Hon 230 - Final Project

BIPOC Community Dance Jam

For my final project, to demonstrate what I learned regarding the cultivation of collective learning communities in contrast to banking education models, I hosted a BIPOC Contact Improv Dance Jam. Utilizing the theories from bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress, I aimed to facilitate a space in which individual attendees could be in community with each other, dissolve the hierarchies situated within Western academia, share resources, food, and knowledge, and cultivate joy. My focus in this creation of a collective learning community was to center students and attendees to be able to learn from each other and value embodied knowledge and lived experiences of each individual who entered the space (hooks, 1994). In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire critiques the ways banking models of education situate sole individuals as professors or experts. In efforts to diffuse this, I hoped that by sharing information and situating myself as a facilitator rather than instructor or leader, people would feel empowered to center their knowledge and that this structure would feel more liberatory for attendees. “They call themselves ignorant and say the "professor" is the one who has knowledge and to whom they should listen. The criteria of knowledge imposed upon them are the conventional ones… Not infrequently, peasants in educational projects begin to discuss a generative theme in a lively manner, then stop suddenly and say to the educator: "Excuse us, we ought to keep quiet and let you talk. You are the one who knows, we don't know anything” (Freire, 1968). In this space, there is no sole knower or presenter of knowledge, my role was to ensure people had resources, the space, prompt movement when people needed guidance, and ensure attendees were safe.

Before hosting this event, I looked into the history of the Dance Jam and various community dance projects. I used Rosemary Candelario and Matthew Henley’s, Dance Research Methodologies: Ethics, Orientations, and Practices. In this book, the authors write about the transformative power of a community dance project that started at Reed College. These events were free, open to all students as well as the public, and were open to all levels of experience. “We welcome all bodies, with a critical awareness of how race, class, ability, gender, and sexuality impact the ways we relate to ourselves and one another in public” (Reed, 2024). The main aim of this project was to build community, make dance accessible, and dissolve the hierarchies situated within Western dance spaces. Drawing from this project, I was also inspired by a BIPOC jam I attended locally put on by the Seattle Festival of Dance and Improvisation (SFDI) over the summer. Compared to community dance and improvisation spaces I have existed in before, the energy of the BIPOC affinity space was very different. I felt much more relaxed, safe, and nourished from this community and for many individuals, this one invoked healing and liberation. In alignment with the class themes of untangling colonialism, freedom schools, and student-centered learning, it felt especially important to make this space one that centered on BIPOC.

Informing my creation and set up of the space was the work of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Care Work and Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid. I wanted the space to feel as accessible as possible, including a space to rest and observe feltvery important to me from the beginning. I had hoped that the rest area would make more individuals feel welcome and still able to exist in the space without feeling deterred from not being able to engage in a specific movement or dance style occurring. Without providing a structured agenda or framework for what needed to occur throughout the event, I created different stations and things for people to engage with, hoping to make the space feel more welcoming and accessible to a variety of movers and experience levels. To make the space feel less intimidating, I ensured that the space would have warm and dim lighting. There was constantly danceable music playing at a volume that allowed for conversation as well as movement. I arranged the mirrors to create a little room in which people could escape, yet also optionally engage if they did not wish to view themselves in the mirror. Throughout the space, I placed chairs, as well as a mat with blankets and pillows for people to rest in. Snacks were provided, as well as an area to give feedback and draw with other people. It was important for me to provide food, masks, and whatever resources I could find informed by local mutual aid work. I hope that in the future renditions of this project, community members will feel welcome to bring food and other resources to build upon this element. I also included many props that provoke inspiration for movement, like sheer fabrics, a rainbow ribbon wand, massage rollers, and massage balls. Throughout the night people engaged in conversation, movement, rest, and were able to rotate and explore through the different facets of the space.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that during this event, people naturally began to teach each other things, despite a lack of agenda or situated “professor or expert”. A variety of movers in different styles and experience levels helped facilitate this. It began with one individual dancing in a way that felt comfortable to them, and another person simply approaching and asking “That looks cool, how do you do that? Can you show me?” and collectively, more and more people would approach to learn as one person after another would facilitate. I witnessed this occurring at least five times, in which people taught different movement techniques they were researching, deriving from the house, breaking, waacking, hip-hop, contemporary dance, floorwork, and more. This demonstrated that despite capitalist and neoliberal ideologies that claim without monetary incentives people would lose motivation to create and learn, individuals still sought out new knowledge and demonstrated care for one another. From the anonymous feedback I received, many individuals expressed a desire to return to another event like this, people appreciated when others offered guidance in teaching each other, people loved the amount of freedom they were given to navigate the space as they liked, people left having learned new things, and many expressed that they left feeling better than when they came in.