Values

We value:

The wisdom of the body  
We value the wisdom inherent in all bodies. We celebrate the embodied expression of people of all different abilities, with different bodies, and from different cultural traditions. We value sensation as a teacher and moving as a form of thinking. We honor the innate value of dance.

Dance in dialogue with the world
We believe that dancers and dancemakers should have a seat at the table in cultural and political conversations. We put dance in dialogue with movements for social change and with other artistic disciplines. We value socially engaged dance. 

Artists as visionary agents of social change
We believe that artists must play a central role in creating an equitable and just society. We believe that artists are uniquely qualified to effect change and envision a better future.  

Exchange
We believe in the inherent value of creative process. We believe in including audiences in conversations about art. We believe that difficult conversations are a generative space. We believe that creating spaces for debate, dissent, connection, and collaboration builds inclusive and resilient communities.  

Anti-Racism
We aspire to become a fully inclusive, multicultural, anti-racist organization in order to contribute to a transformed society. We are committed to anti-racism work as an ongoing, never-ending practice. HMD’s complete racial equity statement is HERE. 

Equity
We work toward racial, cultural, and aesthetic equity through our public programs and internal structures. We believe that no one is free until everyone receives what they need to thrive. Grantmakers in the Arts defines equity as “the fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups. Improving equity involves increasing justice and fairness within the procedures and processes of institutions or systems, as well as in their distribution of resources. Tackling equity issues requires an understanding of the root causes of outcome disparities within our society.” (Grantmakers in the Arts, Racial Equity in Arts Funding)

Land Acknowledgement

The Bridge Project is based on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples, who have stewarded this land for generations and are still here. We recognize that land acknowledgment is only one step in the work of decolonization and we are committed as an organization to the ongoing work of decolonization "as a living process inclusive of deep learning and unlearning." (Emily Johnson).

Operating Principles

We support artist empowerment by:

  • Centering artist needs

  • Making spaces for artists to connect and collaborate

  • Giving artists power over resources and aesthetics  

  • Commissioning new art works 

  • Providing long-term capacity-building support to artists working in community through our Community Engagement Residency program

  • Hosting movement-based workshops with practitioners from around the world 

  • Paying artists wages above the national standard

  • Paying artists and administrators the same hourly rate

  • Having a staff and Board of working artists

  • Maintaining transparency around hours and workload for staff

  • Encouraging breaks from work and space to engage in other projects for artists on staff

  • Having a paid artist curatorial council

We put dance in dialogue with the world by:

  • Facilitating cross-disciplinary practice as a tool for expanding the canon

  • Convening conversations between artists and activists

  • Bringing dance artists in conversation with people beyond dance

  • Partnering with organizations who take an embodied approach to social change 

  • Commissioning multi-genre performance

  • Collaborating with people and organizations from different sectors and disciplines

  • Partnering with artists who make work that explores equity and social issues through the lens of dance

  • Honoring the innate value of dance in broader cultural conversations

We encourage risk-taking and learning in our internal structures and public programs by:

  • Facilitating, welcoming, and initiating difficult conversations as generative spaces  

  • Creating brave spaces (time to speak your truth) and safe spaces (confidential spaces that are free from retaliation)

  • Imagining new models of artistic production and nonprofit arts administration

  • Recognizing that each artist and staff member has unique strengths and perspectives to offer

  • Ensuring that everyone has room to grow and learn no matter their position

  • Supporting artistic process as much as product

  • Inviting audiences to engage with process as much as product

  • Encouraging risk-taking in the creative process itself

We practice and advocate for equity by:

  • Equalizing artist access to power and information 

  • Countering gatekeeping of resources by facilitating direct artist access to funders and resources  

  • Building artist capacity, especially among artists who identify as coming from historically marginalized communities (references individualized support through Bridge Project and CER; long-term fundraising strategies, capacity=not having to start from scratch; leadership capacity

  • Practicing financial transparency with staff and partnering artists and organizations 

  • Making our programs financially accessible to low-income people

  • Making our programs accessible to differently abled populations 

  • Implementing distributed leadership within our organization and sharing our learning curve with others

  • Facilitating conversations around aesthetic and cultural bias  

We practice and advocate for anti-racism by:

  • Implementing an equity-driven model of distributed leadership

  • Producing programs that include underrepresented artists and promote racial equity and diversity in our community and the field

  • Providing equity and anti-racism trainings for staff and our communities

  • Holding transparent conversations around the effects of white supremacy culture in the organization and how to shift racist tendencies

  • Questioning and dismantling white-dominated spaces

  • De-centering whiteness in our curatorial choices and public programs

  • Expanding the dance canon 

Racial Equity Statement

To fulfill our intertwined commitments to cultural equity, artist empowerment, and racial equity, HMD is working towards becoming an anti-racist organization. We are working towards dismantling white supremacy in our public programs, leadership structures, and organizational culture.

We affirm that racism continues to pervade decisions and power dynamics at every level of performing arts institutions, including artistic training, creation, production, funding, performance opportunities, aesthetic evaluation, and inclusion in the canon. Racialized thinking and policies among performing arts institutions, microaggressions, tokenism, and exclusion from opportunity, have and continue to harm historically marginalized artists, specifically but not limited to Black, Indigenous, and Artists of Color (BIPOC). 

HMD acknowledges, hears, and honors the artists, activists, and organizations who for centuries have worked to expose racism and dismantle white supremacy in the performing arts and in society as a whole.

In solidarity, we commit to an anti-racist path of:

  • Centering and supporting BIPOC artists, and artists from other historically underserved populations, to create the art they want on their own terms;

  • Sharing power over our organization’s resources and decision-making with artists, and specifically artists of color, as part of our ongoing implementation of an equity-driven model of distributed leadership;

  • Advocating for shifting cultural power away from white dominant, gatekeeping organizations and directly into the hands of artists, and specifically artists of color;

  • Making and holding accessible artmaking spaces where inclusion is not dependent on assimilation into white cultural norms;

  • Centering the needs of artists, and specifically artists of color, in our programs, curation, and decisions;

  • Identifying and dismantling inherent white advantage within our organization.

We are working to become an anti-racist organization by:

  • Implementing and moving towards an equity-driven model of distributed leadership among staff and with artists;

  • Presenting arts programming that centers the voices, experiences, cultures, and multi-dimensionality of artists of color and other underrepresented artists in the field;

  • Providing equity and anti-racism trainings for our staff and our communities;

  • Facilitating and welcoming difficult conversations (internally, with artists, and with other organizations) around white supremacy culture in the arts and how to shift racist tendencies;

  • Maintaining an Equity Committee to oversee our evolution to becoming an anti-racist organization;

  • Undoing paternalistic practices by maintaining transparency with artists in our programs and network around our values, goals, and finances;

  • Utilizing our 501c3 privilege to connect artists to resources and funders;

  • Expanding the dance canon through public programs that invite artists of color to engage with and interrogate dance traditions on their own terms;

  • Supporting collaborative, hybrid approaches to performance that welcome multiple voices; value the insights that are deepened when divergent paths come together; and trouble the Western European standards of excellence that have historically dominated the arts;

  • Building lines of accountability with racially-oppressed artists.

HMD acknowledges and is grateful to the organizations, collectives, artists, and activists who we have been and continue to be in dialogue around equity and anti-racism:

Dancing Around Race (HMD’s Community Engagement Residency (“CER”) 2018-19 project)
QTBIPOC Performing Artist HIVE (2019-20 CER project)
LatinXtensions (2019-20 CER project)
Aesthetic Shift (2019-20 CER project)
Dance Mission Theater (2020 Bridge Project anti-racism partner)
Beatrice Thomas (2020 Anti-Racism Training facilitator)