Event Calendar
Prev MonthPrev Month Next MonthNext Month
UPenn CIMS Colloquium: Eurovision, Blackness, and Televisual Spectacle
Wednesday, February 09, 2022, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM CDT
Category: Events

UPenn Arts & Sciences, Cinema & Media Studies presents:
Eurovision, Blackness, and Televisual Spectacle
Melissa Blanco Borelli, 12pm EST, Wednesday, Feb 9 || Zoom Link CIMS Colloquium. 

Eurovision Song Contest celebrated its 65th anniversary this past May 2021. Eurovision is a competition show that features (mostly) European nation-states battling one another over who can write and perform the best song. It is watched by many worldwide and the live concerts generate a frenzy especially among its majority queer audience. The winning song entry agrees to host the subsequent contest in their country which brings up issues of what countries can afford to host such a lavish televised spectacle. This past year many European nations featured a Black singer/performer to represent their country. Most notable entries included Sweden, Netherlands and Israel (not Europe but has been a competitor for more than 20 years). In this presentation, I will examine what performances of Blackness circulate within and around Eurovision and how these are mobilized in order to assert/acknowledge Black presence in Europe.    

Melissa Blanco Borelli is a writer, dancer, cultural critic, Associate Professor of Theatre and Director of the dance program at Northwestern. She has been faculty at MIT, University of Surrey (UK), Royal Holloway, University of London (UK) and the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests include Blackness in Latin America, critical dance studies, performance studies/performative writing, popular dance on screen, feminist (auto)ethnography, historiography, and the digital humanities. Her current book project focuses on Colombian dance, music and films that assert Afro and Indigenous cultural identities. She is the President of the Dance Studies Association.

More information and event zoom link can be found here.