Three part image of dancers with disabilities performaing on stage

Event: DANCING Mid-term Academic Conference

4th September 2023
Venue: Maynooth University

DANCING Conference

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Poster for mid-term conference. — Poster for the event ‘DANCING Mid-term Academic Conference’

Link to accessible version of the mid-term academic conference poster

To mark the halfway point of the ERC DANCING project and to present interim findings and preliminary results, the DANCING team hosted the DANCING Mid-Term Academic Conference on Monday, 4th September 2023 at Maynooth University.

The conference comprised two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, including three panels and two roundtable discussions. After the academic conference the DANCING team invited, in gracious collaboration with the Department of Music and Dr. Antonio Cascelli, speakers, participants and guests to an accessible evening of music and opera which incorporated audio-description and Irish Sign Language interpretation as showcase of good practice of accessibility as well as artistic expression.

During the day the DANCING team were delighted to welcome renown scholars of European Union law, Disability law, socio-legal studies and dance research, including Prof. Anna Lawson and Prof. Sarah Whatley (also members of the Advisory Board of the DANCING project), Prof. Lisa Waddington, Prof. Mark Bell, Prof. Giuseppe Martinico, Prof. Elise Muir and Prof. Dorothy Estrada-Tanck to name but a few. The closing keynote speech was given by Prof. Gráinne de Búrca.

The different sessions and activities allowed the DANCING team to present the research conducted thus far and to situate it within broader scholarly debates as well as outline and discuss the next steps and research tasks of the project. Engaging interventions from discussants and speakers were thought-provoking and helpful in this process of gathering feedback, positive criticism and input to conclude the outstanding research activities under DANCING. These include the finalisation of the dance piece ‘Lived Fiction’ which is being developed by our collaborators Stopgap Dance Company and will premier in April 2024; completing legal-doctrinal as well as empirical research under WP2 and developing a new theoretical approach to the legal concept of cultural diversity as constitutional principle of the European Union under WP3.