Here at People Dancing, our current approach to dancers, teaching artists and community practitioners involved in community dance who are of global majority heritage/people who experience racism stems from our Black Lives Matter statement of 2020 with its emphasis on
- Being actively anti-racist
- Recognising intersectionality
- Striving to be inclusive
- Building genuine relationships in order to stay in ongoing dialogue with those most affected to build understanding
- Ensuring we acknowledge, amplify and celebrate the contribution of people of global majority heritage to participatory dance practice.
We have in place some structures and programmes that contribute to a more equitable dance profession and know we have more to do particularly regarding ethnic diversity. There are parallels with our organisation’s broader - and ongoing - fight of many years for inclusion and dance involving disabled people, and dialogue about equality, equity and diversity within dance, the arts and in society.
Some of our work goes on in the background, without fanfare or ego: what we refer to as ‘quiet work’ for long-term change. It may not be immediately visible, but it is always going on.
We hope visiting our website will be just the start of your People Dancing journey; a portal to whichever of our artistic programmes interest you and where we hope you will always feel welcome. We hope you will find YOUR community here, within our community – so we can go on serving community and participatory dance better, together, honouring all the aspects of who we and each other are in dance, the arts and in the world.
Louise Katerega
Head of Professional Development, People Dancing
louisek@communitydance.org.uk