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As a national fellowship program that offers unrestricted funding directly to individual artists, Dance/USA views DFA as a logical progression of Engaging Dance Audiences (EDA), which funded organizations that engaged audiences and communities. In the final few Rounds of EDA, engagement was often defined by artists in the context of creative process, issues of concern, and communities with which they worked. It made sense for Dance/USA to begin working on a program that directly supports artists who work in communities.
This program was initially imagined by a group of strategists as an intervention in conventional US funding practices, which ties funding to production. Dance/USA began with a committee from the arts and funding fields, including artists. Dance/USA then sought guidance from a different group of artists and administrators, who reviewed the guidelines and offered feedback.
DFA reflects Dance/USA’s core values and vision developed within its new strategic plan, approved in 2018, to align and guide the way in which the organization works internally and in the dance ecosystem.
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