Community Partner Spotlight: Dance Art Community Project
In partnership with Dance Arts Community Project, Dominican Dance majors/CASC minors support and assist in children’s dance classes at Al Boro Community Center in the Canal, and at Dr. MLK Academy in Marin City. DUC students also support community building and learn from dance instructors how to structure dance lessons.
Dance Arts Community Project’s mission is to provide historically marginalized and underserved communities access to ballroom and Latin dance as a form of self-expression and self-realization. Movement to music is an essential component of the human experience. It is a bridge that connects people, regardless of background or socioeconomic status. We believe that the undeniable existence of an opportunity gap for communities of color should not inhibit any dancer from achieving their dreams.
In her May 10, 2023 final paper for Dr. Emily Wu’s Community-Engaged Research Methodology class, Dance Major and CASC minor Brooke Sinton, writes powerfully about her learning with the Canal community. She interviewed a few mothers of children in the dance class she assisted at the Al Boro Community Center in the Canal neighborhood. These interviews represent the importance of centering community knowledge. The following is an excerpt from her final paper, Dance is happiness. Music is freedom. Culture is community:
Culture is Core to the Sense of Community & Belonging
This idea of prioritizing family and community connects the sense of Community and Belonging. At the very beginning of the interview, I learned that M. actually commutes from Greenbrae to utilize the services at the community center because, she said:
I feel comfortable because I was living here for some years and I always come here with my little daughter and the community programs, and we come here for many years.
Therefore, even though Mariela does not live in the Canal, she feels a sense of Community and Belonging at the community center where they have good quality programming and strong cultural connections. While working in the Canal I have heard and witnessed the time and energy that families put into the Community Center because of the sense of comfortability and the feeling of community there.
The interviewees explained to me how culture is passed down through the family members, through lessons, stories, language, food, etc. The cultural transmission that happens inside and outside of the home helps foster these feelings of Community and Belonging. This key theme displays the Familial and Social Capital present in the Canal and the Latino community. Members of these communities are able to rely on members of their family or social network for support and assistance when needed.
The mothers further explained that they transmit their culture to their children
…everyday: speaking our language, eating our food, me with our anecdotes, we talk about…when we were kids in our country. We talk about our traditions our family left in Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala. They learn with us. They were born here, but I don’t know, but they are the spirit of our culture.
My understanding of what M. expresses here, is related to what Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz identifies as “Lo Cotidiano.” Isasi-Diaz, a Cuban theologian, defines Lo Cotidiano as, essentially, the everyday cultural experiences (including dance) and the everyday struggles of Latinas, which are not necessarily impacted by social justice efforts made at the structural level. These daily struggles may seem minor or a part of life, but they build-up to internalized oppression. Lo Cotidiano supports the fact that in order to affect real social justice change in the Latino community, work must be done at the grassroots level in addition to the structural level.
Before the interview began, M. and I were making some conversation and she was telling me about how she walks everywhere. She was not saying as if it created a struggle in her life, but she was merely describing to me that, since she does not have her own car, everything is about a 20-minute walk for her. Her daughter’s school, the community center, food, were all within a 20-minute walk of her house. I am not sure if she feels this is a struggle or if she is grateful that everything is walking distance but this is Lo Cotidiano. Her limited transportation was not necessarily a challenge or a struggle to her, but it was seen as her life, which limits the opportunities for herself and for her children.
While the dance clearly has an extremely important role in Latin culture, both moms were clear on the fact that there was no form of formal dance training in their home countries. However, they expressed their gratitude for the dance programs offered at the community center because it allows them to learn the discipline of the dance styles and prevents them from embarrassment when they dance recreationally when they are older. When I asked the interviewees what dance styles they did for fun, Maria said “There is no preference. It’s about listening and dancing and everything. What happens is that there are no dance classes in my country. I don’t know. There is no dance education. Therefore, everyone dances to the rhythm that they can move.” Framing dance in a way, presents it as more of a natural human experience compared to the elitist model of the U. S. In an article on Ballet Hispánico, author A.A. Cristi interviews Ballet Hispánico’s artistic director and CEO Eduardo Vilaro and describes the company’s history. The company was founded with the mission of blending components of primarily ballet dance and Latin dances (and other oppressed cultures) in order to provide power in Cultural Representation for oppressed communities, specifically Latinx. The company is working to reverse or combat the negative effects of Cultural Colonialism.
The work of places like Ballet Hispánico and Dance Arts Community Project aim to listen to the wants of the Latino community and provide opportunities for formal or professional dance education while still honoring the dancers’ Latin American heritage. From my research and experience in the CASC minor and work in the Canal, I understand that this approach is more beneficial than continuing to force eurocentric and elitist ballet on marginalized and oppressed communities. The community members of the Canal already have a strong understanding of their cultural identity and value; however, they do not often have a space to display or share their culture as it is constantly being dominated by mainstream white culture. Therefore, the class model I propose is one of cultural exchange in which the community being served can share their culture and their cultural values, and they also have access to the opportunity that current socioeconomic barriers have prevented them from having. I hope that in the future of the Dance Arts Community Project, we can provide more dance classes, more performance opportunities, and reach more families in the community.
