412Step Line Dancing Workshop

Friday, April 15, 2022, 6:30-8pm

412Step Line Dancing Workshop

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The COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the demands of academic labor on campus, create a CMU work culture where graduate and undergraduate students have few opportunities to convene outside of academic programs. In Before the DJ Was Sound, and She Played It, Petra Floyd presents a constellation of three interdisciplinary projects: Five Factors 3, Electric Boogie Revolution, and Kalimbrrd. These sculptural installations feature explicit invitations to experience sound and movement as inherited technologies for orienting ourselves in unknowable space/times, by listening to music, playing handmade instruments, and line dancing. In the unprecedented times of the pandemic, uprisings for social justice, political turmoil, Petra believes that it is necessary to process our individual and collective grief and trauma through embodied expression. As a Pittsburgh newcomer struggling to adjust to a new city and a challenging graduate program, Petra has found groundedness and emotional relief in community spaces like 412Step, an LGBTQ line dancing group open to all. Her first dance there with her fellow grads, including Lena Chen, was nothing short of euphoric. She is excited to bring these skilled dance facilitators to CMU’s campus so other students can have a similar experience.

The 412Step workshop is funded in part by The Sylvia and David Steiner Lecture Series & Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, The Center for Student Diversity & Inclusion, Carnegie Mellon University, and Andrew Carnegie Society Scholars 2021-2022 Giveback Fund.