UCT Department of Dance lecturer Lisa Wilson was one of four guest speakers at the 9^th International Christian Dance Fellowship Conference, held at the University of Ghana in July. The conference takes place every three years, each time in a different country.  This was the first time it was held on African soil.

According to Wilson, this year’s conference theme: ‘Dance and Indigeneity: Proclaiming the goodness of God’ brought together close to 300 academics, dancers and delegates from Africa and its Diasporas, Europe and Australasia to discuss the use of indigenous ritual and culture in the contemporary Christian liturgy and, to interrogate the genealogies of some of these practices in relation to the continent of Africa. Delegates attended workshops, presentation of academic papers and participated in community outreach excursions including a dance movement therapy initiative for traumatised children. Wilson joined the University’s Department of Dance in 2012 where she currently teaches contemporary dance. She was one of two female keynote speakers selected from around the world to present an academic paper at the conference, based on her research into Afro-Caribbean dance rituals in Christian religious expressions. “I presented both a research paper and a creative performance entitled Thula Du, choreographed by UCT colleague Maxwell Rani, which is around the ritual of the washing of the feet, both of which were well received and stimulated much discussion around the interpretation of the indigenous text on the contemporary body,” said Wilson.

Prior to joining UCT, Wilson was head of the dance education department at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts School of Dance in Kingston, Jamaica, where she had been a senior lecturer since 2008. Her research interests include dance pedagogy, dance education, Afro-Caribbean dance and contemporary dance performance within African/African diaspora dance contexts.