Creating space for low-income dancers and dancers of color

By Janei Maynard

In the past few weeks, most dancers have seen social media posts denouncing the use of the term “urban” dance, pushing for recognition of the Black founders of popular dance styles, and even calling out dance institutions for their whitewashed program requirements.

If it wasn’t clear before, the current moment and amplification of Black voices in dance makes it clear now: inequities permeate the field of dance.

Gatekeepers of whiteness & affluence in dance spaces include, but are not limited to:

• selectively “classical” or “technical” or “traditional” (read: white) skill prerequisites

• perpetuated stereotypes of what makes a “good dancer”

• the broad grouping of all dances with roots outside of white dominant culture as “ethnic” dance

• required costumes/rehearsal wear/makeup/hairstyles that do not account for darker skin or kinky hair

• Expensive  convention, competition, and class registration prices

How many white-owned and white-led studios have put out Black Lives Matter statements, mentioned Katherine Dunham and Alvin Ailey this month, or made a Juneteenth post, but only have one Black dancer (maybe a handful, if we’re lucky) out of over 50 company dancers?

Still, many of us Black & Brown dancers and dancers from poor communities didn’t need the nation to face demands of anti-racist work in order for us to recognize the racism and classism that plagues the field of dance.

So many Black & Brown dancers in Aurora grew up in the 2000s and early 2010s dancing in churches, public spaces, community centers, anywhere that would have us at little to no cost. Most of us were not welcome or invited into dance studio spaces, especially if we did not have the means to pay their tuition rates.

It is these same dancers who I know today to be some of the most talented people I’ve met in all my time, travels, and experiences. Yet none of us would have had a fighting chance at a scholarship dance-off on a convention stage. None of us even had access to a convention stage. Because the field of dance works so hard to keep us out.

At the start of 2020, I began to strive after my goal of opening a non profit dance studio in Aurora with no cost barrier for low-income students and students of color. In these six months, my work towards 5th Element Center for Dance has been productive to say the least. I’ve built an interim Board of Directors, registered as a business, obtained 501(c)(3) status, and started the recruitment process for the first long-term Board of Directors.

There are a myriad of reasons that I have dedicated myself to opening 5th Element Center for Dance. Hip hop practices, social emotional supports, and academic resources are all critical to this vision of success for Black & Brown dancers. All of those reasons, tools, and values that drive this endeavor can be found on our website.

But bigger than any of those, the motivation behind opening this studio is the opportunity to combat these social and economic inequities and confront the obstacles that make the road to dance success unnecessarily rockier for students who look like me and my closest dance colleagues.

Over the next year, the Board of Directors, our affiliates, and I will be working non stop to make this vision a reality and open up the facility to students in the Summer of 2021. In order to open our doors with no cost barrier to low-income students, we have a lot of funds and resources to raise and a lot of administrative tasks to complete.

The issues of racism and classism that keep dance spaces homogenous won’t be solved overnight. They won’t be solved by a year of fundraising. They may not be solved by one accessible dance studio in Aurora, CO. But it is the small steps that will change the culture and systems that pierce every aspect of dance in America.

The incremental changes of opening Black-owned dance studios, serving poor students and students of color, hiring dance teachers of color, centering dance styles born outside of white dominant culture, and shifting the image of who is a “good dancer”, these incremental changes will add up to make monumental change against oppression in the field of dance.

It is time that I make space for my community in this field. It is time that dance makes space for our skin, our hair, our experiences, and our excellence.