Back in January, when the newly-inaugurated President Obama issued a national call to service, I began a national dialogue with my dance/movement therapy colleagues about how to answer the President’s call and also meet the recently articulated goals of the American Dance Therapy Association to further develop diversity in our profession. My initial post was inspired by a series of events that occurred with an undergraduate student of mine – through their unfolding I was made acutely aware on a personal level of the frustration and disappointment experienced when access to dance and personal expression is denied and how, beyond personal loss, this creates a deficit in our own profession. (Story below.)
The Dizzy Feet Foundation has been recently established by Nigel Lythgoe & Adam Shankman of “So You Think You Can Dance” fame, Carrie Ann Inaba of “Dancing with the Stars” and Katie Holmes to “(1) provide scholarships and grants to talented dancers, choreographers and/or teachers working at or through accredited dance studios; (2) establish national standards for dance education and an accreditation program for dance; and (3) develop, provide and support dance education programs for underserved children by working through and with community organizations.” {SYTYCD Blog}
FANTASTIC! What a potentially powerful organization that could really increase opportunity and access for the youth across this country. The success of dance reality tv shows is evolving into something deeper. My hope is that the Dizzy Feet Foundation will also connect with professionals from the American Dance Therapy Association so that all aspects of dance and all dance career options can be shared with the youth. One can dance and teach… choreograph, perform… and one can help others find their own healing through dance, as a dance/movement therapist! If children across this country can be granted access to dance education and experience firsthand the inherent healing capacity of dance AND if professionals from the dance/movement therapy community can adequately educate about the existence of our field as a career option, a Dizzy Feet Generation could emerge and make a real impact on this country’s future.
January 22, 2009 to the ADTA listserve:
President Obama’s emphasis on “serving” where needed has had me thinking about how to do so through DMT. I’ve also been thinking about a recent revelation from one of my college students that has implications on our organization’s development of diversity in the profession. I’m wondering if the two calls can be answered in one action…
My thoughts return to a student I had in my Nonverbal Communication class last year. As part of the class I lead an extra-curricular workshop for students, on which they could potentially write a paper, that allowed them to experience aspects of DMT – largely based on principles of Dr. Danielle Fraenkel’s LivingDance~LivingMusic. (It was more of a “Dance for Self-Awareness” workshop than DMT but it gave them a taste of the power of movement and the connection of bodymind.) Long story short, prior to this workshop (and after an earlier classroom experience on moving Laban’s Efforts) this student came to me, exuberant from the movement experience and asking – almost pleading – how she really wished she could be a dancer but she was now a junior in college and had never studied dance. As I had had 70 students in the studio moving Efforts, I couldn’t recall her specific movement abilities, but I encouraged her to start taking dance classes on campus now and told her there were careers in dance that didn’t necessarily involve the typical “professional dancer” pathway – including DMT.
Flash forward to the Self-Awareness through Dance workshop.
She moved beautifully. There was such joy and passion and self-expression in her movement. She hadn’t had dance technique training, but there was no doubt she was a dancer. Her spirit soared through her movement.
I told her this after the class and encouraged her again to take as many dance classes as she could on campus – nonmajor classes to start – CSULB had plenty.
I checked in with her a few weeks later and asked her if she had found some dance classes to take and if she had committed to pursuing a dance minor.
Her response was tainted with frustration and bitterness. I’m not sure what obstacles she had met in the weeks since our previous discussion, but she was defeated and resigned and a little bit angry. Essentially, she made a statement that I had never considered before. She is of Latino descent and she said… “You know… where I grew up… girls don’t take dance classes. There is no money to take dance classes. For any of the families in my neighborhood… we just don’t have those opportunities as kids. We’re barely finding the money to eat and to keep a roof over our head. I would have loved to dance when I was younger but there was no possibility. I didn’t even know other kids were doing it.”
Her words have left such an impression on me and I realize how my own socio-economic and cultural background had blinded me to the realities of those who have not grown up with the same opportunities as I did. (I grew up low-middle class, rural America, and didn’t start dancing til I was 16, but there at least – eventually – was a window that I found and “danced” through. CSULB has an incredibly diverse student population, many of which are 1st generation college students from economically-challenged families.)
I realized… here was a young woman who most likely could have and would have pursued dancing and perhaps a dance-related career had opportunities presented themselves in her youth instead of financial and cultural obstacles.
Then I thought of the ADTA’s recent focus on developing diversity in our profession and I wondered… is the lack of diversity stemming, not from college-level recruiting, but from a deficit that begins at a much earlier age?
How do we broaden the diversity in our profession if there is little diversity in childhood and adolescent dance education? How do we get dancers of other cultures and economic backgrounds to consider DMT if they can’t even consider Dance?
So, here is my question for those who wish to brainstorm with me.
What ideas do people have about how to answer the President’s call for service and volunteering by creating more opportunities for the economically-challenged youth to experience dance?!?! Are some DMTs already doing this? And how? Can we build on it?
Can we discuss it?
The Dizzy Feet Foundation is an important step in the right direction. How do we, how can we join in their dance?
Moving Towards Understanding 