Q: How can dance be a platform for social justice issues?

There are so many ways that are all valid and crucial tools as part of the larger equation. We need all approaches and perspectives.  What makes me sad is when people knock each other down because it perpetuates the value system that people either belong or don't. I think there is a big trend right now about public art which is exciting to see created and performed in the communities it is made. This becomes integral to the eb and flow of the voices of the community inside of it. The idea is that it can’t exist without those voices, instead of transporting a work into community and calling it public art.

Similar to site specific dance. About 10 years ago people started integrating art into public space and thinking about how plotting  this art in different sites might not make it site specific, just public art. if you commit to it being for the public, you can’t just plop it into all of these different spaces. As dance makers, we are actually engaging with the subject matter at hand, instead of responding to it. We are engaging with the voices of the material and I think that it is kind of new for the Western dance perspective.