UNDER|STAND
A CHOREOGRAPHIC PUBLIC DIALOGUE ON RACISM
HOSTED BY DANA CASPERSEN & SCDT
You are invited to be in a collaborative, creative, embodied process
bringing communities together to open dialogues about
Race issues in our personal lives and in our culture.
FINAL EVENT: SUNDAY, APRIL 29 from 3-6PM
UNDER|STAND is an action dialogue on racism - an ongoing opportunity for local communities to connect, reflect, and exchange, using simple forms of motion like walking, listening, tapping, mirroring, and speaking. The project has recently been realized in New York City and Los Angeles, and will next take place in Berlin, Germany. But first it is right here in the Pioneer Valley!
This event is FREE and OPEN TO ALL, and will be followed by shared food and drink and more conversation. We invite you to join our diverse group in bringing this project to life by lending your voice, experience, and spirit!
Interacting with so many people has helped me realize that I am not alone with these topics. -Reshma Anwar
As a black man...for me, this was golden. Dana has created an unprescribed space for tough conversations...this is crucial to remedying the concept of race. -Jermaine Spivey
It feels like an engine has been started. -Robin Aren
UNDER|STAND is an action dialogue on racism - an ongoing opportunity for local communities to connect, reflect, and exchange, using simple forms of motion like walking, listening, tapping, mirroring, and speaking. The project has recently been realized in New York City and Los Angeles, and will next take place in Berlin, Germany. But first it is right here in the Pioneer Valley!
This event is FREE and OPEN TO ALL, and will be followed by shared food and drink and more conversation. We invite you to join our diverse group in bringing this project to life by lending your voice, experience, and spirit!
Interacting with so many people has helped me realize that I am not alone with these topics. -Reshma Anwar
As a black man...for me, this was golden. Dana has created an unprescribed space for tough conversations...this is crucial to remedying the concept of race. -Jermaine Spivey
It feels like an engine has been started. -Robin Aren
PROJECT DATES::
PHASE ONE • FEBRUARY
Sunday, February 4 from 3-6pm
CORE GROUP: An introduction to Under|Stand at SCDT
PHASE TWO • MARCH
Friday, March 2 at 4:30pm • SMITH COLLEGE EVENT
Saturday March 3 from 12-2:30pm • CORE GROUP AT STUDIO4
PHASE THREE • FINAL PHASE • APRIL
Friday, April 27 from 4:30-6pm • CORE GROUP at SMITH COLLEGE
Sunday, April 29 from 3-6pm • FINAL EVENT UNDER|STAND at STUDIO4
LOCATION::
STUDIO4
25 MAIN ST, STE 444
NORTHAMPTON, MA
MORE DETAILS::
WHO IS DANA CASPERSEN?
Dana’s expertise lies in creating environments and models of engagement that help people communicate on difficult topics. She has a master’s degree in conflict resolution and mediation, has worked professionally in the fields of dance and theater for 40 years, and over the last 8 years has developed choreographic public dialogue projects internationally. The work of a mediator is often proceduraI– creating physical and mental models of engagement that enable people to both speak and be heard in a beneficial ways. The project UNDER|STAND brings people together to think about and exchange on their experience around racism and to practice the courage and curiosity it takes to be willing to listen and offer within that framework. Together with her collaborators, Dana holds the process by creating a clear and highly structured framework for interaction and responding to any conflicts or questions that arise in the role of facilitator. The participants are the experts in their own experience. We are all in a process of research together.
ABOUT UNDER|STAND FROM DANA:
I started with the question: How do our frameworks of belief, perception and action impact the systems of racism that we live in?
Every person in our society is deeply woven into these racist systems that have caused and are causing so much pain, inequality and violence. I am interested in better understanding the mechanisms of these systems and how they are embodied in individual and social experience. This project is looking specifically at the gaps in connection that appear between people in racist systems and what it might mean to create beneficial connection in the face of the division that racism provokes. I find that racism isolates us and countering the isolating force of racism takes active work that begins on the individual level, but requires the whole community. I seek out partners to help create brave and safe spaces where we can enable this kind of attention and practice– where we can practice building a community of robust curiosity.
QUESTIONS?
Email us at [email protected] or call us at (413) 570-4491.
