Grantee Database

Movement Liberation

Grant Year

2023-24

Grant Program

General Operating Support

Award Amount

$38,499.00

Project Description

With support from the California Arts Council, Movement Liberation will be able to continue offering unique healing dance workshops and retreats for our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color community that have exponential impact in the community, are facilitated by trauma-informed BIPOC artists, and are accessible to all bodies and minds.

This grant will go towards paying BIPOC staff (e.g., Executive Director, Assistant, Accessibility Coordinator) at a fair market rate consistent with ML’s mission, helping to sustain a financially vulnerable organization with a proven record of providing transformative healing experiences through the arts to the Bay Area BIPOC community.

Organization Summary

Movement Liberation offers dance programs aligned with our 4 strategic pillars:
– Offer safe & healing movement workshops & retreats for BIPOC
– Uplift BIPOC facilitators by exclusively hiring BIPOC facilitators for our workshops & retreats, promoting their work in the world, and compensating them fairly for their time
– Promote a culture of equity & redistribution of wealth & labor toward BIPOC-led justice initiatives as a form of reparations
– Develop a blueprint and create a next culture for liberation of People of Color (and all people) thru intentional shifts away from the practice of white supremacy culture in all aspects of programming and operations

Movement Liberation offers workshops & retreats held in a container for healing and growth. Here, adults with diverse movement experience, ages, genders, body types, and abilities all become dancers. They improvise & introduce their movement signatures into the room. This range of expression invites all to stretch out of their comfort zones & explore new ways of moving, resting, breathing and dreaming together. The practice of liberation inside these dance spaces transforms the life and leadership of each individual beyond these spaces – at home, at work, in the community – creating a ripple effect of inspiration and empowerment across communities.

Anchored by a theme, the energy in the room, and the needs of the participants, facilitators guide dancers through an exploration of different movement patterns, relational landscapes, & embodied points-of-view. They may invite dancers to pause, pay attention to breath patterns, use peripheral vision, witness each other, be witnessed (a growth edge for some), explore boundaries, release – no two experiences are ever the same. Employing trauma-informed facilitation, they encourage participants to take up space, stand in their dignity, and move relationally. Within this space, there is immense potential for original movement, trauma release, and somatic repatterning.

Organization

Movement Liberation

Address

c/o Commonweal

PO Box 316

Bolinas

94924

County

Contra Costa

Region

Bay Area – Other

Phone

(510) 717-8799

Congressional District

District 8

State Assembly District

District 15

State Senate District

District 9

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