Transversal Re/Configurations: Flesh, Bodies, and Matter in Motion” seeks to deepen intradisciplinary connections and unsettle hierarchies of knowledge by intersecting with both the "Critical Dance Experiments" Graduate Student Conference and “From Earthbeings to the Anthropo-Not-Seen: Towards a Politics of Relation,” a conference coordinated by María del Rosario Acosta López (Professor, Hispanic Studies). The “Rimanukay” with Marisol de la Cadena  was co-curated with Eloy Neira de la Cadena (Doctoral Candidate, Ethnomusicology) as part of “From Earthbeings to the Anthropo-Not-Seen.”Rizvana Bradley’s participation in the “Transversal Re/Configurations” Colloquium was co-curated with Erika Villeroy da Costa (Doctoral Student, Critical Dance Studies), while Mlondi Zondi’s participation in the Colloquium and “Critical Dance Experiments” was curated by the 2026 Dance GSA “Critical Dance Experiments” Conference Organizing Committee.
 

– María Regina Firmino-Castillo, Curator & Coordinator
 

SCHEDULE

"dance work" by taisha paggett & "digital landscaping and practices of de/compression" by Joel Mejia Smith 

Jan 08

3:15 - 4:50 PM 

INTS 1109

"Intercaste Intimacies and the Making of the Modern Guru" by Anusha Kedhar; "Hollywood Dance-ins and the Reproduction of Bodies" by Anthea Kraut; & "Mythologies and Other Contemporary Narratives of Self and World Making" by Jose Luis Reynoso (Bello)

Jan 15

2:00 - 4:50 PM

INTS 1109
 

"Imperial Hauntings & Spectral Choreographies of Survivance" by Heather Rastovac Akbarzadeh & “'La Muerte Sale por el Oriente:' Reframing Feminicidal Space" by Nidia Bautista, with Xóchitl C. Chávez (respondent)

Jan 22

2:00 - 4:50 PM

INTS 1109

Hybrid, REGISTER HERE for Online Participation

"Performance as Ceremony: Indigenous Futurities" by Sam Aros-Mitchell

Jan 29

3:15 - 4:50 PM

INTS 1111
 

"Rimanukay: dance‑song with 'earth‑beings:'" Marisol de la Cadena, in dialogue with Michelle Banks, Negar Kamali, and Eloy Neira de la Cadena (co-curator)

Feb 05

4:30 - 5:30 PM

ARTS 166

In collaboration with the Departments of Music & Hispanic Studies
 

"Performing Vulnerability: Risking Art and Life in the Burmese Diaspora" by Emily Hue

Feb 12

2:00 - 3:50 PM

ARTS 166
 

"Bearing the Unbearable: On the Minor Agonistics of Performance" by Rizvana Bradley

Feb 19

3:15 - 4:50 PM

INTS 1128
Co-curated with Erika Villeroy da Costa
 

"Critical Dreaming: Feminist Performances across the Indigenous Americas" by Lilian Mengesha

Feb 26

2:00 - 3:20 PM

INTS 1111
 

"The Loss of Loss: Dance and the Psychopolitics of Re-Assembly" by Mlondi Zondi

Mar 5

2:00 - 3:15 PM

ART 166

Hybrid, REGISTER HERE for Online Participation

In collaboration with and curated by the "Critical Dance Experiments" Conference
 

"Unsettling and Unbuilding: Solo Moving through Ruins and Rubbles in Palestine-Israel" by Melissa Melpignano

Mar 12

3:15 - 4:50 PM

INTS 1111
 

Part of “Transversal Re/Configurations: Flesh, Bodies, and Matter in Motion” Current Topics in Dance Research Colloquium Series: January 08 - March 12, 2026: María Regina Firmino-Castillo, Curator & Coordinator 
 

Transversal Re/Configurations: Flesh, Bodies, and Matter in Motion was made possible through generous sponsorships from the California Center for Native Nations; the Rupert Costo Endowment in American Indian Affairs, University of California, Riverside; the CHASS Dean's Office and the Center for Ideas and Society; and the Departments of Music, Ethnic Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Media & Cultural Studies.
 

Many thanks to: taisha paggett (Department of Dance, Chairperson), Anthea Kraut (Department of Dance, Vice-Chair), Courtney Brubaker (Events Specialist), and Pete Pace (Technical Director) for their generous support of the Colloquium, and to Jonathan Ritter (Department of Music, Chairperson) and María del Rosario Acosta López (Professor, Hispanic Studies Department) for their vision and collaboration.
 

For Accessibility and Accommodations, contact mariafc@ucr.edu.
 

Photo Credits: ©Sonia Madrigal, La Muerte Sale por el Oriente, 2014-ongoing.
 

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