The Shuffle // Feb 2023
The Dance Union Newsletter
Welcome to The Shuffle: The Dance Union Newsletter.
What is this? Where have we been? What happens now?
Great questions, thanks. Let’s dive in.
But first - a breath. Let’s breathe together and settle our bodies, maybe taking cues from Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands.
SOMATIC OFFERING
What somatic tactics work for you to settle your body? A low hum that sends vibrational ease throughout your organs, ligaments, and bones? Maybe it’s turning up the volume on the sensation of any textures touching your skin? Or feeling the weight of your body and remembering that gravity is the Earth’s way of holding you close?
Whatever your tactic, take a moment to ground, to orient, to find some speck of ease.
ASTROLOGICAL OFFERING
Did you know each astrological sign rules a different part of the body? From head to toe, Aries to Pisces, these signs tell you more about your body and movement than most popular astrology content will tell you. The planets' positions and movement through our sky play a major role too!
In each newsletter, J. Bouey will offer movement prompts and body alignment offerings in response to major astrological transits. More content coming soon, but in the meantime, take a moment to reflect on the astrological moment we just transitioned from:
October 2022 to January 2023 - Szn of lungs and nervous system
Mars retrograde in Gemini lasted from October 2022 to January 2023. Mars is the planet of action and impulse, and Gemini rules the lungs and nervous system. During this Mars retrograde in Gemini, breath work is really supportive for navigating through life events that this transit brought up for us individually and collectively.
When you moved into action this season, how did breath-work support your activation, and choice-making.
UPDATES
So, for the past few years, here at The Dance Union, we’ve been surviving multiple pandemics, resting, dreaming, germinating, growing, dissolving, aligning, re-aligning, recording (!!), pillow talking, transforming, and sleeping (as inspired by Tricia Hersey’s Rest as Resistance).
Here are some photo updates from where Melanie, J., and Troy have been personally.
Image one: Melanie, as her performance character Sapphire, sits in a white clawfoot bathtub outside surrounded by luscious green vegetation. Her chin is slightly tilted upward. Her eyes open. The bathtub overflows with mardi gras beads spilling over the edge of the tub.
Image two: J, Mx. Black dancer assigned male at birth is in a low lunge and arms flared out, creating an image similar to bird wings. They are wearing an orange hat, gold rimmed shades, a wooden necklace, black shirt and pants, and orange socks.
Image three: Troy, a white woman with dark hair in a messy bun smiles with joy and maybe some stress while back carrying a baby who is gnawing on one of the carrier straps. A messy room is in the background.
INTROS & OUTROS
Please get to know the fantastic Natasha Calixte! She has joined the team in an administrative/navigational/accountability capacity and we are thrilled to introduce her.
ID: A black queer woman captured in a powering utility jumpsuit. She holds a soft fist and smize. Photo by Whitney Browne
One of our last communications, before much needed rest, introduced Christine Wyatt and Jeremy Guyon. Both of these brilliant collaborators have since decided to focus on other projects in their art and organizing efforts. They have left lasting impressions on how TDU works as a collective and we send gratitude and love to them both for the amazing things they will continue to do! Please continue to follow Christine @tinetine.lore on Instagram and www.mkabadoo.com. You can find Jeremy on Instagram @_de_jon_ and personal website www.jeremydejon.com.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
We have also taken a deep dive into our values. We took a lot of time to define resilient boundaries with the hope that tension and conflict and care and responsiveness will allow these values to blossom into tonics for our community. For transparency, here they are:
Committing to curiosity
Living in questions and conversations about accountability
Putting prose into practice
Engaging in deep listening with the dance community
Validating Humanity and moving with care
For the last two values, we have some specific offerings that we can share at this time.
Engaging in deep listening with the dance community
After The Dance Union Town Hall for Collective Action and Dismantling White Supremacy within Dance Institutions - A Response -, there was a lot of information and emotion to process and “put into practice.” After our NYC Relief Fund stopped serving the needs of our community (folks stopped applying), we have spent many months discussing what a more direct model of active deep listening might look like. One thing we agreed on was that constantly filling out applications was not it.
What we’ve landed on so far is a proposal for a mutual aid network inspired by the incredible work done by Bedstuy Strong.
« Join our Patreon to be on the ground floor of this hub’s development.»
Validating humanity and moving with care
The Dance Union is committed to accessibility and disability justice (DJ). Some of our practices include image descriptions on any and all posted imagery, podcast transcriptions, and audio files of written material. This work requires that we remain mindful about the speed and frequency in which content is produced to ensure accessibility remains at the forefront.
As we continue learning about and engaging with disability justice, we welcome any and all feedback on how to further accessibility to our content and to engage in larger disability justice actions and coalitions.
Oh, and our pre-season podcast episodes are dropping this month. Click the button below to listen.
There is more to come, but…that’s all for now.
5, 6, 7, 8, we out!