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Dancing Queerly Community Guidelines

6/16/2018

Dancing Queerly seeks to bring LGBTQ community members of all ages and experiences together through dance. In order to further this mission, we respectfully ask everyone who attends or participates to read and abide by these guidelines.

The Basics

Dancing Queerly audience members, participants, teachers and artists are expected to be respectful and welcoming to everyone, regardless of race, creed, nationality, disability status, sexual orientation, sex, gender or gender expression.
All participants should behave in a manner that does not make other participants feel unsafe or threatened.
Participants are expected to be responsible for their own behavior.

Addressing Unsafe Behavior

If someone's behavior is making you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, please ask them to stop or remove yourself from the situation.
If the behavior or offensive language continues, please communicate this to a festival organizer (noted on their name tags) either in-person, or over email (dancingqueerlyboston@gmail.com)
Participants who are unable or unwilling to respect these guidelines will be asked to leave.

Important Details

Ask before engaging in physical contact. Some dancers are used to touching others or being touched in specific ways without giving or asking for consent each time. At Dancing Queerly, do not assume that everyone in a dance space has consented to touch. If contact is part of a dance form, teachers will include a clear system for communicating consent and non-consent.
Be respectful of everyone’s identity, including self-identification, names, and pronouns. Do not assume someone’s pronoun based on their name or presentation. If it is relevant to the conversation (ie. you want to call someone by their name) and you are unsure of how to refer to someone, ask. If you are flexible about what pronouns you use for yourself, it is perfectly fine to say that. Please respect that for others, specific pronouns may be important, and hearing someone be dismissive of pronouns in general can be hurtful.
Any discussion about bodies should be relevant, non-gendered, and non-judgemental. Body shaming (including discussions of gender presentation, body hair, clothing choices, and body shape) is not welcome in the space.
Step Up, Step Back. Participants should be aware of how much space and time they may be taking up. If you notice that you have been speaking a lot during a group discussion, allow yourself to “step back” and let others “step up” to the mic. Step Up/Step Back is also a great way to encourage new or shy participants to make themselves heard.
Workshop participants may be asked to sign a photo and/or video waiver so we can make a fabulous highlight reel of the festival - if you would prefer not to be recorded, you do not need to sign, and will be asked to wear a special name tag so our photographers and videographers know and can avoid filming or taking pictures of you.

Addition guidelines for Dance Curious, our LGBTQ only workshop, are here.

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Meet your Dance-Curious Instructors

6/13/2018

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Meet your Dance-Curious Teachers!
Dance-Curious is 4 mini workshops in 2 hours, just for the LGBTQ+ community!
Lessons will be geared towards beginners, but will also be fun for those with experience! We have an awesome line up of genres and teachers for you!
Feel free to stay afterwards for a free, fun social!
Please read full participant guidelines here for answers to all your questions!
Register here!

Carlos Silva (Salsa) is currently a Rumba y Timbal dancer, instructor and choreographer; since 2009 his dancing career took place in Bogota, Colombia thus allowing him to joined Esfera Latina Dance Company, one of the most important academies in the country. He has experienced and trained ballet and jazz as part of his training process. He has trained for almost nine years and participated in many salsa competitions including Festival Mundial de Salsa Cali 2011 & 2012, Colombia Salsa Festival, World Latin Dance Cup Pro Cabaret 2014, Summit Salsa Fest CT 2016 and 2017 and some other local competitions.

Jennifer Crowell-Kuhnberg (Contemporary) is the Executive Director of OnStage Dance Company, a choreographer, performer and dance instructor. In addition to creating work for OnStage, Jen choreographed the evening-length productions: Selichot (Temple Shalom, Newton, 2017), What Is Love? (Green Street Studios, Cambridge, 2015) and Heartbeat: A Modern Dance Rock Concert (OBERON, Cambridge, 2013-14), the music video, Bad for recording artist Jamie Lynn Hart, and had work featured in the Southern Vermont Dance Festival, Dance For World Community, NACHMO Boston & NYC, Third Life Choreographer Series and OnStage | Repertory productions. Jennifer is on staff at Cheryl Sullivan's School of Dance and Dance Place.

Jo Troll (Irish)is a trans choreographer and art-maker with a Graduate Diploma in Dance Studies from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. They have recently presented work as part of a residency at OnStage Dance Company and the Dance Complex's aMaSSiT mentoring and choreography lab. Over the years, they have created work for amateur queer dance performance and as one of the first DUCKiE upstarts at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London. Originally an Irish dancer, Jo explores the intersection between different forms of percussive and contemporary dance. They engage with challenging questions of tradition and identity in dance spaces in order to find an unapologetically queer, honest, and accessible means to present their work.

Maggie Cee (ballet) is founder and director of “The Femme Show”, a variety show featuring dance, spoken word, performance art, and drag exploring queer femininity. “The Femme Show” has been a staple of LGBTQ entertainment in Boston since 2007. Maggie has presented “Ballet is For Everyone” at LGBTQ youth conferences and the 2012 Femme Conference and received a Boston Pride Foundation grant for a series of Queer Ballet classes in 2015.

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Dance-Curious FAQ and Guidelines

6/12/2018

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Dance-Curious workshops are FUN, so we want to ensure that the space is safe and comfortable. Participants are expected to be respectful to everyone, regardless of race, creed, nationality, disability, age, sexual orientation, sex, gender, or gender expression.

Please read these guidelines before attending. They include practical information as well as ways you can help keep the space safe and comfortable for everyone (including yourself).

How much does it cost? How do I sign up?

Register here if you can pay the full price of $20. If you need a little discount, you can also choose "student/BDA member" when you register and save $2 (no one will ask you for a student ID, it's totally ok!) If that price is a barrier to you, email dancingqueerlyboston@gmail.com for a half price or pay-what-you-can option.

Who is it for?

Dance-Curious is for self-identified queer and/or LGBTQ+ folks in an inclusive interpretation of the word. We ask that allies support us by stepping back and giving us this deeply-needed space. Please join us for other workshops and for the performances June 22-23.

There is no reason to question or police another person’s identity. If someone is in the space, then they are self-identified queer and/or LGBTQ+.

Dance-Curious workshops are all-level workshops. Never danced before? Welcome! Danced since you were two? Join in! Some dance experience? Woohoo! Keep in mind that an all-level class may go faster or slower than you are used to in order to accommodate folks, so come prepared for a challenge, whatever your level.

Be respectful of everyone’s identity, including self-identification, names, and pronouns. Do not assume someone’s pronoun based on their name or presentation. If it is relevant to the conversation (ie. you want to call someone by their name) and you are unsure of how to refer to someone, ask.

What do I wear?

Clothing: There is no dress code. You will be moving, stretching, and maybe even sweating, so choose clothes that you feel comfortable wearing for dance activities. Be conscious that organizers may ask you to secure or remove clothing and hair that trails or hangs far off your body (for example, we may request that someone pins up a long, heavy braid) as it is dangerous to you and others.

Footwear: You may find it easiest to dance in socks, bare feet or soft dance shoes (ballet or jazz shoes) for contemporary and ballet. Sneakers are best for Irish because there's lots of jumping, but bare feet are ok too. Clean street shoes or sneakers are preferred for salsa. No flip flops or other shoes that are likely to slide off, please!

What will we do?

We will have a 10 minute check in followed by 4 25 minute mini-lessons in ballet, contemporary, Irish and salsa. Read more about teachers here.

When you arrive at the Dance Complex, you will check at the front desk. They will direct you to sign in and come downstairs to Studio 7. If stairs are a problem for you, let us know (dancingqueerlyboston@gmail.com) in advance and we can let you in on the ground floor.
There is step-free access to the dance studio and there are two gender-neutral bathrooms in the studio. There is an additional accessible gender-neutral bathroom on the second floor, accessed via stairs and/or char lift.

Bring your things into the space with you. That’s the best way to keep them safe. You can leave them to the side, keeping pathways and the dance space clear, so that the space remains as accessible and safe as possible.
If you need to change clothes, you can do so in the bathrooms or in the gendered locker rooms located on the first and second floors.

What else should I know? How do we create safer space?
Dance and bodies:

Dance-Curious is non-competitive. Everybody has something to bring to the space (and seriously? No one can master four different dance styles in two hours). Dancers trained in formal dance environments may particularly struggle with this. We can’t change a mindset that’s been ingrained in us for years, but try to be aware of your behavior to minimize passing that mindset on to others.

Avoid all othering based on ability. Pointing out someone’s inflexibility or weakness or jokingly calling someone with more flexibility or strength a “show off” is harmful. Everyone should feel comfortable working in their body.

Any discussion about body configuration should be relevant, non-gendered, and non-judgemental. Body shaming (including discussions of gender presentation, body hair, clothing choices, and body shape) is not welcome in the space.

While you may personally choose to dance to lose weight, please refrain from discussing weight loss and dieting, as it is a sensitive subject for many people, especially in dance where weight is particularly controlled and judged.

Caring for ourselves and others

Dance workshops can be vigorous! And two hours is a long time! While teachers will do their best to provide variations of exercises to accommodate everyone, only you know your needs. We encourage dancers to take responsibility for their physical and emotional wellbeing in adapting movement and to take themselves out of and into activities as needed. Chairs are available in the space for sitting out and/or adapting movement. Teachers will not pressure students sitting out into participating. We ask that participants do not pressure other participants into dancing, even in a friendly, joking, or familiar manner.

If you are physically unwell with something that might be contagious please consider others as well as your own self care. Dance-Curious is one time only so we know you don’t want to miss it, but we also want to ensure the space is safe for folks with poor immune systems. Plus, dancing when you’re sick is no fun.

Please respect personal boundaries and ask before touching anyone. If contact is part of a dance form, teachers will include a clear system for communicating consent and non-consent. While dance includes forms of nonverbal consent and you are welcome to “ask” through the use of eye contact and body language, please respect a communicated (verbal or physical) “no”. You can say “no” during an exercise at any time if someone is too close or misinterprets your nonverbal communication.

Dance-Curious is a two-hour long dance workshop and social. It is not an appropriate event for flirting, public displays of affection, or alcohol. These are things you can do at another time (maybe even after!), but would derail the focus of the event and make the space unsafe for many people.

The outside world and photography:

What happens in the dance studio stays in the dance studio! While you are welcome to share your new dance skills and discuss ideas that come up during the workshops and social, please be careful about sharing any identifying or personal information (for example, someone’s name, or a story they told) about your fellow participants.

Organizers will be taking photos during the workshops. No images will be taken of people who opt-out. We will share photos with participants for final consent before sharing on social media and our website.

We ask folks who want take their own pictures to ensure that they have consent from every person in their photos (even if they appear accidentally in the mirror!) Be clear about where the photo will go (facebook, instagram, email to a mutual friend?). Please do not pressure anyone into being in a photograph or letting a photo be posted on social media.

We know that everyone is here with the best of intentions, but even the best of intentions can lead to mistakes.. If someone’s behavior makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, please ask them to stop and/or remove yourself from the situation. If their behavior continues, please inform one of the organizers so that we can ensure your safety and find a resolution.

We’re super excited to dance with you!

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Dancing Queerly Community Guidelines

Meet your Dance-Curious Instructors

Dance-Curious FAQ and Guidelines

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