In this discussion I particularly explore the first part of the book 'Dance, Architecture and Engineering' which was published in April 2021..This beginning section of the book proposes a somatic-based foundation for engaging with spatial practices that draws on Africanist, Oceanic and North American Indigenous worldviews. I explore Place-making and community re-building as a somatic practice from my own choreographic perspective in conversation with architectural and engineering practices. I suggest a notion of Being – in - Place as a common ground of interconnectedness. Textured by this interconnected paradigm of Being in Place , I ask how we notice and value the knowledges somatic practices offer to the construction of communities. I suggest in a time of reconstruction, rebuilding we, have a responsibility to move from the movement-studio to the street. The talk will close with a Q&A about the book. It would be ideal if people were given information about the book prior to the festival so that this Q&A could be a book club style discussion amongst all attending then talk rather than just back and forth to me.

About book: This book was born from a year of exchanges of movement ideas generated in cross-practice conversations and workshops with dancers, musicians, architects and engineers. Events took place at key cultural institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts, London; and The Lowry, Salford, as well as on-site at architectural firms and on the streets of London. The author engages with dance's offer of perspectives on being in place: how the 'ordinary person' is facilitated in experiencing the dance of the city, while also looking at shared cross-practice understandings in and about the body, weight and rhythm. There is a prioritizing of how embodied knowledges across dance, architecture and engineering can contribute to decolonizing the production of place – in particular, how dance and city-making cultures engage with female bodies and non-white bodies in today's era of #MeToo and BlackLivesMatter. Akinleye concludes in response conversations about ideas raised in the book with John Bingham-Hall, Liz Lerman, Dianne McIntyer and Richard Sennett. The book is a fascinating resource for those drawn to spatial practices from dance to design to construction.