Harry Belafonte: Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, 2014

https://youtu.be/Yfj6Ja86lCs

Elizabeth Alexander on arts philanthropy and justice

 

Giving Done Right podcast explores social and racial justice in arts funding with Elizabeth Alexander, award-winning poet and president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and hosts Phil Buchanan and Grace Chiang Nicolette of Center for Effective Philanthropy.

Listen here.

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve, at Gibney, as Senior Director of Curation and Editorial Director. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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LA's BlakTinx choreographers featured in video series

The June 2020 BlakTinx Dance Festival: Dancing on the Edge
was presented online by Bootleg Theater.

At some early (now forgotten) point during the confusion of the past few months of our troubled planet, a thought surfaced. Unbidden and, from that moment on, completely unexplored, it was composed of three simple words:

I miss choreography.

I thought it and...yeah...left it right there.

I think I realized how unpopular it might be in the "new normal" of EXCITEMENT!!! over EVERYTHING THAT DANCE CAN BE!!! now that it can't be what it once was, which--as we all know--was terrible. Absolutely terrible.

I'm not even going to try to argue what about dance might not have been so terrible. Because now that the fact of its terribleness is up in our faces, we can finally do something about it, right? No more procrastination.

All I can tell you is that, of the tons of content emerging online since the pandemic first divided us from one another, I have consumed a lot of virtual theater and music, many thoughtful conversations and informative panels and...a smattering of dance. Of that dance, what I've most enjoyed--although not completely--happened to be recordings of full productions of works from prior months and years. I am still waiting for up-to-the-minute made-for-Zooms to knock me out of my desk chair.

I still love you all, but these virtual solos-in-place; these housebound duets danced safely with your significant other, these whimsical improvs, these trippings of the light fantastic around your backyard are giving me an ache for something I'm apparently not supposed to continue to yearn for because there were, I'm hearing, all these problems with it.

So, come on, Eva. Get happy.

I thought about this I miss choreography thought again when I was watching the YouTube video series Dancing on the Edge, the 2020 edition of Bootleg Theater's BlakTinx Dance Festival that presents work by Los Angeles-based Black and Latinx choreographers, all alumni of the festival from years past. I had accepted Bootleg's request to view and review the four-part series out of curiosity about a dance community largely unfamiliar to me, a New Yorker, and because the brief new and archival works were all by Black and Latinx artists, twenty-five strong, responding to this double-whammy of social distancing and social uprising.

These compilations--a resilient adaptation to the extreme realities of our times--turned out not to be the best way to get to know these artists, the legacies that shaped them, their histories in the field, the contexts in which they regularly work and the meaning they may hold within their respective communities. I'm also wondering if enough time has passed for any artist to deeply process all that has happened since coronavirus began its deadly spread and since George Floyd's death awakened a passionate movement. Have they had time to dive and return with something not obvious but truly incisive and unique to them?

With all that in mind, and after having watched Dancing on the Edge  without sufficient background, I'm not going to review these works--which is to say, I'm not going to white-supremacist this thing.

Catch my drift?

I'll give you the BlakTinx Theater Festivals channel links for your own exploration:

Program 1: https://youtu.be/Le-9yWLPz2o

Program 2: https://youtu.be/CkRS_eIDSzw

Program 3: https://youtu.be/lSJfVjtJWcA

Program 4: https://youtu.be/fdNjj_3BnQE

And let me just point out some items that most captured my imagination. Someday, I might make it out west to learn more--that is, if we're ever safely back to seeing dance in the flesh.

From Program 1:

Add Water & Stir (excerpt from a 2017 performance)
Brigette Dunn-Korpela
B.Dunn Movement/Dance & Theatre Company
www.bdunnmovement.com

Ghostly 1950s white housewives swan around ghostly domiciles and stir bowls of mysterious ingredients, literally sidelined by Dunn-Korpela's bustling troupe. While the white-folks imagery quickly gets relegated to a small oval in one corner of the screen, dancers of color churn through and own the space in a physically-demanding piece that references the deaths of Emmett Till, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner.

Como los Pájaros
Andrea Ordaz
A.Ordaz Dance
http://www.andreaordaz.com/

Super-short, lyrical video featuring the body of a dancer in a flowery blouse and wind-blown hair sliding over a dark grey sky with bright, scattered clouds. In program notes, Ordaz sites Puerto Rican poet Willie Perdomo's The Crazy Bunch:

How to describe that sound when the birds flutter like a deck
         of cards being shuffled? Where to find your uplift &
         hallelujah, hosanna & hero, campana & chorus?

Although severely restricted by narrowed space and limited time, Ordaz manages to convey a flight of freedom.

From Program 2:

Baile de Cuarentena
Briseyda Zárate
https://briseydazarateflamenco.wordpress.com
https://instagram.com/briseydazarate

One of a few festival entries centered in the art of flamenco, Baile de Cuarentena (quarantine dance) approaches pandemic apocalypse with a mask but no filters. Also, no costuming and no heavy footwork that might disturb Zárate's downstairs neighbors. You can feel the energy of frustration along with determination to keep flamenco--and hope--alive.

Time up the River
Alan Pérez
film: Christopher Lopez
@alan.lperez

Shelter-in-place can be unsafe for LGBTQ+ folx forced to share space with homophobic/transphobic families. Choreographer Pérez took that reality as the premise for this duet with Robert Gomez dancing in a tight spot of liminal domestic space with some mirrors for self-reflection and a bit of light from the outside world.

From Program 4:

What the Hell is Going On
Rubí Danielle Morales 
Videography: Crystal Morales 
IG: rubi_so_oh
FB: https://m.facebook.com/rubi.morales.37?ref=bookmarks

Hemmed in by the stark angles of a kitchen space, Morales responds with similar starkness and angularity of movement in this disturbing solo before a restless, intrusive camera.


Dancing on the Edge choreographers:

Anthony Aceves
Bernard Brown
Sofia Carreras
Joshua Estrada-Romero
Regina Ferguson
Kassy Francis
Michelle Funderburk
Primera Generación
Nancy Rivera Gomez
Vannia Ibargüen
Irishia Hubbard
Brigette Dunn-Korpela
Keilah Glover-Lomotey
Amber Morales
Rubi Morales
Andrea Ordaz
Yarrow Perea
Alan Perez
Dorcas Román
Eluza Santos
Stacey Strickland
Maura Townsend
Shantel Ureña
Sadie Yarrington
Briseyda Zárate

For more information about LA's Bootleg Theater, click here.

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve, at Gibney, as Senior Director of Artist Development and Curation and Editorial Director. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Artists Reach Out: Ananya Chatterjea

Dear friends,

Welcome to Artists Reach Out: reflections in a time of isolation. I dreamed this series of interviews out of grief for my work both as a documenting arts writer and curator of live performance. In this time of social distancing, we are called to responsibly do all we can to safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. It is, literally, a matter of life and death.

But there's no distancing around what we still can share with one another--our experiences, thoughts, wisdom, humor, hearts and spirit. In some ways, there are more opportunities to do so as we pull back from everyday busyness out in the world and have time to honor the call of our inner lives.

So, let me introduce you to some artists I find interesting. I'm glad they're part of our beautiful community, and I'm eager to engage with them again (or for the first time) in years to come.

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Ananya Chatterjea

Ananya Chatterjea
(photo courtesy of Ananya Dance Theatre;
by Laichee Yang)

Ananya Chatterjea in Mohona (2013)
(photo courtesy of Ananya Dance Theatre,
by Paul Virtucio)

Ananya Chatterjea’s work as choreographer, dancer, and thinker brings together Contemporary Dance, social justice choreography, and a philosophy of #occupydance. She is artistic director of Ananya Dance Theatre, a Twin Cities-based professional dance company of women and femme artists of color, and co-founder of the Shawngrām Institute for Performance and Social Justice. Her “people-powered dances of transformation” proceed through concert performances and participatory performances in non-traditional spaces where audiences become co-creators of movement explorations.

Ananya received a 2011 Guggenheim Choreography Fellowship, 2012 McKnight Choreography Fellowship, 2015 Sage Outstanding Dance Educator Award, 2016 Joyce Foundation Award, 2018 Urban Bush Women Choreographic Fellowship, and a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellowship. Her work has been recognized for its delivery of “political theater” with seldom-matched “level of commitment and charisma” (City Pages, 9/18/19). Chatterjea is currently creating Dastak, a dance-theater work exploring borders, boundaries, home and belonging, with the support of an NPN Creation Fund, NDP Production Award, and a two-part MANCC Residency.

Ananya Chatterjea in Trikone,opening performance at Ocean Dance Festival,
Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh
(photo: ©Asif Muhammed Musaddeque, 2019)

Do you have a current or planned project whose progress is affected by the pandemic?

I was creating a new work about borders, home, and belonging, an ambitious, interdisciplinary project. The creative process, where we were joined by the fabulous Sharon Bridgforth (dramaturg) and guest artist Spirit McIntyre, was roaring along. This rich collaborative time was abruptly halted by the virus. The premiere was originally scheduled for September 2020, and we had a great touring circuit set up. All of that now hangs at the mercy of this virus’ wrath.

There are other projects, one in collaboration with the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts for instance, that I was looking forward to (April-May). Now, I have no idea what will happen to these. We have been able to keep our artists on salary as was scheduled from April, but if the work does not premiere in September, I do not know what we will do. Also, my work thrives on energetic connection with the audience, and builds in engagement with audiences, so the idea of sharing the work via live streaming is difficult.

Briefly, tell me about how you got involved in the arts and in your particular practice.

My mother, who grew up through the anti-colonial struggles in India and could not fulfill her dream to learn dance, introduced me to the art. As I grew up, I fell in love with dance, and had the opportunity to study with some amazing gurus. Yet, all around me were the women’s movement, movements demanding caste/class justice, and political street theater critiquing state violences. They pulled me away from my training in classical and folk dance forms and pushed me into an investigation of what social justice choreography might be.

Reflecting on my practice today, I can say that my commitment to social justice taught me choreographic finesse and pushed me to create a feminist, contemporary dance vocabulary from my training in Odissi, Mayurbhanj Chhau, and Vinyasa yoga. Today, my practice is moved by the brilliant ways in which Black and brown women and femmes forge liberation and joy.

In a more specific way, what are you practicing? And what are you envisioning?

At this time, more than ever, I am practicing dance as lifeforce and as articulation of spirit. I am trying to prepare my body externally (through different kinds of physical training) and internally (through spiritual work) to be strong and in community, so dance can resist the new waves of capitalist co-optation that are following this pandemic.

I am acknowledging that the ensemble practice of rhythmic cycles cannot be adequately supported by Zoom transmissions: the time lag disappoints our hearts repeatedly. So when we prepare to build this devastated field back up again, what will we make sure to attend to?

I am paying attention to how the pandemic has intensified existing injustices. I am witnessing images of energetic engagement--nurses standing still in the midst of angry protesters in Colorado, of a 12-year-old girl walking 150 km to get home only to die of exhaustion in Chhattisgarh--and reflecting deeply on transformation. I am asking myself, how will I dance differently now?

How does your practice and your visioning align with what you most care about?

I care about dance for life’s sake, for the crossing of power and poetry, and to share rhythm, space, and vision, with my comrades. I am even more convinced that dancing that works through energetic connections, fine rhythmic intersections, and communications from the tips of our fingers and our eyes, will always be failed by neat rectangular boxes of visuality.

So, if there are limited or no occasions to share dancing with live audiences until 2022, how can I ready myself for that moment? What stories, what dark recesses and failures, what journeys towards light, can we uphold with utmost care at that time? Living through this pandemic and re-understanding the privileges of water, soap, Internet, space, is helping me chisel my choreographic craft and consider carefully the labor of carving and nurturing space of dancing stories that will be urgent at that re-convening.

How does your practice function within the world we have now?

There is dancing that flows through huge amounts of space. There is dancing that roots down and works details in groundedness. Might there be equity in taking up just the amount of space that is necessary to articulate an idea? Might there be lessons of generosity and equity in refusing to participate in the games of social media popularity?

The stillness and attention to detail we practice now will deepen our resilience for the time when we, dancers, will become part of the “essential workers” team and are needed to sprout hope and advocate for justice in our communities.

The work that I was creating has already taken on several more dimensions through this time. I can only do them justice if I remain quiet right now, listening and expanding my capacity to dance them simultaneously and intersectionally.

Briefly share one self-care tip that has special meaning to you now.

Gratitude is a practice.

There are lessons in the abundance of sunlight.

If I shift the focus of footwork practice to engaging the pelvic floor deeply, then I chisel one skill AND protect my knees instead of not practicing footwork due to an unsuitable floor.

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Dance and Social Justice: UBW, Ananya Dance Theatre and me

Hair and Other Stories

Urban Bush Women

BRIC

January 31-February 9

Here's one of those productions that people are going to be talking about for a very, very long time. But when I talk about Hair and Other Stories it, I don't even know how to label it, because it's not a dance show. It's a spectacle, a marketplace, a cultural archive, a community chat about race, a hot dance party, a chance to get your hair trimmed by a really smooth barber and, I guess, anything that you--as an engaged audience member--are willing to get yourselves into. You are an essential part of it. All of this unfolds at BRIC, where Urban Bush Women has been enjoying a residency, and hooray for BRIC for this exciting curation. I danced some (to the irresistible DJ-ing of The Illustrious Blacks), and I also sat in rapt admiration as members of Urban Bush Women threw down some of the most vibrant, urgent and gorgeous performing I've seen from them or from anyone in a very long time. Performing to meet the needs of our times--direct, uncompromising, utilizing the far reaches of their physical and expressive energies, and presenting issues of race and culture inside a multilayered, multifaceted context that emphasizes the expansive richness of what it means to be Black. Choreographed by Chanon Judson (whose intense performance seared me) and Samantha Speis in collaboration with UBW. Bessie nominations to the team on this one, please. Hair and Other Stories INFO/TICKETS

Urban Bush Women in
Hair and Other Stories

Ananya Dance Theatre in
Shaatranga: Women Weaving Worlds
(photo: Randy Karels)

Symposium on Dance & Social Justice

Dance Department, Mason Gross School of the Arts

Rutgers University

February 1

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening on the Rutgers campus, the guest of dance artist Ananya Chatterjea of Ananya Dance Theatre, who is wrapping up a residency at Rutgers's Mason Gross School of the Arts, and cared for graciously by Dance Department Chair and Artistic Director, Julia Ritter, Ph.D and MFA in Dance Director, Jeff Friedman, Ph.D. Chatterjea had invited me to join her panel on dance and social justice* which included Hui Nui Wilcox, Ph.D, educator and Ananya company member; Zaneta Rago-Craft, Director at Rutgers's Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities; and Lela Aisha Jones, dance artist and Founding Director of Lela Aisha Jones│FlyGround.

Afterwards, I enjoyed a soul-warming dinner and conversation with some fun table-mates--among them, Jones and Donia Salem (Executive Director, The Outlet Dance Project). Then we all took in ADT's Shaatranga: Women Weaving Worlds (which concludes at Rutgers's Loree Dance Theatre this evening). Chatterjea's vision for her all-women ensemble blends contemporary with classical Indian movement, serene visual design and formal choreography with a confident infusion of the rebellious personal and political spirit she first observed in the theatrical street demonstrations led by Indian women and trans femme activists. Learn more about ADT's residency here.

⚫⚫⚫

*My opening remarks from the day's panel

The arts have always been my refuge--from a sometimes difficult home; from an often difficult society. Up until recently, I was able to say out loud how much I counted my blessings to have work that would always surround me with artists.

That was true for my work as a dance writer and certainly even more true now for my work as a curator for a major dance center.

Artists were my bulwark, my grounding force, my heat shield. But is that what artists are for?

Not today.

I have an old friend out on the West Coast, a former New Yorker, who is Black and indigenous and queer, a poet and visual artist. One day when I was complaining to her on Facebook Messenger about the general run of things in Grump’s America, she reached into that multifaceted basket of hard experience and wisdom to remind me that it’s actually an honor to be alive now in this challenging time.

And I flashed back to what the poet June Jordan wrote, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” It truly says something fierce about us--and about some committed vow that we must have made before being born--that we are right here and right now with our eyes open and our skills sharpened. Ready to rumble.

As children are torn from their parents at the southern border or mis-educated in their schools or shot to death in those same schoolrooms, artists are not, for me or for any of us, just something to lean upon or hide behind or be distracted by.

Artists are knights, armored up and charging forward into the worst of things. Because how can they not?

Their capacity to honestly witness, process, analyze, dream up, brainstorm and collaborate and build with others are what we need now, because we are coming up out of a deep and deeply-troubled sleep, roused by multiple monsters of oppression.

And what of our artists?  If they are not, themselves, prone to the American way of denying, hiding, numbing the self or following addictive distractions down all sorts of sinkholes, our artists are doing their work despite the fact that they themselves might be on the verge of nausea, or they somehow manage to keep going with only that one. last. good. nerve.

A dance artist I once interviewed noted how much Black/lesbian/poet/warrior/mother Audre Lorde influenced him. He remembered that she would always ask, pointedly, “Are you doing your work?”

Most of the artists I know and respect are doing just that--their work--with more focus and determination than ever before. Which does not make it nice and easy for the rest of us. It provides no hiding place. One of the dancers of Urban Bush Women said it best last night at the premiere of Hair and Other Stories: “Safe space is not comfortable space.”

The windstorm kicked up by those knights artistic as they charge past us cannot be ignored. We are caught up in it, too, swept along to the battleground.

As my West Coast friend would say, There are no mistakes. We are meant to be here. We are the ones we have been waiting for. Let’s do our work.

-- Eva Yaa Asantewaa


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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Debra Chasnoff, 60

Debra Chasnoff, Whose Films Redefined Gay Families, Dies at 60
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, November 14, 2017

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"Confusing times" call for clarity: Discuss!

Judy Hussie-Taylor
Exective Director and Chief Curator
Danspace Project
(photo: Michael Kirby)

In these confusing times, why and how do performing arts presenters and curators decide what work to present in their season? What is the interplay of determining factors – sociopolitical climate, curatorial vision, audience trends, diversity, the bottom line?

--publicity text for "Commissioning and Presenting in Confusing Times," an Open Spectrum Community Dialogue presented by New York Live Arts and co-curated with Brian Tate of The Tate Group

"For some reason, I kept calling this panel Presenting in A Crisis," said moderator Judy Hussie-Taylor, introducing Commissioning and Presenting in Confusing Times, hosted by New York Live Arts last week. Her alternate title made more sense, really, since most of us in the arts are not at all confused. We're clearheaded enough to be damned angry.

That sense of specific, political outrage seemed elusive at this gathering of five of New York's most powerful curators and presenters--Lili Chopra (French Institute Alliance Française), Tim Griffin (The Kitchen), Kamilah Forbes (Apollo Theater), Jay Wegman (NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts) and Hussie-Taylor herself, an innovator who has made space for award-winning "Platform" programming at historic Danspace Project.

Referring to our current American moment as "a crisis, the turning point in a disease," Hussie-Taylor suggested that her panelists might tackle four questions:

• What needs to be explored?
• What or who needs to be honored?
• What or who needs to be challenged?
• What needs to be jettisoned?

Relatively new to their positions, Forbes and Wegman are both clearly still researching, experimenting and seeking their best path at institutions with, respectively, formidable cultural legacy (the Apollo) and conventional, somewhat muddled programming (NYU Skirball). Wegman--formerly, and famously, artistic director of Abrons Arts Center--was forthcoming about challenges he faces in replacing stodgy Skirball fare with something actually attractive to NYU students. To do so, he has let go of familiar acts that, as he put it, tend to do little but recycle their material. The 2016 election re-energized his focus, inspiring him to produce more adventurous events such as an appearance by author Ta-Nehisi Coates and the U.S. premiere of a controversial Palestinian play, The Siege.

All the panelists expressed, to one degree or another, dedication to supporting artists and putting artists' needs and concerns at the center of operations--with all the practical complications that can entail. Forbes argued that the job of the institution is to be the locus of transformation and a vehicle for creating the "21st Century canon." But, for the most part, I must say I walked away still questioning how this might be achieved, not just at the Apollo, but elsewhere in what is arguably the arts capital and most progressive city of our nation.

Even in New York's dance and performance community, we are still looking at citadels of power in need of the knowledge, skill, insight and visionary courage of more women and more people of color. The expertise and talent, which I witness regularly, are out here in abundance....and not in the least in a state of confusion. 

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Shirley Childress Saxton, 69

Her Sign From Above
by Alona Wartofsky, Washington City Paper, March 22, 2017

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ART MATTERS NOW

ART MATTERS NOW

Since word first leaked that Donald J. Trump wants to gut the National Endowments of the Arts and the Humanities, along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, many commentators have focused on the economic impact of the arts on communities, cities and the nation as a whole. Statistics argue for the arts as a contributor to American prosperity. The arts give far more than what they take in government support. The arts, we repeatedly hear, drive economic development and employment on the local level and represent this nation before the world as one dedicated to innovation and excellence.

As a writer, and one devoted to the arts, I’m grateful for any persuasive advocacy. However, with so much energy invested in painting the arts’ material benefits--linking their worth to monetary usefulness and relative low maintenance--we tend to ignore the full extent of good that the arts provide any society. These benefits happen to be desperately needed right now as we face the ascendancy of Trump and his nationalist, white supremacist regime.

The Arts as Story

The arts seek ways--ever new and as ancient as humanity itself--to articulate and preserve the story of individual lives as well as diverse communities, cultures and nations. They remind us where we’ve come from, who we are, what we most value, what we have built, to what stars we aspire. For each of us and for all of us, they give abundant sustenance for the Hero’s Journey.

The Arts as Guide

The arts inform how we choose to live our lives, how we relate to our inner selves as well as to the world around us, how we engage with hard problems and join our many individual talents to solve them. They show us where we slipped up in the past so that we need not repeat these errors or, if we do, we can recognize them as such and choose differently next time. They stimulate our intuition and creative potential. They give us ideals to reach for, consolation when we fall short and energy to try again and again and again.

The Arts as Healer

The arts have consistently demonstrated outstanding power to heal--in body, mind, heart and soul--those who study and work through them as well as those who witness and receive them. In a nation with historic unhealed trauma, unacknowledged anger and deep, deep layers of denial, the arts offer ways to surface and express pain, to empathize and align others who suffer, to gather what each and all of us will need to cleanse our wounds and grow strong in the broken places.

The Arts as Change

The arts have the ability, if willed and well utilized, to speak truth to power. They are rousing instigators that can help us question and dismantle rather than accept injustice. Through their example, we see our situation more clearly as they capture reality in mirrors that may be playful and surprising, personally life-changing and revolutionary on a grander scale. They serve the creation of the world we desire.

The Arts as Joy

The arts bring joy by radically dispersing the hateful lies and shame thrown upon individuals and whole communities of people. They awaken a healthy sense of roots, of awe, of agency and the capacity for freedom and pleasure. They restore us to our true selves.

Of course, all of these sacred roles speak to the reason the arts have long been undervalued, even held suspect, in a society caught up in mass commercialism, escapism, fear of the Other and conservative fear of creativity itself. A minority of the US electorate has now empowered an insecure, vindictive man threatened and enraged not only by a free, newly revitalized press but by artists who dare criticize his policies and refuse to normalize his election and its aftermath.

There has never been a more crucial time for our people to affirm and activate the arts--and support artists engaged with the ancient and evergreen roles of Storyteller, Guide, Healer and Agent of Change and Joy. There’s more at stake than jobs and the tourist dollar. There’s a nation’s soul to be rescued.

(photo: D. Feller)

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
InfiniteBody

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Sanctuary: George Emilio Sanchez and BAX's Marya Warshaw on upholding free speech

First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces is an initiative that aims to create a network of performance and cultural spaces, as well as places of worship, that pledge to uphold the foundational elements of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment at a time when enforcement of these fundamental constitutional guarantees is not assured.

A statement from

George Emilio Sanchez, 

writer, performer, director, educator

and the creator of the First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces project

Almost overnight, we have found ourselves in a threatening time with little light. Almost overnight, ways of life, the questions of citizenry, the avenues by which people identify who they are and where they come from, our racial and gender identities, and the reality of the 1% v. the 99%, have suddenly arisen to become the signifiers for "authentic" Americans.  As a way to move forward, to continue to create, to find ways to connect one story to another, one person to another, to meet indifference, fear, and ignorance at the crossroads, this initiative, First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces, offers one alternative to create a narrative that brings stories, cultures, faiths and people together under the umbrella we call the Constitution.

The First Amendment articulates the foundational elements essential to any free and open society.  The arts and expression, a free and open press, and the exercise of religious beliefs, all are key ingredients of a democratic society.  Each strand of this quilt, the arts, the press and religion, individually and collectively, function to create the practice of freedom.  All are essential to the life and soul of this country.  But they are all in jeopardy under El Trumpo's administration.  We have awoken to a dark time with little light.  But this project aims to be pro-active, to be one step ahead, as we carve a way forward where we can affirm our place in this country.  Frederick Douglass, who has been cited by our president to be doing amazing things, once said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never has and it never will."  Rights, and subsequently our freedom, are not passively given to people.  Laws are meaningless without the passion and fervor to make the word flesh.  The challenges every one of us faces individually, or as members of the myriad communities we find kinship and solace with, stare us in the face today.  But dark times are also the windows of opportunity we can take up to bring us the light we demand.  Through the arts, we can nurture the strength and commitment of affirming who we are in the face of these challenges.  The arts are the human-made gifts that can bring us joy, can throw us to the depths of our fears, and still ignite celebrations and declarations of how the nuances of our commonality present us with years and years of newfound understanding.  The arts are the ultimate form of non-violent resistance that express the eloquence of the human spirit.

This network is committed to upholding the tenets of the first amendment.  We are sanctuaries that will protect and keep safe the freedom of speech, of the press, of the people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  In perpetuity, which colloquially means....to keep on keeping on!

For more information on First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces and to find out how you or your organization can participate, visit the Facebook page here.

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Act now! Brittany Williams launches challenge to arts leaders

OPEN CALL AND RESPONSE

TO ART AND CULTURAL-ART ORGANIZATIONS

TO STEP UP AND PUSH BACK

by Brittany Williams (choreographer/dancer; movement organizer)

The urgency for artists, art organizations, art-cultural organizations, gatekeepers, and funders to come together to collectively activate, strategically plan, and organize is greater now more than ever. Arts, culture, and creativity, for the next four years, will play a vital role in the creation of self-sufficient governing infrastructures for black and brown communities that can boldly push back against President Trump.

The start of January marked a new year and a new beginning like no other. President Trump’s inauguration has kicked off Trump’s first 100 days mandate. Trump's mandates burst open a dark wound of state-sanctioned violence, creating a new era that digs up the dark ancestry of the birth of the American nation built on white privilege and terrorism against people of color. It is a wary time for Muslim, LGBTQI, and black and brown communities as well as women, immigrants and First Nation indigenous people. This new era of white male militant-patriotic, racist, hegemonic fascism is blended up and embedded in nearly every single person recruited to join Trump's cabinet, and it has many citizens in fear and scared for their very lives.

However, I would like to encourage us in the art field to take some time to reflect and then actively get involved in constructive action. The need for artists, cultural leaders and art and cultural organizations to deeply invest in a racial and economic justice model is critical because all communities including white America will depend upon it. White people and white cultural institutions and leaders, it's time that you get your hands dirty in the struggle. It is time to put aside fragility and dive into fugitivity. It's time to put your whiteness on the line and organize your people. We need maroonage. The requirement for white fugitivity and maroonage is self-examination and a full investment in black liberation.

Definitions:

Maroonage historically refers to those independent societies formed by African slaves who escaped from the plantations during slavery. Many of these communities rose to become independent city and state republics that had to be recognized by white colonial powers. Many partnered with indigenous Native American nations. There were dozens of successful Maroon settlements all over the New World throughout the 300 years of chattel slavery. In modern terms, maroonage refers to the creation of sovereign self-sustaining institutions independent of the state and the dominant powers that be. These institutions by necessity have a special relationship to the 'Indigenous' and the concept of the 'Local' whilst having a global sense of context and work. The idea of being disconnected and sovereign from the dominant culture is important as it leads to decisions of self- sustainability, integrity of vision, and larger ideas of communities of like minds.

White fugitivity refers to the conscious physical, mental, social or institutional abandonment of the dominant culture by a member of that same culture.

Maroonage and fugitivity as a commitment requires that cultural leaders, arts organizations, funders, gatekeepers internally invest in temporal reform with incremental steps to dismantle their own internalized white supremacy structures, hierarchies within their organizations to ensure racial equity, economic sustainability for black and brown people. In short – white artists, cultural and art organizations and funders have long benefited from black bodies, arts, creativity and communities and if you are really about change it is time that you pay in full your debt for the use of our property, bodies and brilliance. We need reparations in form of dismantling your own racist practices, sharing of wealth, and or funding organizations, allies in cultural leaders who have done this work for years, and also we need you not to be the leaders when making decisions for us (black and brown artists and communities).

This call is for you to do more than create space for us to heal, to do more than give us space to talk to other artists about the issues we are facing. This is a call to change and most importantly disrupt the power dynamics. This call is for cultural leaders, art-organizations, funders, and gatekeepers to do more!

Here are my following questions:

•    Do you, as people who hold power in the arts, have a clear analysis of what is at stake going forward?

•   What are your goals in ensuring the safety of the people made most vulnerable by the Trump election?

•    What are you willing to give up, share, and restructure within your organization that will make a positive impact in the lives of black and brown people, immigrants, Muslims, women (black and brown women), LGBTQI people--today, not tomorrow or next week?

We need this type of commitment to these communities and artists of color and immigrants.

REFORMING CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AND DISMANTLING THE CULTURAL SYSTEMS AND COMPONENTS THAT UPHOLD, SUPPORT, AND ENGAGE IN WHITE SYSTEMIC STRUCTURES THAT BENEFIT WHITE MEN AND WOMEN:

When we look at the boards and staff compositions of most cultural organizations, the majority are white men and women.

The local Arts Agencies 2016 Report on Staff:

Staff and volunteer demographics at the average LAA2:

•    83 percent of staff are non-Hispanic white,

•    6 percent are black/African-American,

•    4 percent Hispanic and other races constitute 7 percent.

Board:

•    Ninety-five percent of LAAs have a board of directors, commission, or another type of oversight group.

•    Of those, less than one in three have written diversity policies for their boards.

•    29 percent of LAAs have a written diversity policy for their board of directors.

•    46 percent consider diversity in their board operations but have no written policy.

•    25 percent do not take diversity into consideration when recruiting members.

Staff and board members are vital because they are the people making collective decisions. They are the gatekeepers. We need to hold them accountable for their expertise and how they are building relationships and challenging donors and foundations when it comes to how we collectively build power- and disturb power as well. They are hired to be "the experts." However, coming from a racial justice lens, I would like to challenge this "expertise," because I deeply believe if we want to make a collective change, we need people with power and resources who are most impacted by the targeted circumstances. We do not need white people's dreams of "reciprocity" or "benevolence" to be the "giving mechanism" married to a perception about black and brown people which label their communities and limits them to these labels. Labels such as “disenfranchised,” “poor,” “youth at risk,” “crime prevention targets,” “no culture,” and “illiterate.” Ya, feel me?

HOW CAN WE CHANGE THIS NARRATIVE?

How can we change this practice and these ways of culturing within the art field? Simple. Put those that are closest to the problem in the position to conjure solutions! They are the experts. In need of power and resources. This is an open challenge to all art institutions.

MOVING FORWARD I WOULD LIKE TO RAISE THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

•    How can we use this call and response to create a coalition of art and cultural organizations, funders, and gatekeepers to look at their own internalized/external system practices and make a commitment to change their practices and ways of culture to create leadership roles for more than one black and brown person in their organization?

•    How do organizations, funders, and gatekeepers collectively build collective power with black and brown people to create agency and access to authority roles and resources?

•    How can art and cultural organizations, funders, and gatekeepers create accountability structures--to the community and to each other-- to reform and or dismantle white supremacy within their organization?

SUGGESTION: SET A PLAN IN ACTION OVER Trumps Next 100 days with short-term goals and incremental markers for the next four years and 10+ years.

•    What can you do right now to re-imagine and implement racial equity and sensibilities that in turn liberates resources needed for and by artists and communities that will become most vulnerable under the Trump administration?

•    How can cultural organizations and funders find an equitable solution to address the needs of black, brown, LGBTQ, Muslim artists facing white supremacy hegemony, racism, xenophobia, and the haunting history of America?

•    What role do we all play in this change?

The Bessie Awards call for organizations to restate their mission and values publicly to the Trump administration was a great effort, but this is not the time to state your claim or disassociate from racism and hegemony. Patrons, this is the time to do some introspection and fix it! We do not need a public statement; we need short term, long-term plans/platforms to ensure safety! We you to stay in the frying pan! We need radical risk-taking, fierce gatherings, and collaborations to rehabilitate, protect, and empower communities. We need real spaces of marronage.

This is epecially timely, since the next report out will find art organizations more racist now than 10 years ago.

Please do take my words to heart because, at this point, I have everything to lose--including my chains, friends, loved one, job and community.

And if you made it to the end of this article and you are really about dismantling and standing as an ally for black liberation from a creative racial justice lens, please fill one of the forms below.

Black and brown individual or organization (Please note: you do not have to be located in New York city or the US to sign on) interested in signing on to the document, fill out this document:

https://goo.gl/forms/z7vwoQgsod6VYZjE2

Gatekeepers, funders, arts organizations, cultural leaders interested in shifting your power dynamic within your organization, please fill out this document:

https://goo.gl/forms/cDAeMuhI29t7PvXk1

Warm regards and with love,

Brittany Williams

Founder |Executive Director | Dancing for Justice

Founder |Obika Dance Projects

Core Supporting Team: 

Rubadiri Victor (Trinidad & Tobago)

Michelle Murray (Miami FL)

Preach R Sun  (Detroit)