The Politics of Dancing
Susana XavierJoana Teixeira
Graphic Elisava 2020
Lots of things tend to happen during a graphic.elisava master’s program. Mountains of research. Maybe one or two existential crises. Designing so much that you have nightmares about mismatched hex codes.
In some weird twist of fate, this year’s biggest ‘thing’ ended up being a global pandemic. We were forced to embrace digitalism over presentialism, do more with less, and channel disillusionment into positivity. In school, the lesson comes before the test, but life often takes the opposite approach. We think we’re better for it.
PLATFORM AND IDENTITY
For this year’s degree show we decided to continue the digitalist lifestyle that we’ve come to know. Pills replace name tags, thumbnails replace handshakes, and ingenuity replaces normality in order to illustrate how we view topics like “design ethics”, “comfort”, “manifestos”, and “freedom”.
About
This is graphic.elisava’s digital Degree Show. Find out more about the program at graphic.elisava.net
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to this year’s students in the Graphic Design and the Editorial Design master’s degrees. The 2020 graphic.elisava Degree Show – both the platform and the campaign that precedes it – wouldn’t have been possible without the indefatigable work of a group of design students making time for it in the middle of their end-of-year presentations.
On the typeface
Thanks to Non Foundry for letting us use their Non®Natural Grotesk throughout the website and campaign of this digital Degree Show.
Visit nonfoundry.com to find out more about their work.
The Politics of Dancing
Dance as
an instrument
of change
The popular notion that dance culture is apathetic and apolitical comes from the attempt to tame its ecstatic and defiant nature. The Politics of Dancing is an online platform exploring and showcasing dance as an instrument of change.
This is our contribution to a deeper understanding of dance culture as a powerful movement that can reflect current socio-political environments.
Reading dance
The Politics of Dancing materializes through several channels, the website being the main one. It works as an archive of interactive narratives developed in collaboration between researchers and creatives. The launch story Standing but not Still is a reflection on the rebellious nature of dance.
The visual identity revolves around the attempt to describe and measure movement while borrowing elements from sheet music. Image treatment provides a cohesive language while celebrating different cultures.
Dancing together
As a collaborative project, readers are encouraged to get involved in The Politics of Dancing by subscribing to the newsletter, joining the research community, or making a donation.
More along these lines
