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 performing 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 created using the MTA curriculum framework.
Middle three photos:
Sara Ziglar and Chaniece Holmes facilitating an Artivist Challenge activity from the Making the Artivist curriculum for a group of directors and program managers from the 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 at part of the Boys and Girls Club's Youth Arts Initiative which was developed to elevate and expand their current arts programming.
Photographer: RCDC staff member Sana Selemon
