Red Clay Dance Company: Words to Live By: Artivism

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.   Tina Ward, adult  Academy student,  grandparent of two  students I go into CPS and private  schools and teach art,  musical theatre, or dance.  Urban schools are  seriously lacking or  have limited means to  expose their children  to “the arts.” Most children  I’ve come in contact with  haven’t ever been to any  type of live theatre  production, cooking  course, singing lessons,  etc. Some of these same  children are going to be  our future artists—painters,  dancers, architects, chefs.  The earlier they are  exposed, the better  chance they have to  embrace and believe in  their calling.    I look at my job as an  avenue to expose the  children to some type of  art form and hopefully  help them cultivate that  desire to use their gifts.  How does that affect  social change? Usually  the first thing cut from   school budgets is any  type of art, whether  culinary, dance, music  etc., because it’s  viewed as “less  important” than  S.T.E.M., but  actually art programs  help children with  science and technology,  especially those who  struggle in these areas.    As a teacher/tutor, I  aim to use art to inspire  children in every area  of academics, including  social and political  issues. Red Clay does  the same thing through  dance. They take  hard issues like racism,  colorism, slavery, and  profiling and bring them  to the heart of their  dances, then leave it to  audiences to open  up dialogues about  controversial topics  within the community.  They teach teens in the  youth ensemble to find  their voices in dance  that will affect change  in themselves and their  communities. Artivism  is using dance for  more than movement,  but also to tell stories,  pass on traditions,  and tackle myriad  difficult social topics,  as well as to encourage. We’d like to know what  ARTIVISM means to  you! Please email  info@redclaydance.com  and share your thoughts  with us. Top and bottom photos: Red Clay Dance and Keiga  Dance Company perform  at the 2018 Imagining  America National  Gathering. The company  facilitated a Making  the Artivist (MTA)  workshop at the  conference earlier in the  day and presented an  excerpt of movement  reated using the MTA  curriculum framework.   Middle three photos: Sara Ziglar and Chaniece  Holmes facilitated an  Artivist Challenge from  the Making the Artivist  curriculum for a group  of directors and  program managers for  Boys and Girls Club of  America during a visit  to Red Clay Dance’s  studios this past  summer. The purpose of  the visit, sponsored by  the Wallace Foundation,  was to learn and  experience high impact  arts programming as  the Boys and Girls  Club’s Youth Arts  Initiative elevate  and expand their arts  programming.   Photographer: RCDC  staff member Sana  Selemon