With support from the CA Arts Council, Bandaloop will increase access to its education programs for Bay Area youth. Funding will support our 20 week vertical dance training with Destiny Arts youth, expanding after-school opportunities, providing high quality programs at no cost to Oakland community partners and recruitment of scholarship students for the Vertical Creatives summer camp.
BANDALOOP specializes in publicly accessible vertical dance honoring nature, community, and the human spirit through perspective-bending performance and education. BANDALOOP has choreographed and produced 350+ performances in 35+ countries for millions of audience members. We operate BANDALOOP Studios, our West Oakland headquarters and only fully rigged vertical dance studios in the Bay Area for creation, education, and rentals. Founded by Amelia Rudolph and now artistically led by Melecio Estrella (BIPOC and LGBTQIA+), BANDALOOP continues a commitment to uplift and amplify under-heard voices through dance.
BANDALOOP operates in a Culture of Safety, a dynamic and living system where rigging expertise and risk management is shared through education forward action learning. We learn together as we collectively hold responsibility for each other’s safety, on a foundation of 33 years of experience managing high angle, vertical performances globally. The Culture of Safety is three concentric circles, starting with the self, expanding to our peers, and extending to the space and community, reinforcing relationship and reciprocity between ourselves, society, and the environment. As well as physical safety, the Culture of Safety embeds social-emotional tools that support psychological and emotional safety.
Since 1991, BANDALOOP has worked with thousands of dance artists and collaborators in design, rigging, and production. We weave dynamic physicality, intricate choreography, and climbing technology to dance on and with built and natural spaces, free for the public. Through diverse partnerships with artists, cultural institutions, governments, community organizations, and major corporations, etc., we perform and teach in locations underserved by dance and aid public access to dance on a national level. BANDALOOP ignites the public consciousness on societies’ deepest challenges and connects us more deeply to ourselves and one another through accessible dance experiences.

