An important message from NACHMO: 

Dear NACHMO community, 

I hope you are taking care in this transformative year of grief and action. The NACHMO board and I have been grateful to the activists who have risked their lives and livelihoods to call the nation authentically into anti-racism. NACHMO affirms that Black Lives Still Matter. We are doing so by transforming our leadership, budget, and community. I am writing to you today to share our actions this past year and changes underway.

Leadership

A majority-white organization is a symptom of white supremacist culture. With an all-white board that too often centered white American contemporary dance, we needed to change. We have rewritten our bylaws to require board term-limits, which we are applying retroactively so as to cycle current members off faster. (I will be stepping down this year.) We are employing and codifying best practice strategies to connect to diverse NACHMO leaders across our organization. This year, we are honored to announce and welcome three new board members who bring prodigious artistry and leadership to our team: Nick Daniels, Brianna Rhodes, and Mary Sofianos. Please welcome them wholeheartedly!

Money

Racism and other prejudices compound the precarity of our underresourced art form. We are drafting a new budget as a moral document and are asking what reparations can look like in dance. Joining NACHMO’s challenge has always been free, and we have previously expected that our hubs provide low-cost fees for presenting. We have failed, however, to recognize that for too many, $10 to show work is an obstacle. We are creating new strategies to make presentations of work free for some or all choreographers. We have committed to hiring venues and vendors led by and serving marginalized people.

Resource-Sharing

NACHMO’s foundational mission lives in community cooperation. We are drawing from these values to reach new-to-NACHMO dance communities. We will provide hubs with strategies to diversify their local relationships. We are now using our online platforms to promote choreographic opportunities that specifically pay marginalized people for their dance work.

New Areas of Focus

There are two groups in our community whom we have failed tremendously. We are currently in the research phase of forming new practices and policy, and we will update you as we act.

DISABILITY We are grateful for the work of Black Dance Stories through whom we connected with Kayla Hamilton, who connected us to Krishna Washburn. Krishna has called us in for our ableism. We are in the research stage of forming NACHMO policy that brings greater access and representation.

LAND BACK While we are drafting a respectful land acknowledgement policy, we know that this honoring is only a small step in engaging with indigenous artists and communities. We are researching how we may enact Land Back.

Codifying Our Values

We are writing a new manual that provides our hubs with expectations and advice to activate these values. We will be asking local communities how we can better support their work and carry that forward into this living document.

Gratitude

Without our community’s call-ins, we may not have arrived at this work. We are particularly grateful to these artists for having taken personal risks to urge action: Creating New Futures; We See You, White American Theater; Sydnie L. Mosley; and Emily Johnson. We affirm their immense labor and encourage you to support their activism and artistry.

Your Input

We need to apply principles of social justice and equity with fierceness, speed, and radical reimagining. With the support of the board, I shifted my role to focus entirely on pressing NACHMO into activating our values as an anti-racist, feminist, queer-affirming organization. Part of my work is ensuring the permanency and responsiveness of these values beyond my own role. NACHMO’s board and I welcome ideas, connections, and criticism for our work.

Please reach out to me or any member of NACHMO’s leadership at any time. If you’d like to share anonymously, please turn to this form. We are here to listen and to act.

Sincerely,

Anna (she/her)

Anna Brown Massey

Co-Founder, Board Member