This year, the PoP [Popular Performances] MOVES, in partnership with the University of Roehampton, is going to London! Once the center of the British Empire, today this multicultural center has become a sought-after destination for those looking to critically question and overcome long-standing systems of oppression.

Going beyond coloniality invites artists, scholars and activists in the fields of dance and performing arts who think and work in all the popular to help us navigate the difficult task of articulating decentralized dialogues in different aspects of artistic production and scholarship, and its dissemination in global contexts.

In short, what does it mean that a popular movement practice or performance is emancipatory, transgressive or otherwise acts as a form of resistance? For whom? And, most importantly, how do movement-centric tactics and strategies allow us, as Marcus M. Garvey Jr. declared, "to emancipate us from mental slavery"?

The international research group on popular performances welcomes proposals that investigate innovative ways of thinking, moving and interacting, whether in the high school curriculum in the UK, street performances in Mexico City, theatrical programming in the USA, state funding for the arts in São Paulo or auditions in Beijing.

The group aims to encourage the broader task of hearing voices repressed by the darker side of modernity (Western) - that is, coloniality (Quijano 2000, Vazquez, 2012) and shedding new light on the neglected or erased ideas and skills of (Santos , 2007). Likewise, we invite post-colonial and decolonial discussions that question, for example, the discursive construction of exclusionary dichotomies, such as Western versus (other) World / Global Performances or "studio" and "street" divisions, whose fixed boundaries reinforce the racial abyss imagined between them (Savigliano, 2009).

Implementing the concept of frontier thinking, the conference seeks to expose the tactics and strategies that infiltrate the shields and boundaries of coloniality, stretching, defocusing or perforating them. The wide scope of the “popular” category and its diversified association with popular, popular, community, street, urban, staged and mediated practices, make it a unique space for contestation, innovation and emancipation.

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The show Braseiros e Canaviais will be presented by Gilsamara Moura and Denny Neves at the opening of the event.