Foundry10 Dance Program (formerly Hip Hop) Announces Name Change
At foundry10, we’ve been grateful to witness the transformative impact of dance on youth through our Hip Hop dance program. However, as we more actively engage in organizational anti-racist education, we’ve learned that describing our dance program as “Hip Hop” without contextualizing it’s roots in Black voices and culture is inaccurate and harmful.
We recognize that we haven’t substantially acknowledged and included the Black history of hip-hop dance in our curriculum, or taken enough steps to increase representation of Black hip-hop teaching artists leading our dance classes. In this way, we engaged in cultural appropriation. We can do better.
Until we have done more work to examine our personal biases and reform our curriculum, we’ve decided to change the name of the program from “Hip Hop” to just the “Dance” program to more accurately reflect what we teach here at foundry10.
Moving forward, we will keep learning about each dance form’s trailblazers and cultural lineage, while acknowledging our place in it with humility and gratitude. Thank you to our dance community for going with us on this journey. We look forward to learning, educating, and dancing with you in and out of quarantine.
Sincerely,
Dance Team, foundry10
