The night a dance workshop did what years of discussion could not
For years my community met to talk about racism, with data, stories and speeches, and the same few people came. Then a dance workshop came through and the room changed.
For years a community I was part of tried to bring people together to talk about fighting racism. We shared data and stories, listened to speeches by civil rights leaders, and then discussed them.
The conversations were polite. A few regular people kept showing up, and everyone else stayed away. I understood why.
Then one year a dance workshop came through. Their dances were about racism and the social issues we had been discussing, and they electrified the community. The energy of the performance and the care in each piece's storytelling reached people our conversations had missed for years.
Well done is better than well said.
We had been offering arguments. The dancers made something and showed it to us, in a room, together. That is why every season in IntentSpring ends with a showing: a date, a place, and finished work in front of the people it was made for.
