Dear Dance Place Community,
Dance Place stands with Black artists, Black creators, Black patrons of the arts, Black organizers, Black protestors, Black families, Black communities, Black people. We are committed to centering anti-racism in every facet of our organization. We are committed to amplifying Black voices. We are committed to using our platform to dismantle white supremacy. While these values have been a core tenet of our work for 39 years, times like this require us to state our position clearly and directly: BLACK LIVES MATTER.
The current global health crisis and its accompanying financial impact have highlighted and exacerbated the longstanding social inequities that institutionalized racism have wrought upon this land we call the United States. The unjust deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery (as well as so many before them) have pushed communities in cities across the United States to respond through protest. We recognize the importance of protest to affect change.
Dance Place recognizes that the violence against Black, Brown and Indigneous artists is present in ways that are both overt and subtle. This violence includes:
- The current health crisis, where artists and art workers of color are disproportionately losing work, while facing disproportionate barriers to relief funding.
- The ongoing erasure and appropriation of the culture, traditions, and histories of Black, Indigenous, and peoples of color.
- The profits made on the backs of these communities who rarely see those profits.
Dance Place will:
- Investigate, address and undo ways we are complicit in systems that perpetuate these inequities.
- Create and hold space for our community to engage in the difficult discussions needed to make change.
- Move those conversations into creative, collaborative actions that help create a new future for our arts community.
- Leverage our position to help affect change in our Washington, DC metropolitan area, as well as for the arts community locally and nationally by advocating for more just policies and practices that disproportionately affect Black, Brown and Indigneous peoples.
While we are all experiencing these challenges differently, for many of us this is a dark and challenging time. You are not alone. Dance Place commits to working as a co-conspirator on the path towards a more just future.
Be safe and well.
In solidarity,
Dance Place
“In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”
-Angela Davis