My short monograph explores a ten-word lexicon and is borne out of my activity during the second part of my Theatrum Munidi Fellowship and MIT residency at ACT.  

I reflect on how there are cities that are walking cities or driving cities; there are quiet, loud, fast, slow, broad, or high cities, and the bodies within them are shaped by the need to navigate them, while that process of navigation, in turn, shapes the cities. Urban designers, engineers, architects, exhibition curators and choreographers share a common interest in creating movement around, in, and through places.

Each of these disciplines comes with its own language, verbal and/or somatic: a structured system of words, ideas, movements, rules, meanings and assumptions that can lead to slippages or ‘failures’ in communication outside the narrow field of their specialisms. And those instances of slippages have provided the starting point for me as a dancer, and choreographer. I explore  a transdisciplinary lexicon of Place-making: a scaffolding for shared exploration, liberating communication from the contingencies and limitations of different subject areas.

Edited by Marta Michalowska

Part of Theatrum Mundi’s collection of editions looking at dance/choreography and the city.

Citation: Akinleye, A. (2022). Navigations: scoring the moment London: Theatrum Mundi.

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