Dance/NYC #ArtistsAreNecessaryWorkers Conversation Series June 30 – Dance In Community

Dance/NYC moves into its seventh week of hosting a twelve-part Facebook Live Conversation Series with arts workers from across the arts and culture sector. These discussions highlight the importance of the arts ecology, point to current challenges and offer considerations on our way forward as a field. This series is a part of #ArtistsAreNecessaryWorkers, a new online and social media campaign dedicated to the acknowledgement, representation and integration of dance and arts workers into the decision-making processes that will envision the future for New York City post-pandemic.

The series launched successfully on Thursday, May 21, 2020, and will continue to take place every Tuesday from 5:30 – 7pm ET through August 4, 2020 on Dance/NYC’s Facebook Page. 

Upcoming dates include:
Tuesday, June 30, 2020 | 5:30pm – 7pm Tuesday, July 7, 2020 | 5:30pm – 7pm

Dance In Community | June 30, 2020, 5:30pm-7:00pm 
Join Dance/NYC in a discussion with dance workers who are leading activist movements and caring for our communities through this time, with
Alicia Bauman-Morales, Independent Dance Artist; Organizer, Artists Co-creating Real Equity; Brinda Guha, Curator, Wise Fruit NYC; Brittany Williams, Dancer, Choreographer, Organizer; and Naomi Goldberg-Haas, Artistic Director, Dances for a Variable Population. 

Cultural Works Behind the Veil | July 7, 2020, 5:30pm-7:00pm
Join Dance/NYC in a discussion with arts administrators and organizers working tirelessly though this moment, with Clarissa Soto-Josephs, Associate Director, Pentacle; Kaisha Johnson, Founding Director, Women of Color in the Arts; Marýa Wethers, Independent Creative Producer & Curator; and Rebecca Ferrell, Director of Programs, Dance/USA. 

“We have learnt so much over the past few weeks in our discussions with many involved across the sector including individual dance makers, arts leaders, studio owners, dance educators and disability justice advocates who have given us their personal accounts of what this moment has required of them and the opportunity it has provided to consider new ways of operating. We hope to continue to synthesize these perspectives and channel this knowledge into our programming and advocacy efforts,” said Alejandra Duque Cifuentes, executive director of Dance/NYC.

#ArtistsAreNecessaryWorkers Campaign Video   
More than 150 videos were received from a cross-section of dance workers in all disciplines from choreographer to educator to administrator to fundraiser to be used in the campaign, including Alice Sheppard, Andrea Miller, Donald Borror, Eduardo Vilaro, Ephrat Asherie, Herman Cornejo, Josh Prince, Lane Harwell, Maleek Washington, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Mark Morris, Tiffany Rea-Fisher, among many others. Full list available here.

Artists serve New York City at every level: leading tourism, strengthening education, fueling the economy, and ensuring our health, wellness and imaginations. With this in mind, Dance/NYC has initiated a series of actions to highlight the importance of arts workers; build and amplify solidarity as a dance community and across the arts sector; and reimagine a world that is just, equitable, inclusive, and abundant.

For reimagining our world
For moving toward an equitable future
For celebrating our diverse cultures
For maintaining our humanity
For strengthening education
For caring for our families
For fueling our economy
For showing the beauty of movement
For sustaining our emotional health
For demanding justice
For rebuilding New York City
As a dignified workforce
#ArtistsAreNecessaryWorkers.

To learn more about why Dance/NYC is advocating for arts workersvisit:bit.ly/ArtistsAreNecessaryWorkers 

Dance/NYC’s mission is to promote the knowledge, appreciation, practice, and performance of dance in the metropolitan New York City area. It embeds values of justice, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization. It works in alliance with Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance. Dance/NYC serves a wide variety of constituents: 5,000+ individual dance artists, 1,200+ dance-making entities, 500+ nonprofit dance companies, general public and visitors to New York, students, educators, and researchers, public and private funders, and government and civic leaders. For more information, visit www.dance.nyc.