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  • Theory of Change
    • Advocacy
  • What We Do
    • For Children
      • Early Childhood
      • Studio Lab
      • Teen Choreo Lab
      • Summer Dance Camps
    • For Parents
      • MPACT
      • Early Childhood
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      • Building Cultures of Dance
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      • Building Cultures of Dance
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Racial Justice Dance Resources

Black People Have the Right to Be Free – a community message from Luna Dance

As an organization we continue to reflect deeply about how we enact our mission within the larger socio-political context of systemic oppressions and inequity. In this space you’ll see rotating written reflections from Luna’s board members, who together have taken on the charge of unpacking what equity means to our organization, and from Luna’s leaders and teaching artists, who seek to bring creativity, community and equity to each child we teach, in each class we teach.

 

Educating is a vocation rooted in hopefulness. As teachers we believe that learning is possible, that nothing can keep an open mind from seeking after knowledge and finding a way to know.
– bell hooks
BLM logo

Dear Luna Community,

August 2, 2020, four black girls ages 6-17 years are forced to lie face-down on a sidewalk at gunpoint. I first read about this in USA Today, where the story was buried in the middle of the newspaper. Why is this not front-page news? Do we care so little about black and brown children? Six months later, on January 29, 2021, a 9-year old black girl is pepper-sprayed and handcuffed.  As the leader of an arts organization dedicated to children’s freedom through the art of dance, it is a gut-punch to see black girls stripped of their liberation. What is especially heart-breaking is that I know there are many more stories like this that do not make the news cycle.

As artists and educators, can we truly change this narrative for black children?  At a recent board retreat, Luna board member and dance educator, Nia Womack-Freeman asked:

A dance organization like Luna Dance Institute that values and states that it wants children to be free, beckons me to ask how do we support children’s freedom when outside factors like institutionalized racism in schools, community policing, inequitable access to healthy living, poor healthcare, etc. are directly restricting that child’s freedom? 

The structures and systems of racism that public schools are built on are forcing me to question if Luna is truly making an impact. Luna’s teaching artists taught at one school that required their students to pass through the hallways with hands clasped behind their backs (like the perp walk) so they would not touch each other. Children moved freely and fully embodied for one hour, then left the dance class with their bodies enclosed. As I reflect on this, it is important to note that the architects of many California schools also designed industrial prison facilities.

As Luna fulfills our Theory of Change while contemplating Nia’s question, we recognize our responsibility. We know that . . .

  • We must be vigilant and reflect on our discomfort as we acknowledge our biases and assumptions
  • We must continue to learn and unlearn
  • We must work with others committed to structural and systemic change
  • We must cede space to BIPOC dance education leaders to create the change they want to see

We invite you to act with us to build a just society where black girls can experience freedom inside and outside of the dance classroom. As we investigate these resources shared by Luna’s board of directors and faculty, we humbly share them with you below.

Moving Together for Change,

Nancy Ng, Executive Director of Creativity & Policy

Anti-Racism Resources for Parents & Educators

  • Your Kids Aren’t Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup (resource page)
  • We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Dr. Bettina L. Love (book)
  • bell hooks Teaching Trilogy: Teaching to Transgress, Teaching Critical Thinking, Teaching Community by bell hooks (books)
  • What if All the Kids Are White: Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families by Louise Derman Sparks and Patricia G. Ramsey (book)
  • Killing Rage by bell hooks (book)
  • Raising Free People: Fare of the Free Child with Akilah S. Richards (podcast)
  • Teaching Tolerance: Race & Ethnicity (website)
  • Embrace Race (website)
  • Understand, Learn and Act: Teaching in the Midst of Mass Protests for Black Lives (website)
  • Racism Explained to My Daughter by Tahar Ben Jelloun
  • Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond

Anti-Racism Resources for Children

  • Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness by Anastasia Higginbotham (children’s book)
  • Woke Kindergarten by akiea “ki” gross (online resource for adults and kids)
  • 31 Children’s Books to Support Conversations on Race, Racism, and Resistance

Other Resources

  • 13th (documentary)
  • Scaffolding anti-racism resources (resource doc)
  • White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (book)
  • Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad (book)
  • The History of the Police (PDF)
  • A Guide to Allyship (resource doc)
  • Politically Reactive with W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu #53: What did we learn? With Alicia Garza and Wyatt Cenac (podcast episode)
  • Reading List: Is This Moment Radicalizing You? (twitter thread)
  • The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun (book excerpt)
  • Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 stories edited by Eddie Moore, Jr., Marguerite W. Penick-Parks and Ali Michael

Black-focused Resources

  • Family-Care, Community-Care and Self-Care Tool Kit: Healing in the Face of Cultural Trauma by the Community Healing Network and The Association of Black Psychologists, Inc. 
  • Community Healing Network (building the movement for emotional emancipation across the African Diaspora) 
  • The Wellness of We (daily recorded practices in joy, wellness, and love led by black people) 
  • 44 Mental Health Resources for Black People Trying to Survive in This Country  
  • Ourselves Black (includes articles on black parenting)

Anti-Racism Resources for Dancers

Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dancers Amplified – Global Active Practices

July 23, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

The 180 Podcast – Zaretta Hammond: What is Culturally Responsive Teaching? Part 1

July 23, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dance of the African Diaspora – Tracing Social and Political Activism

July 17, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

What the Reactions to Debora Chase-Hicks’ Death Revealed About Divisions in the Dance World

July 17, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Reclaiming the Legacy of Oakland’s Boogaloo Culture

February 3, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Talking Race and Equity: A few tips by Cherie Hill

January 14, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Cultivating Freedom & Power in the Dance Classroom by Jochelle Pereña

January 13, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dance Educators Create Systemic Change by Cherie Hill

January 13, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Hot Feet and Social Change African Dance and Diaspora Communities by Kariamu Welsh, Esailama G. A. Diouf, and Yvonne Daniel

January 13, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World: Culturally Relevant Teaching in Theory, Research, and Practice by Nyama McCarthy-Brown

January 13, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts by Brenda Dixon Gottschild

January 13, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Decolonizing Dance Resources

January 12, 2021
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Explore California dance, place & culture through these local dance forms

November 28, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dancing Around Race: Interrogating Whiteness in Dance

November 23, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Exclusion is Oppression

November 19, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

National Guild’s Anti-Racism as Organizational Compass

The National Guild for Community Arts Education is presenting the...
October 14, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dance as Activism via Dance Magazine

September 29, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dancing Around Race Community Reader

August 17, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Radical Response Dance Making Dismantling Racism Through Embodied Conversations by Nyama McCarthy-Brown and Selene Carter

August 10, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Final Bow for Yellowface

August 10, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

International Association of Blacks in Dance: The Black Report

August 7, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Sarah Crowell Moves to Decolonize Dance

August 7, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Black Dance Stories hosted by Charmaine Warren, Kimani Fowlin and Nicholas Hall

August 7, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Are College Dance Curriculums Too White? by J. Bouey

July 31, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Recognizing Systemic Racism in Dance by Alicia Mullikin and a team of POC West Coast dance artists

July 31, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

The Dance Union Town Hall for Collective Action

Organized by Melanie Greene and J. Bouey, this series of Town Halls...
July 29, 2020
Dance Race & Equity Resources

Dancing Around Race

In 2018 Gerald Casel led a community engagement residency in the Bay...
July 28, 2020

Stories of Anti-racist Dance Activism

Dancers use their art form to stand up, share their voices, protest and galvanize.

Stories of Dance Equity Activism

Many Black TikTok creators are on strike from the platform. Here are voices from the boycott.

July 17, 2021
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

The Power of Dance as Political Protest by Brenda Dixon-Gottschild

November 2, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

Finding Indigenous Futurism through Dance

September 13, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

The School that Camille A. Brown Built

September 13, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

Dance, Protest, and Public Health with Dr. Rhea Boyd, podcast by Reference Desk

August 18, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

Making a Connection Between Movement and Social Movements

August 17, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

Black Dance Claims a Space Near Robert E. Lee

August 10, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

8 Powerful Dance Works to Come out of the Black Lives Matter Movement

July 29, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

How the Electric Slide Became the Black Lives Matter Protest Dance

July 28, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

Dancing Bodies That Proclaim: Black Lives Matter

July 28, 2020
Stories of Dance Equity Activism

Dancing in Protest – Jo’Artis Ratti’s dance expresses anguish and frustration at the killing of George Floyd

July 28, 2020

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Drawings: Valentina Alexander

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