Grantee Database

NAKA Dance Theater

Grant Year

2025-26

Grant Program

Impact Projects

Award Amount

$18,250.00

Project Description

With support from the California Arts Council, NAKA will create and present performances of Ja weya ob’aj wij, ex weya nchemaj/Mi Historia, Mi Telar/My Story, My Weaving. Our work is a new narrative-based dance-theater performance project, created in collaboration with women from the Indigenous Maya Mam immigrant community of East Oakland, CA. Our project integrates personal and collective narratives, movement, textile art, and poetry into a full-length touring dance-theater performance project featuring the voices and visions of the Mam community in Oakland.

Organization Summary

-Producing LIVE ARTS IN RESISTANCE, a series of performance showcases, artist residencies and community town halls that address racial inequity & white supremacy in popular culture.

-Creating and touring experimental performance works; including Y Basta Ya!, a series of touring dance performances and movement workshops to shine a light on the stories of Latine and Indigenous Maya Mam women and their experiences with invisibility, labor rights, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Y Basta Ya! Is funded by a New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Production award, Rainin Fellowship and Guggenheim Fellowship.

-Research residencies in Japan and Mexico as part of NAKA’s work in community-based ritual practices

-Producing Dismantling Tactic X artist residency and philanthropic forums – convening a cohort of radical, social-practice artists who center their work on the topic of race and white supremacy.

-Co-Facilitating ongoing Circulos de Aprendizaje (Collaborative Learning Circles) with San Francisco Latina and Indigenous Maya Mam (Guatemala) immigrant women – using art for healing and addressing issues such as racism and colorism in the Latine community.

-Pro-Bono Language Justice Access Consulting, to arts and social justice organizations who want to hire in-person or online sign language interpreters. This includes: referrals for culturally appropriate interpreters who would be a good match for the situation (including trilingual Spanish-English-ASL / Chinese-English-ASL interpreters); sharing best practices about publicity and outreach (best done by Deaf-led organizations); sharing best practices about budgeting for interpreters, necessary prep information that interpreters will need prior to an assignment, interpreter placement, lighting; advocacy for the hiring of Deaf Interpreters. On occasion, NAKA Artistic Co-Director, Debby Kajiyama will serve as a pro-bono coordinator of interpreter services for events, such as the KH FRESH Festival (2023, 2024) Jess Curtis’ Memorial service and Melissa Lewis Wong’s recent show, flowers and fog.

Organization

NAKA Dance Theater

Address

44 Gough St. Suite 201

San Francisco

94103

County

San Francisco

Region

Bay Area – San Francisco

Phone

(650) 759-8770

Congressional District

California's 12th congressional district

State Assembly District

District 17

State Senate District

District 11

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