About the Series

Dancing Around Race (DAR) and the BIPOC Artists Sanctuary & Enrichment (BASE)  are hosting their 1st TΛBLE Talk Series on Saturday, April 20th @ 5:30pm.

Registration is free. There will be a community potluck for the gathering and light refreshments will be serviced. The TABLE Talk Series takes place at the Sanctuary, 447 Minna St, 3rd Fl, SF 94103.  

Flow/Agenda includes:

5:30pm Networking

6:00pm Round Table Discussion

7:30pm Closing 

This program is a  multi-cultural/multi-generational collective and community-based series meant to gather collective skills and resource sharing from local Bay Area arts organizations and individual artists.  Our main goal of this series is to provide information and resources in a cooperative and supportive manner that promotes sharing collective wisdom in order to find realistic solutions to the unique obstacles facing our BIPOC communities.

The TABLE Talk Series on April 20th will be facilitated by Dancing Around Race, which include Bhumi B. Patel, David Herrera, Gerald Casel, Raissa Simpson, and Yayoi Bambara.

Providing a Platform: The DAR Leadership Team Finds Solutions with New ‘TABLE Talks’ Series

by Shari Baldie

As a BIPOC-led organization, one of our missions for The SANCTUARY and the BASE Network is finding new ways to support our fellow artists within the Bay Area community. Our latest program is the TABLE Talk Series, a collaboration between The SANCTUARY by PUSH, BASE Network, and Dancing Around Race (DAR). Inspired by the Split Britches Long Table, the TABLE Talks will provide a platform for the BIPOC community to come together to find realistic solutions for our obstacles and share our collective wisdom and resources. 

As advocates for candid discussions around racial equity, the Dancing Around Race (DAR) Leadership team is especially proud to be a part of the TABLE Talk Series. Founded by Bay Area choreographer Gerard Casel of GERALDCASELDANCE, the DAR Leadership team is comprised of choreographers Bhumi Patel of pateldanceworks, Yayoi Kambara of KAMBARA+, David Herrera of David Herrera Dance Company, and Raissa Simpson of PUSH Dance Company. 

Recently we spoke with the DAR Leadership team to discuss their cultural influences, obstacles facing Bay Area BIPOC artists today, and what they hope to achieve with the TABLE Talk Series.

How has being a BIPOC global majority artist influenced your work?

Patel: As an Asian-American artist, I see how AAPI artists are still underrepresented, undertheorized, and often invisibilized in our Asianness when we are not engaging in traditional forms of dance from our respective lineages. As a result, I believe that my identity has been integral to the performance and artistic work that I make since I started making work. They feel inseparable because my racial identity, my queerness, my femininity are often worn on the skin – I can’t take them off when I perform and so they have to be part of the work. 

Kambara: I think being a naturalized Japanese American influences my work because I’m looking for ways to be ‘at home’. I moved around a lot as a kid so part of me is used to constant motion, a trans-ness of being in between cultures and places. Dance grounds me because it’s the metaphor which makes me feel like I belong – I can try to balance, but it’s still managing almost indecipherable movement, a transition back to movement. 

Simpson: Dancing Around Race (DAR) has been a spiritual and uplifting experience as a global majority artist. Oftentimes being a BIPOC/global majority artist in the Bay Area means working within a great deal of isolation that breeds a competitive scarcity mindset from dominant culture. DAR has opened my eyes and sent me on a new path to form collaboration and resource sharing, along with opening much needed racial discourse in the art field. 

Bhumi, what themes inspire you when creating pieces for pateldanceworks? What do you hope the audience takes away from your work?

Patel: I am interested in my work being a space to imagine otherwise, to see a world that doesn’t yet exist, and to create love letters to my ancestors, both known and unknown. I am often making work that makes space for me and artists like me to be seen and witnessed in our fullness, in ways that don’t require our race to be separate from our sexuality. I attempted to engage with ways of thinking about dance performance that challenges the notions of queerness in performance that relies upon whiteness, and decoloniality in performance that relies upon heteronormativity. 

Yayoi, what do you hope audiences learn from your profound projects like IKKAI?

Kambara: I hope audiences are able to see themselves dancing alongside one another, the last dance where everyone dances is a metaphor for collective movement, action and the power we have when we move together.

As a member of the Bay Area community, what do you believe is an urgent matter affecting local BIPOC artists?

Patel: White institutions that gatekeep opportunities from BIPOC artists. In the wake of the flurry toward racial equity, we have seen residencies, fellowships, rental programs, and more geared toward BIPOC artists from white institutions, but these initiatives miss the mark in two ways. The first is that they were temporary – institutions that implemented DEI initiatives have suddenly run out of the resources to keep doing equity work. The second is that none of the initiatives included white institutions giving up some of their power to BIPOC artists. A BIPOC residency or showcase for a white institution or dance company is not relinquishing power, but rather, is a white institution or company using the contemporary moment to gain social currency (and in many cases funding). 

Simpson: One particular urgent matter facing myself and global majority artists is what we’re seeing in response to the George Floyd uprising and DEI initiatives. What we’re seeing is the backlash against equity measures in the Bay Area and beyond. We are in a transitional space and the future ahead of us depends on the work we can do to inspire and uplift our communities through continual advocacy.

Kambara: I think the most urgent matter affecting local BIPOC artists today is that we are no longer the ‘flavor of the month’. During the pandemic especially after the murder of George Floyd, there was a movement towards racial reckoning. While racial equity is always a subject DAR leaders’ research, it was starting to happen at the levels we were hoping to see – institutional and organizational. I keep hearing from BIPOC colleagues, the funders that were funding them during the pandemic have stopped. Maybe this is a coincidence, but I hear this locally and nationally. Also collaborations with BIPOC artists are less visible. It’s like institutions did the things, so they are just going back to ‘normal’ in our current endemic times. 

Another urgent matter is the Israel Palestine Conflict. I see and feel a lot of artists feeling like they are lost in not knowing what to do. I feel this too. How can I be helpful? Can making art help?

Why were you interested in becoming part of the leadership team at Dancing Around Race (DAR)?

Simpson: Prior to DAR, I had isolated myself in order to create work about a particular lived experience for over a decade. I’m grateful to Gerald Casel bringing us together through Hope Mohr’s residency program. We were able to spend a year examining trends in funding, curation and more. It’s funny to be called the “leadership” because we’re really co-conspirators who bring critical reflection and action in the wake of systemic racism.

Kambara: DAR is a place where I feel seen, heard, and resourced. This helps me when I am stuck professionally especially when I have a racialized experience in our performing arts sector. 

Patel: I wanted to be part of DAR because I admired (and continue to admire) all of the artists involved. When I started working with DAR, I finally felt a place of community and understanding. I didn’t have to explain why I thought something was a racial bias or what white supremacy is, I just got to be with a group of people who had a baseline understanding. DAR has been a space of creative, intellectual, and familial connection and support!

What do you hope to get out of the TABLE Talks series?

Patel: I think that spaces to gather together to engage in dialogue are so important, and I hope to gain community and connection from the TABLE Talks.

Kambara: I hope to sit at the table, listen, share, and feel grounded that our Bay Area community is here for one another, supporting, being, dancing, and of course fostering a feeling so all artists can feel relaxed and creative – like finding home. 

Simpson: I’m fairly open to what happens during the TABLE Talk Series. We all come into open discussions about race at differing levels of experience. My hope is that people are seen and heard. I hope to listen more than I speak and ride out this incredible journey with other global  majority artists.