Boston, MA
Dance for Social Justice™
The Dance for Social Justice (DSJ) workshop grew out of Marsha Parrilla’s desire to use dance as a tool for social change. While she was teaching dance in urban settings, she organically provided her students with dance composition tools with which they explored themselves and their communities. She quickly realized that combining literacy and dance composition was a great way to engage people of all ages in a holistic process of creation of dance for social justice.
Parrilla has worked as an educator in New York City and Boston public schools since 1998, and has a Master’s degree in Dance Education from New York University. The DSJ curriculum is informed by Paulo Freire’s philosophy of education as expressed in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, her studies on dance composition, and her experience as a performer and choreographer in the diaspora.
DSJ is open to youth, teens, and adults of all experience levels. Workshop space is limited and pre-registration is required.
Workshop Description
The body thinks first, making dance one of the most honest forms of expression. Examples of expressions within activism such as: fist-up, hands-up, sit-in, and die-in, show us that everyday gestures give human beings a unique vocabulary to communicate with people around the world.
Dance for Social Justice is a process-based workshop that delves into the universal language of movement, to generate conversations and create art around social justice issues in our communities. Participants exercise solidarity through group-work, the exchange of ideas, and by engaging on intentional discussions. Through a guided dance composition process, participants explore basic elements of dance composition to create dance pieces with their groups. An informal showing, and a feedback/Q&A session, brings closure to the workshop.
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Site Specific performance to generate awareness on violence towards women.
