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Dance/USA’s National Conference offers grounding keynote speakers, illuminating panels, opportunities for 1:1 consulting, energizing movement workshops, and vibrant performances.
Here are all the events announced so far:
Celebrate the start of the conference at the Harris Theater, Chicago’s home for music and dance. Enjoy performances by local Chicago artists, light bites, drinks, and a tribute to this year’s Dance/USA honorees.
Experience the vibrant artistry of Chicago-based dancers and choreographers in the historic G.A.R. Hall at the Cultural Center. Performance schedule and artist details to be announced.
Creative Responses to Money Matters: Pay Equity, Financial Transparency & More (HYBRID)
This session will highlight creative administration responses to resource sharing, financial transparency and pay equity. These strategies counter scarcity mindset and challenge traditional gatekeeping of financial information (which keep the least-resourced of us in that position) and can benefit artists, arts workers, and the entire dance field.
“Artists on Creative Administration: A Workbook by NCCAkron”: Jonathan Meyer, Julia Antonick, Makini, and Tonya Lockyer
Human Resourcing Takes More Than Money
Our field has long been built on transactions between artists and presenters, funders, agents and/or audiences, but this feels like a worn out way to generate progress in resourcing performing arts and artists. What are new ways, different approaches, responsive practices that allow for us to develop economies of mutuality that expand supportive resources to include food, shelter, time, rest, recovery, novelty and play?
CONTRA-TIEMPO’s holly johnston and Ruby Morales
The No Boundaries Archive: A Model for Democratizing Dance Legacies
The lecture-demonstration will walk attendees through the new digital archive, demonstrating its novel features, and sharing ideas for how the resource can be used to represent the voices currently excluded from the archive – especially those of women and BIPOC dance artists.
Gesel Mason and Rebecca Salzer
Body as Altar
This workshop invites intentional rest and reflection. How can the dancing body be a place for community-building, intention-setting, and imagination? Through guided breath, stretches, and moments of pause, participants will be led through recent queer Fil-Am gatherings, while also asking historical and diasporic questions as it relates to practices of embodiment.
Al Evangelista and Jay Carlon
SmArt Bar sessions are one-on-one consultations between Conference participants and industry leaders (or ‘SmArt Bar Bartenders’) who give their expertise in service of their fellow dance makers and cultural workers.
Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project: Documenting, Celebrating and Advocating for Chicago’s Rich Traditions of Black Dance (HYBRID)
The CBDLP is a cohort based model created to support the long-term sustainability of Black dance organizations in the City of Chicago. The CBDLP is a two-year cohort based model with four pillars in mind: Presenting, Advocacy, Capacity Building and Archiving.
Ennerèssa LaNette, iega, Mashaune Hardy and Robin Denise Edwards
Dancing While Being Deaf and Disabled
This panel offers a unique opportunity to explore Deaf culture and the experiences of Deaf disabled individuals in the dance world. We will discuss best practices for working with Deaf dancers, dispel common myths, and address the layers of discrimination that Deaf disabled dancers often face.
Antoine Hunter, Fred Beam, Sean Dorsey, Zahna Simon and Brandy Minns
Dancing Across Borders: Strengthening U.S.-Mexico Cultural Collaborations
Over the past two decades, the dance scene between Mexico and the United States has undergone a remarkable evolution, marked by an intense cultural collaboration. Through a short overview, we will reveal the dynamic interplay between these two countries, characterized by diverse artistic influences, choreographic styles, and innovative approaches to movement.
Cristina Vázquez, Daniela Urías and Lillian Manzor
Inclusive Choreography: Utilizing the unique creativity of neurodiverse and intellectually disabled dancers in choreographic process
In this workshop, delve into the dynamic world of choreography, focusing on harnessing the unique creativity of neurodivergent and intellectually disabled dancers. This session offers insights, strategies, and practical activities to empower choreographers and dance educators on this inclusive journey.
Amber Johnson, Camerin Allgood McKinnon Watson, Davian DJ Robinson and Mia King
Let’s Move
This Movement class will introduce participants to the history and fundamentals of Chicago footwork. The class will begin with the basic steps that are foundational to Chicago footwork. Students will learn how to construct a proper round and build up to a 16-count combination. By the end of the workshop, students will have the opportunity to learn several combo sets.
MurdaMommy
Access Guide to Presenting and Touring the Performing Arts (HYBRID)
Intended for venues and presenters specifically, this guide is meant to address long overdue work to make dance spaces accessible to disabled artists, venue workers, administrators, and audiences. It serves as a valuable resource to empower venues to make the necessary changes that foster an increased inclusive and vibrant artistic community.
Nadia Adame Rojas, Jane Raleigh, Maura LaRiviere and Vanessa Hernández Cruz
Artist Residencies: Transforming the Field through Sustainable Support
This panel brings together voices experienced with designing, producing, and participating in artists residencies. Session attendees will leave with tools to design equitable residencies to enhance current and future programs.
Danni Gee, Duke Dang, Jeremy Williams, and Monique Martin
DEMBOW RELOADED, a Latinx social expressionist movement
Through the exploration of different Latin American aesthetics, participants will be guided through an agile warm up, soft stretching and shared choreography while simultaneously experiencing a “mezcolanza” (or mix) of traditional, modern and contemporary Latin American soundscapes.
Camila Rivero Pooley, Alberto Christopher Mendoza, Chase Madulara and Alex Aguayo
Experimentation in Performance: Hip Hop, Blk Arts and Chicago
An hour long conversation and sharing on experimentation, Blk Arts Movement, and Elastic Art’s Dark Matter Residency program in Chicago. Through individual, cross-collaborative and organizational endeavors the panelist are part of the weavings of Futurity and Tradition in Hip Hop and in Blk Radical Arts in Chicago.
Fabulous Freddie, Jonathan Woods, cat mahari and Jarius V. King
Machine to Body: Digitally Archiving Black Diasporic Dance
As dancers and dancemakers address artificial intelligence’s place in their creative process, Black dance artists are also exploring artificial intelligence as a means of archiving their work.
Judy Tyrus, Eric Waldman, Roger Ellis, Jorie Goins and Gesel Mason
Seeing, Listening & BEing Together as Black Femme Praxis
Join us for a listening session to be with curiosities of artist sustainability, living, and survival for Black girls. This will be a space for recalibration, restoration during the conference; a dreaming studio; playground.
Blair Ebony Smith, paris cyan cian and Kamari Smalls
DounDance with Ayodele Drum and Dance
Does African drumming make you move? Learn West African dance technique and play rhythms on a doundoun drum. This class is 90 minutes of pure energy for all levels that combines West African drumming and dance for a full body workout.
Ayodele Drum and Dance
SmArt Bar sessions are one-on-one consultations between Conference participants and industry leaders (or ‘SmArt Bar Bartenders’) who give their expertise in service of their fellow dance makers and cultural workers.
Exclusive performances showcase Chicago’s diverse dance landscape, featuring dynamic works that celebrate innovation, tradition, and the power of movement. Performance schedule and artist details to be announced.
Joy & Juneteenth One Foot on Stage and the Other in the Street: Navigating Black Identity in Dance and Activism (HYBRID)
This session seeks to delve into the potent role of Black dancers and choreographers who utilize their artistic platforms for activism, focusing on how dance can catalyze social change and embody decolonized narratives.
Jeri Rayon and Geysa Castro
When Black Women+ Speak
Join UBW for a landmark talk series that will convene women+ of color leaders to explore the nuances of identity, community, values, support, and success among BIPOC women+ producers.
Lai-Lin Robinson and Pia Monique Murray
Steps in Time: Weaving Cultural Memory and Urban Space
This session will explore Dance Educator Cristin Carole’s and Urban Planner Jenna Pollack’s trust-based partnership, research methodologies, and the importance of centering Black perspectives through practices of deep care. Together, they reveal the histories and counterhistories of Chicago dance woven through SDST’s living legacy.
Cristin Carole and Jenna Pollack
Welcoming Refugees and Immigrants Into the Local Dance Ecosystem
In this panel, individuals from Dance Peace and its affiliates discuss what support can look like for refugees and immigrants in dance. What can integration look like in dance education, festivals, and professional dance ecosystems? With Chicago as an example, panelists explore the importance of opportunities in dance across the refugee and immigrant experience.
Shalaka Kulkarni, Shawn Renee Lent, Shireen Nassar and Rubén Pachas
Embodying Shared Leadership
Participants will engage in movement, but previous dance experience is not required. The workshop focuses on the wisdom of the body with activities that can help reveal patterns and behaviors in leadership from an embodied perspective, giving an alternative viewpoint regarding relationships, communication, and diverse leadership styles.
Cherie Hill, jose e. abad and Rebecca Fitton
More Chicago-based dancers and choreographers to wrap Thursday’s conference events! Full performance schedule and artist details to come.
PLUS, keynotes and sessions by Dance/USA Staff to be announced!
