Dancers' Group

Reparations Vaudeville: The New Chitlin Circuitry IS HAPPENING. 

Within a rapidly changing landscape during an avalanche of uncertainty, the House/Full of BlackWomen continue to labor towards our collective health and well being.

Support us because you already know, at your core, how you directly benefit from the Love that Black Women create.

                Will you contribute financially to these efforts? 
                Will you contribute in-kind to these efforts?  

Our creative spirited life forces are prepared for this moment as we reimagine the work in the face of COVID 19, the aggressive uptick of violence against black bodies, and the need to shelter in place. 

We continue ….

                shadow work
                care work
                investigative quiet work of Black womanist interiority 

We understand the change needed begins only with our well being through…

                security of housing, 
                security of fresh food, clean water, and air, 
                security of health care, 
                security of honest education, 
                security of recognition of our contributions and 
                security of the fullness of our diversity.  

Where are you now in this arc of history? How will you respond to the call to support Black lives when no one is watching or applauding? What will you do to create transparent equity, restorative justice, reparations, and space for Black lives, especially Black women and girls? 

Now is the time to acknowledge the depth and generosity, of labor, emotional insights, and sheer joyful life-giving beauty of Black women/girls/transBeings that have always moved the dial of humanity forward. 

How do YOU honor that?  
               Do you center yourself?
               Or …
               Do you humble yourself to investigate, where, what, when and how to support                   the lives of Black women?  

              Will we together enter an age of real change?
              Or …
              Will this be another phase of performative anti-racist lip-service? 

Ask Black women…
              What do you need? 
              When do you need it? 
              How can I serve your needs?

And be ready to RESPOND!

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Support the invisible genius/ creative labor and the appropriated brilliance of Black women. We seek your financial or in-kind donations to fund House/Full of Black Women’s Episode 14, The New Chitilin Circuitry: Reparations Vaudeville.

As Black women, we are known to undersell and over-deliver.  These times can't afford to lose us. 

These funds will be used to DIRECTLY, financially support the Black women artists, scholars, abolitionists, and ritual healers to create a full-scale 21st Century vaudeville to premiere Fall, 2020.  Vaudeville is the chosen form to represent these times of great challenge, confusion and the need for radical knowledge. Staging is playfully healing through the creation of Orisha Burlesque, Metaphorical Magic,  Trickster Escapism, Healing Comedy Sketches, Spiritualism and Mesmerism,  Hypnotism for Climate Change, Silent Films, and Recession Stew.

We financially compensate the Black women of House/Full to do this critical work! We also offer stipends, meals, and healing circles: this is "shadow work," quiet work, work that happens over time and space and in respect to the (un)recognized creative service and brilliance of the unnamed Black women and girls who inhabit and fuel our imaginations.





BACKGROUND

House/Full of Blackwomen began in December 2015 as the vision of choreographer and Deep Waters Dance Theater founder Amara Tabor Smith, in an ongoing collaboration with theater director Ellen Sebastian Chang. We sit at the literal table in conversation, in grief, in laughter, in questioning and many times in awesome wonder with abolitionists, dancers, nurses, architects, musicians, somatic PhD Scholars, video artists, chefs, teachers, healers, athletes, survivors of sex trafficking and anti-trafficking organizers.  We create Episodes—public processions, installations, and performances — that represent the private rituals of healing and wellbeing for Black women and girls. 

Developed through intimate dialogues, rigorous research and skilled intentional creative practice between the collaborators, these performed rituals address issues of displacement, erasure, the sex-trafficking of Black women and girls in Oakland California, ignited by the core question, “how can we, as Black women and girls find space to breathe, and be well within a stable home?" All House/Full of Black Women episodes are envisioned and presented throughout Oakland, CA. Our goal is to effect change and create a "vibrational" shift through ritual performance dance/theater and song, bringing awareness to the displacement of Black women and girls with regard to housing security and trafficking. 

We have held space and are in an ongoing collaboration with sex trafficking abolitionist, Regina Evens of Regina’s Door, who hosted our first episode, we are here/to stay.  Some of these episodes have been "publicized" but most have been transmitted through word-of-mouth by Black women and/or via Oakland's First Friday or anti-trafficking events. We have created 13 Episodes, 90% have been FREE to attend.  

Deep Water's Dance is fiscally sponsored by the 501.c3 Dancers Group. Founded in 1982, Dancer's Group (DG) assists and supports the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) dance community by creating a nexus of resources, expertise, and knowledge. Working to advocate for dance in the SFBA and beyond, DG  assists in the creation and production of engaging, original dance. Dancers Group serves artists at multiple stages in their careers and supports dancers, choreographers, teachers, funders, dance companies, students, writers, critics, and audiences in the passionate pursuit and enjoyment of art. 







REPEAT! REPLAY! 

Once again… We seek your financial or in-kind donations to fund House/Full of Black Women’s Episode 14, The New Chitilin Circuitry: Reparations Vaudeville, our largest scale episode to date. Your tax-deductible donation will serve as a match for funding provided by the Kenneth Rainin Open Spaces Grant. 

As Black women, we are known to undersell and over-deliver!  SUPPORT THE INVISIBLE GENIUS/ CREATIVE LABOR AND THE APPROPRIATED BRILLIANCE  OF BLACK WOMEN. These times can't afford to lose us. GIVE...like an offering, a tithe, an unpaid, overdue bill.  


On behalf of House/Full of Blackwomen,
Amara Tabor Smith and Ellen Sebastian Chang

We are thrilled to announce that dNaga has been invited to perform at the Fifth World Parkinson Congress in June, in Kyoto, Japan! Attendees from all over the world, including researchers, medical professionals, people with Parkinson’s, their families and caregivers, come together for a unique and inspiring experience.

dNaga is an intergenerational dance company based in Oakland, California that includes adult dancers with Parkinson’s disease performing with youth dancers. dNaga’s dancers have been creating and performing since 2010 as an extension of the Dance for PD® program that began in 2001 at the Mark Morris Dance Group in Brooklyn. dNaga director and choreographer Claudine Naganuma has been offering Dance for PD®  classes in Oakland since 2007.  dNaga dancers are part of Dave Iverson’s documentary, “Capturing Grace”.

Our collaborative choreography, from whimsy to solemn and back again, features personal narratives, current PD research, original sound scores, symbols, poetry and myth, all around the theme of living with Parkinson’s disease.


                                                                            “A diagnosis does not define me.”
                                                                                            - Manny Torrijos


Collaborators and audience alike are inspired by the courage and grace of our dancers. For those with Parkinson’s disease, every day is a challenge. People with PD live with tremors, unruly limbs, rigidity, extreme fatigue, balance issues, muscle and joint pains, and sometimes cognitive impairment. Dancing provides an opportunity to express and share the private struggles of living with PD. They are devoted to the work of creating and presenting. For the young dancers, the unique experience of working with dancers with PD is a precious opportunity to form bonds across the generations while creating art together.

As a supporter of dNaga’s World Parkinson’s Congress adventure, you will be associated with the cutting edge concept that exercise, and in particular, dance, provides relief for many PD sufferers. While a cure has yet to be found, dance brings movement, joy and community to those with this affliction.