Publications
Books
Contemporary PerforMemory: Dancing through Spacetime, Historical Trauma, and Diaspora in the 21st Century
Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020 | Critical Dance Studies series
In partnership with Columbia University Press (New York)
Scholar and artist Dr. Layla Zami explores how contemporary dance-makers engage with historical traumas to reimagine how the past is remembered and how the future is
anticipated. She introduces the new idea of perforMemory within a lively blend of interdisciplinary theory, performance analysis, and personal storytelling. Contemporary
PerforMemory also features insightful interviews with seven international artists: Oxana Chi, Zufit Simon, André M. Zachery, Chantal Loïal, Wan-Chao Chang, Farah Saleh, and
Christiane Emmanuel.
transcript Publishing (e-book and print)
Columbia University Press (print distribution for the Americas)
The Drama Review (Book Review)
InterdepenDenken: Wie Positionierung und Intersektionalität forschend gestalten?
w_orten&meer, wissen_bewegen, Berlin 2015
An innovative anthology on intersectionality, co-edited by the working group AK ForschungsHandeln, an international gathering of emerging and established scholars.
As one of the co-editors, Zami coined the book title InterdepenDenken to offer a new research paradigm in the German-speaking context. The anthology
presents European and non-Western perspectives on intersectional research methodologies, and explores the intersection of gender, race,
class, and ableism.
Performing Memory, UnGeHörig, Vol. 2
Humboldt-Universität, Berlin 2016 (English/German)
Bilingual anthology of academic essays, visual art and poetry on the topic of traumatic memory, co-edited with Marie Springborn.
The contributions were produced by the students from my class Performing Memory.
Other co-editing experiences include a research report for UNESCO (Paris, 2005) on the Education for All program, published during my time as a student at Sciences Po Paris.
Book Chapters
Epistemologien der Routine
In Routinen im Tanz: Künstlerische Praktiken zwischen Stabilisierung und Destabilisierung, edited by Katja Schneider, transcript Verlag,
Bielefeld, 2023, pp. 197–208.
Oxana Chi & Layla Zami discuss epistemologies of routine in relation to movement, research, and memory. Their conversation-intervention was published in the annual anthology of the German Dance Society (Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung).
Die Kunst, zwischen den Zeiten zu tanzen
A collaborative essay written with Oxana Chi, entitled: “Die Kunst, zwischen den Zeiten zu tanzen - ein Erinnerungsessay über jüdische
Frauen im Widerstand und lesbische Sichtbarkeit.” In OutSisters InSisters Lesben, edited by Barbara Guth & Susanne Bischoff, Berlin, 2022, pp. 92-98.
table of contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis
Memory Matrixes: see-ing and sea-ing in Kerry Downey's work
In We collect together in a net, edited by Kerry Downey, Wendy's Subway, New York, 2019.
Like a net, skin’s porousness acts as a threshold between the personal and the social, the psychological and the embodied. The book We collect together in a net, assembles a
series of fourteen full color reproductions of new monotypes by artist Kerry Downey (Professor at RISD and former MoMA educator), alongside commissioned texts by writers including
Layla Zami.
Fremdgemacht & Reorientiert: jüdisch-muslimische Verflechtungen
Yılmaz-Günay Verlag, Berlin 2018
This publication dedicated to Jewish-Muslim alliances was edited by Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç and Ármin Langer, also known as the founders
of the Salaam-Shalom Initiative in Berlin, Germany. The book gathers contributions from and discussions among senior and junior
scholars, artists and activists. Dr. Layla Zami was invited to contribute to a cross-cultural discussion about community, gender,
art and memory in Jewish and Muslim circles.
Contributors include: Prof. Micha Brumlik (Selma Stern Center), Dr. Azadeh Sharifi (Center for Global Theatre History), Prof. Dr.
Stefanie Schüler Springorum (Director, Berlin Centre for Anti-Semitism Research), Pary El-Qalqili, Dr. Max Czollek (Curator, Radical
Jewish Arts Days), Prof. Dr. Iman Attia (Alice-Salomon University), Dr. Yasemin Shooman (Director, Berlin Jewish Museum Academy).
Tanzkunst als lebendige Erinnerung: Oxana Chis performative Erinnerung an Tatjana Barbakoff
In Neues Judentum – altes Erinnern? Zeiträume des Gedenkens, edited by Dimitrij Belkin, Lara Hensch, and Eva Lezzi, Hentrich&Hentrich /
ELES, 2017, pp. 267–288.
An anthology with Jewish perspectives on the past, present and future of memory. My chapter discusses Oxana Chi's piece Through
Gardens. It draws from my doctoral research on memory, dance performance and gender. I presented an earlier version of this article
as an invited speaker for the interdisciplinary symposium series organized by ELES at Forum Humanum.
Dancing Women’s Lives: Feminist Auto/Biographical Storytelling in Transcultural Dance Art
In Writing Women's Lives: Auto/Biography, Life Narratives, Myths and Historiography, International Symposium Paper Book, edited by
Birsen Talay-KeŞoĞlu and Leyla ŞimŞek‐Rathke, Women’s Library and Information Center Foundation, Vol. 44, 2016, pp. 818-827.
The symposium was held at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, April 19th-20th, 2014.
geh*dicht*. ein liebeslebendiges gedicht
In Sisters and Souls. Inspirationen von May Ayim, edited by Natasha A. Kelly, Orlanda Frauenverlag, 2015, pp. 241-249. [creative writing]
Anthology dedicated to May Ayim, "the Afro-German Audre Lorde".
Oxana Chis Tänzerische Wissensschaffung: Biographische Erinnerung an Tatjana Barbakoff aus feministischer Perspektive
In Sichtbar Unsichtbar. Geschlechterwissen in (Auto-)Biographischen Texten, edited by Maria Heidegger, Nina Kogler, Ursula A.
Schneider, and Annette Steinsiek, transcript, 2015, pp. 259–274.
Ein all_zu_täglicher Tag*
In InterdepenDenken: Wie Positionierung und Intersektionalität forschend gestalten, edited by AK Forschungshandeln,
w_orten&meer, 2015, pp. 72–83.
An essay blending creative and academic writing. Renewing ideas of migration, diaspora, trauma and memory, the text takes the
reader on tragicomic journey in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Oxana Chi von Zopf bis Fluss: Transkulturelle Tanzkunst und alternative Geschichtsschreibung
In The Living Archive - Kulturelle Produktionen und Räume, edited by Aicha Diallo, 52-61. Foundation Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, 2013.
pp. 52-61. [Commissioned article]
Mémoire dansée, Jardins Rêvés
In Salon Qi 2011, Catalogue to the Exhibition Tanzende Erinnerungen / Mémoire dansée, Edited by Oxana Chi. li_chiverein,
2011, pp. 7-11.
Schwarz, Rot, Gold...Alles Nur Vergangenheit?
In Salon Qi 2011, Catalogue to the Exhibition Tanzende Erinnerungen / Mémoire dansée, Edited by Oxana Chi. li_chiverein, 2011, pp. 22-26
Introduction
In Stratégies de survie des populations africaines dans une économie mondialisée: l’expérience camerounaise, edited by Kum’a Ndumbe III, Editions AfricAvenir / Exchange & Dialogue, 2007, pp. 9-52.
Articles
Eine un/mögliche Theaterwissenschaft
In Forum Modernes Theater, Vol. 34, no. 2 (2023), pp. 239-252.
An article about the potential of dance and sound to transform performance studies, as part of a special issue on decentering theatre studies (Beiträge zur Dezentrierung
der Theater/Wissenschaft), guest edited by Karina Rocktäschel, Theresa Schütz, and Doris Kolesch.
More info via your library or here
Queer Positions
In Siegessäule, Zündstoffe, Feb. 2024, p. 22
read article (in german)
Building Belonging & Breaking (Down Beginnings)
In: LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture, New York, September 7, 2023
Dancing After Life: Flexible Spacetimes of Black Female ResistDance
In Dance Research Journal, Vol. 53, no. 2 (2021), pp 67-87.
Dissidence, Dissidance
In Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 30:3, pp. 345-353.
Issue edited by Kim Bobier & Marisa Williamson Views from the Larger Somewhere: Race, Vision, and Surveillance
Of Circles and Cycles
In Movement Research Performance Journal, #54 (Summer 2020). Special Issue on "Spatial Practice", guest editor: Alan Ruiz.
Danser le passé au présent
In Recherches en danse, 7 (2019). This issue of the peer-reviewed journal centers the intersection of memory and dance. Editors: Claudia Palazzolo et Guillaume Sintès.
read abstract (in english)
full article (in french)
Dancing the Past In the Present Tense: Queer Afropean Presence in Oxana Chi's Dancescapes
In a special issue of of the Scandinavian peer-reviewed journal Lambda Nordica, Postcolonial Queer Europe, vol. 2-3, 2017, pp. 126-150.
Erinnerungswanderungen
In UnGeHörig, Berlin: Humboldt-University, no. 2, August 2016.
Oxana Chi danse d'île en île
In Madinin'Art, December 2014 [online].
Luftig-erdige Show
In Neues Deutschland, 17.08.2013
Drei Frauen, eine Spurensuche: Die Tänzerin Tatjana Barbakoff
In AVIVA, October 2012 [online].
Mit Oxana Chi Durch Gärten
In Nah & Fern, Kulturmagazin für Migration, 45, 2010.
An essayistic exploration, through writing and photography, of the parallels between a contemporary dancer-choreographer, Oxana Chi, and
a historical one, Tatjana Barbakoff.
Lichtspuren
In Brennpunkt - Magazin für Fotografie, 4/2011.
Artist statement and portfolio about my work as a photographer
Words of Mouth
In Tapesh: Verbindungen sprechen, Berlin: City Council / LesMigraS, 2011.
Rendre sur scène son corps à Sawtche
In Madinin'Art, February 2011 [online].
Performance Review about Chantal Loïal's dance solo On t'appelle Vénus in memory of Sawtche/Sarah Bartmann called the Black Venus.
200 Years Later... Commemorating the 200 Years Anniversary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
In a exhibition catalogue edited by AfricAvenir International, 2008.
Awarded UNESCO’s Toussaint Louverture Medal.
I contributed my research, writing and translation skills for the selected biographies of "Protagonists of Resistance against the
European Slave Trade". The exhibition also portrayed creative methods of African resistance in the Americas and the Caribbean such as
Capoeira, Blues, Candomblé, Samba and Calypso.
Podcast
Sonic Interventions
A podcast about the poetics of sound and its power to disrupt norms and transform society. In season one, launched for Black History Month 2023, Dr. Zami is in conversation
with musicians, sound artists, and theatre-makers based in New York and Chicago, with a special ear for postcolonial and/or queer sonic possibilities. For season two, Dr. Zami
passed the baton to her colleague Emma Lo, for a season centering Asian (diasporic) artists and sounds. The podcast was initiated by Dr. Layla Zami and is produced by the
Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts and the Performance Studies Department at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, in cooperation with Eufoniker Audioproduktion.
Stay tuned for a new season coming up in 2024!
Listen to Sonic Interventions on
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Deezer
Educational Materials
ASR (EOTO e.V.)
Dr. Zami was commissioned to write an article on antisemitism for a civic education anthology dedicated to the issue of Anti-Black Racism in an intersectional
perspective.
EOTO (Each One Teach One) e.V., Antischwarzer Rassismus: Grundlagen, Strukturen, Intersektionen, 2022
Défi Francophone
As an educational pedagogy & technology consultant, Dr. Zami conceived interactive activities for Défi Francophone: an innovative French teaching method
centering culture and creative communication. Défi is a textbook originally published in France, and authored by Fatiha Chahi, Pascal Biras, Monique Denyer, Audrey
Gloanec, and Stéphanie Witta. This new edition aims to fit the needs of students based in North America.