Teaching Dance to Underprivileged Kids

From the article "I Don't Want to do African … What About My Technique?:" Transforming Dancing Places into Spaces in the Academy by Raquel L. Monroe, the author discussed about problems that currently occur in dance space of a higher institution. The terms ‘technique’ has become problematic when the Monroe pointed the fear of the future dancer if they took dance class that is different from ballet or modern. The article further discusses by using excerpt and interviews from teachers and students on defining what ‘technique’ is. She also touches the topic on racial injustice in dance from the stereotypes of certain movement that denoted a group of people and classification of ‘high’ or ‘low’ art. This further support her argument when she critiques

There are different levels of discrimination and often times, most people do not realize they are prejudiced. “While most people want to be fair, we can’t help but have preconceived notions”. This quote just shows how some people are raised to either dehumanize or respect a person more because of their race or background. Just like any other learned behavior, prejudice is integrated into the lives of many and plays a huge role in society. Stereotypes and personal experiences strongly contribute to the unintentional actions a person gives off towards a certain type of person or group.

People are not born prejudiced. “It is something that is learned". It can be learned in the same way other attitudes and values are learned, primarily through association, reinforcement and modeling. For example, children may learn to associate a particular ethnic group with poverty, crime, violence and other negative things” (2006 Anti-Defamation League). Also, prejudice in “children may be reinforced by listening to derogatory ethnic jokes, especially when others laugh along or think they're cool”. Lastly, children may simply imitate the prejudices of their older family members and popular friends. Prejudice is to pre- judge. “Prejudice is a baseless and usually negative attitude toward members of a group. Common features of prejudice

Prejudice is a huge factor in how people treat others. “After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, rumors spread, fueled by race prejudice, of a plot among Japanese-Americans to sabotage the war effort” (history.com). When fear causes rumors to spread, prejudice is allowed to run free;however, not all people allow prejudice get in the way of their

“Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the color it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on. ”(Pearl S. Harbor.) Prejudice is similar to an epidemic that not only affects certain people, at some point or another there are a lot of people the have experience some sort of prejudice. What matters is what you do to rise above it. Race prejudice not only hovers and hurts people of color but this evil hovers the darkest over people that allow it to go on, they will continue to feel this guilt and depression until they put a stop to this.

Jaspreana Tobias, a young girl born in the vibrant city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was a child who had grew up around music and rhythm and soul. Born to a family where the last person who was not from New Orleans was born two generations ahead of her, one could assume the rhythm was in her blood. Since she was little and could feel the music, the young Louisianan danced and did so with passion. Though her family loves music and all its counterparts, Jaspreana is the only dancer in the Tobias family tree. In high school, Jaspreana, a determined dancer, tried out for her school’s dance team. Unfortunately she did not make the cut. As any young woman would be, she was disappointed in herself; heart-broken actually. In her mind, she had a great chance at making the team, due to her skillful footwork and elegant grace as a dancer. In her own words, the result of her not making the team was “devastating” as it shook her confidence to the core. On that day, Jaspreana swore she would never try out for another dance team ever again. After months and months of sulking and great disappointment, her love and passion for the art of dancing returned. Not only had it returned, it returned with a new fire which burned deep in her soul. Dancing was her passion and being a professional dancer had been her dream since she could ever even two step to the sound of a simple beat. Jaspreana practiced and practiced. She would dance and think about dancing from the break of dawn until dusk. Finally

Prejudices is found virtually everywhere, and will be continually found, if we can’t rise above our own opinions and just listen to what others have to say. It’s not everyone’s fault, it’s the people that encompass one’s life. Therefore, if ones around people that have a negative thought process, one will soon also have the same thought process even though it’s wrong. The only way out of it would be ones self-perseverance in achieving goals in life.

Tiana Woods is an ambitious second-year undergraduate student studying Political Science and Dance. She is currently attending Columbia University as a Kluge Scholar. Tiana started her learning journey in the East Orange School System at the Little Ones Preschool. Her Preschool teachers cultivated in her a passion for reading. Ever since then she has loved to tell stories through different art forms. Dance being her favorite platform through which to do so. For Tiana, there is something magical about being able to instantly connect with people of different backgrounds through movement. That's the beauty behind artistry in dance—movement can be interpreted in so many different ways, by so many different people. But it will always inspire. Tiana

In this modern world, prejudice is still a universal problem we still have yet to overcome. Although it is true that our society is much less prejudiced than it was 40-50 years ago, we are still struggling to create racial harmony in a world that is so diverse in terms of racial group, sexual orientations, ethnicity, nationality, religions, and so on. I think the core of prejudice comes from stereotyping, which is the generalization of motives, characteristics, or behavior to an entire group of people. In the world where media propaganda is ubiquitous, often times most stereotypes are not formed on valid experiences, instead they are based on images publicized by the mass media, or even created within our heads after seeing and hearing examples from many different sources, like movies, or even hearsay. Stereotyping is more powerful than we think, because it allows those false pictures to control our thinking that leads us to assign uniform characteristics to any person in a group, without consideration of the actual difference between members of that particular group.

Prejudice and Discrimination are an all to common part of our cognitive social being, but many social psychologists believe that it can be stopped, but only with the help of social conditioning.

People around the world face prejudice everyday. Prejudice has been around forever. They voice their opinions and through that comes with discrimination. They are criticized for their race, gender, or even how they act. They might not do anything wrong, but the way other societies and regions view them, they might have different opinions of how they act. Some people have dealt there way through prejudice, while others have to keep fighting for what they believe in or do. A single person might not even know who or for what they really think about someone or thing until they actually see it. In To Kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, and Atticus Finch faced prejudice in their town for being ‘different’ or ‘weird’.

An example of experience forming prejudice could be seen in peoples feeling about Pitbulls. The Pitbull is not born aggressive and violent to people or other animals but turns this way when it get of abused, neglected or trained by people to be aggressive. But people put them in the savage beast category because a few abused, neglected or trained to be aggressive Pitbulls went haywire and harmed someone

According to the psychologist, Richard Brislin, there are four reason why prejudice is widespread. People hold certain prejudice because 1, they can read to reward. 2, do not want to believe unpleasant things about themselves. 3, they serve to reinforce aspects of life that are highly valued. 4, such attitudes allow them to organize and structure their world in a way that make sense to them. All of them can be applied to the

Once she begins to dance, she starts to have a different outlook on her community, and soon knows to let herself accept the life she

Feminism plays a large role in many dance styles in today's society. It is a key tool to use while teaching younger students as proved by the women showcased in the films provided as well as in the articles, “The lens in which I look through everything now is feminist theory and pedagogy” (Jennifer Bolt). Throughout the interview, Bolt touched on how she felt as if she had a loss of voice when it came to fighting for the dance program, it connects back to her learning about how women had to fight for their voice in society when she was just a girl. Claire Wooten explained how she tended to steer away from what she called “The F word” (Wooten) when directing her classes due to how announcing feminist theory right off the bat seemed to put people off. Wooten stated she directed her classes from an emancipatory standpoint, attempting to remove herself from the equation to heighten student experience and self-progression.