The
leadership of Red Clay Dance Company explores themes and topics
inspired by various words that resonate among its artists, students,
administrators, and supporters. We will offer some examples in a series
of stories during the next few months and ask for your responses to them
as well.
This month, we begin with ARTIVISM:
· The use of art to raise critical consciousness, build community, and motivate individuals to promote social change
· A catalyst to engage community members in actionable change
around social inequities, allowing those people to develop agency to
interrupt and alter oppressive systemic patterns or individual
behaviors
What does artivism mean to Red Clay Dance Company?
Vershawn Sanders-Ward, Founder and Artistic Director
I was starting work on a solo, Say Her Name, in 2014. I was
trying to find language to talk about my work but also come up with a
term for individuals who do this kind of work—art and social justice. I
discovered a quote about artivism by writer, poet, and educator M.K.
Asante. He wrote about understanding that once you see and know
inequity, you are responsible to act, and art is a way to address those
issues. So I thought: How do I do it inside my art so it inspires other
folks to question it? Sometimes having a visceral experience can be more
impactful than reading an article or seeing it on the news—seeing it in
the body, which is where we all live.
An artivist is like an anthropologist. I see my work as
activism through art and a way to ground the company members so they
understand that its power might be different than artistic expression
from their past. I need every dancer working with Red Clay to commit to
the idea that being a performing artivist is a different way to use your
artistic gift.
Making an Artivist is a program we developed using the tools of an artivist in our approach to a new work:
- research (outside materials and inside body)
- investigation
- refinement
We
did a performance at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention
Center and received questions about why we chose our themes and how we
came up with our movement. We decided to create a process to reveal the
artivist inside of each of them, taking the tools, practices, and
activities from our rehearsal process into other programming.
Chaniece Holmes, Artistic
Associate:
Artivism is an opportunity to be
creative in solution making and
advocating, a beautiful blend of
using your art form of choice to
address issues within your
community. I see it manifested
the strongest
in the after-school
programs I teach and in the Red
Clay Dance Youth
Ensemble.
Sara Ziglar, Artistic Associate:
Artivism is the active use of
art to build and strengthen
communities;
it invites us to
consider and create spaces
that work for everybody.
Artivism challenges the
witness to become a
participant in community
development. It is the
work of change that
creatively bridges the gap
between possibility and reality.
I see artivism in my work
with Red Clay Dance every
time a participant
accesses
the power of their identity
and voice. I see it when
dialogue
is sparked with
an audience member about
the content of
one of our
performances/
activations. When a person
engaged with our work has
an
awakening about the
power they possess to
create change, and they
pursue
community spaces
and initiatives that match
their passion—that’s
artivism in motion.
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