GUSH

In 2018 Gerald Casel led Dancing Around Race, a community engagement residency in the Bay Area that examined issues surrounding racial equity in dance. Using a systems thinking approach, choreographers, educators, writers, funders, and curators were invited to discuss issues that contribute to racial inequity. Some guiding questions for the Dancing Around Race conversations included: What obstacles get in the way of racial equity? What does it look/feel like to have racial equity in dance? What does the future look like? How do we get there? Three public gatherings with guest speakers modeled after the long table discussion were held throughout the year. The project has expanded to include a gathering of over 60 dance educators at the University of Utah, which focused on whiteness in higher education. The group discussed how systemic racism shows up in higher education, and how capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and settler colonialism restrict the possibility of shifting power dynamics.

Casel will be joined by Rebecca Chaleff, Sammay Dizon, Kimani Fowlin, David Herrera, Yayoi Kambara, Kate Mattingly, Raissa Simpson, and Tria Blu Wakpa to hold space for this unique gathering during GUSH, paying particular attention to how systemic racial inequity is playing out during this pandemic. Moderated by Bhumi Patel, we will be asking how and where we go from here as well as sharing thoughts on imagining an alternative future that is equitable and just.
Dancing Around Race was initially supported by HMD’s Bridge Project (Hope Mohr Dance) and included Zulfikar Ali Bhutto with special guests Aruna D’Souza, Barbara Bryan, and Thomas F. DeFrantz.

Registration/Ticket required for Dancing Around Race. Upon signing up, you’ll receive an email with online access instructions.

May 28, 4-6pm

Feature Artist Practice – Not About Race Dance with GERALDCASELDANCE

For this occasion, GERALDCASELDANCE will discuss the process of making Not About Race Dance, which is a collaborative choreographic response to the unmarked predominance of whiteness in US postmodern dance. The work cites Neil Greenberg’s Not About AIDS Dance to connect the silence around the AIDS epidemic and the unacknowledged racial politics of postmodern dance. Occupying a space defined by white artists, it contests the structural endurance of whiteness in postmodernity by disidentifying with the white cube activated by Trisha Brown’s Locus and asks how difference can be made visible through choreographic structures that do not traditionally make space for brown and black bodies. Whiteness is the “not race” that the work exposes as a durable history and dominant social structure perpetuated through contemporary dance practices.

Gerald Casel will be present to hold a Q&A with his artistic collaborators: Aron Altmark (media and lighting design), Rebecca Chaleff (dramaturgy), Tim Russell (sound design), and Audrey Johnson, Kaia Makihara, and Karla Quintero (dancers).

May 29, 4-5pm

This event will be hosted on Zoom, click to join.

It will also be streamed on Facebook, click to view. 

Feature Artist Practice – NAKA Dance Theater

José Navarrete and Debby Kajiyama will present excerpts of BUSCARTE (Searching for You). BUSCARTE is a performance that contemplates the forensic anthropology findings in the case of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College who were forcibly disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico in 2014. The ongoing search for the students has led to the discovery of other mass graves that reveal the epidemic proportions of the hidden violence. The work contemplates the effect of the trauma of forced disappearance on ever-widening circles in the community.

May 27, 6-7pm

This event will be hosted on Zoom,
click to join.

It will also be streamed on Facebook
click to view. 

NAKA Dance Theater shares a virtual conversation with Rosa-Linda Fregoso & members of Mujeres Unidas y Activas.

This event will be hosted on Zoom
in SPANISH with ENGLISH interpretation
click to join.

It will also be streamed
on Facebook (SPANISH only)
click to view.*

As part of NAKA Dance Theater’s BUSCARTE Project and in association with Mujeres Unidas y Activas, we will have the honor of a virtual conversation with Professor Rosa-Linda Fregoso to discuss gender and racial violence and cultural politics in the Americas. She is a Professor of Latin American & Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the co-editor of Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Americas (co-edited with Cynthia Bejarano, Duke University Press, 2010). We will also discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender-based violence in our communities.

Professor Fregoso will be joined by Mirna Ruiz, Monica Gonzalez and Miriam Guillen, who manage the crisis line at Mujeres Unidas y Activas.

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Plática virtual con Maestra Rosa-Linda Fregoso y miembras de Mujeres Unidas y Activas

Miércoles 27 de Mayo a las 1-2pm.

Esta conversación será en español con interpretación en inglés.

Como parte del Proyecto BUSCARTE de NAKA Danza Teatro y en asociación con Mujeres Unidas y Activas, tendremos el honor de establecer una conversación virtual con la profesora Rosa-Linda Fregoso para discutir temas como la violencia racial y de género y las políticas culturales en las Américas. Profesora del departamento de estudios Latinoamericanos y Latinos de la Universidad de California, Santa Cruz. Es co-editora del libro: Aterrorizando a las Mujeres: Feminicidio en las Américas, el titulo en ingles es:Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Americas (co-editado con Cynthia Bejarano, Duke University Press, 2010). También se discutirá el tema de la pandemia de COVID-19 y el incremento de la violencia de género en nuestras comunidades.

La profesora Fregoso se unirá a Mirna Ruiz, Mónica González y Miriam Guillén, quienes administran la línea de crisis en Mujeres Unidas y Activas.

This event will be hosted on Zoom
in SPANISH with ENGLISH interpretation
click to join.

It will also be streamed
on Facebook (SPANISH only)
click to view.*