Background

Dance for World Community was conceived by Cuban-born choreographer Jose Mateo after more than twenty years into his leadership as Director of José Mateo Ballet Theatre (JMBT). At its founding in 1986, the ballet organization was conventionally structured as a school and a professional performance company, quickly gained a reputation for excellence and much praise for its pioneering work increasing access, equitable inclusion and diversity in ballet. The introduction of DWC transformed the ballet organization. The new programmatic component made more explicit JMBT’s commitment to its values and mission, allowed the organization to significantly broadened its reach and ultimately distinguished the organization from the typical model of its day.

The vision for DWC challenged the organization to extend well beyond increasing and diversifying participation within the traditionally insular and closed world of ballet. The project creates new opportunities for local dance troupes, choreographers and instructors of many different dance forms, increasing their exposure to broader audiences and supporters. Collectively, the scores of participating groups presented the area’s first broad picture of Greater Boston’s dance scene, explicitly rich in diversity and vitality. Many have created new bonds among themselves,  and greater cohesion of the community as a whole.

Furthermore, DWC highlights new possibilities for cultivating dance’s vast potential as a vehicle for positive social change, the programs are presented as awareness-raising events that advocate for solutions to issues that matter to the participants and the audiences they serve. In this way, DWC challenges the biased assumptions about the dance in America as a politically quiescent, disinterested or even escapist sector, whose role is largely irrelevant to the important civic conversations about our complicated, contemporary global society.

The DWC Local Partnership Model: A Framework for Repositioning Dance in Your Community

The DWC Local Partnership Model is the framework for the project that was customized for Greater Boston based on the particular dance ecology of the area and its relationship to the broader community. There were of course many factors to consider — size and scope of the area’s dance community, political dynamics and available resources, just to name a few. As all of these factors will vary from municipality to municipality, it follows that any dance entity committed to expanding the role of dance in its community will have to formulate a model of its own that can best serve its area’s prospective participants and audiences.

Contact us to request a consultation about creating a customized model that can best serve your community today!

If you are someone who actively participates in a dance practice and who cares deeply about the issues that matter to our communities, consider learning more about the DWC Partnership Model. Perhaps you can boldly take the necessary leadership in your local community to organize a broad-based effort capable of expanding and repositioning, in some purposeful way, the role of dance in your area.

DWC staff, based in Cambridge, can help you evaluate a programmatic and support framework that would best serve your community and assess the feasibility of building the necessary partnership infrastructure. To request an initial conversation to about the prospects for building a customized DWC Local Model for your municipality, write info@danceforworldcommunity.org

The programmatic blueprint for the Cambridge Partnership Model consisted of a number of discrete programs each designed to reach targeted segments of Greater Boston’s dance landscape that were often operating independently, some deliberately functioning as insular, siloed entities, others working in unwanted isolation or visibility. A principle strategy was to design as many different programs as would be needed to attract and engage diverse participants — from the professionally trained artist to the dance enthusiasts by avocation, including choreographers, administrators, scholars, therapists and students — and, relying on the unifying capacity of the practice, begin to demonstrate and talk about the intrinsic power of dance to connect and its possibilities as a potential platform for advocacy and powerful force for activism..

Below is a description with accompanying archives of the programs that were implemented. Although all of the programs proved capable of provoking the intended interest and impact, available resources are currently concentrated on strengthening The Annual Festival in Cambridge which remains DWC’s centerpiece. Other effective DWC Programs over the years have included “Talk About Dance” events, “Dance on Film”, “Dance Saturdays”, crisis response events such as “Cambridge for Haiti” and “Cambridge for Ukraine”, “Dance Against Racism” and Climate Change/Environmental Justice events such as “Emergency Meets” and “Choreographer-Scientist Collaborations”.

DWC Annual Festival celebrates the rich diversity of Greater Boston’s dance communities and their valued contributions to the area’s cultural and economic vitality. The event is produced by JMBT in collaboration with local government, area businesses, dance organizations, other cultural agencies and social service/advocacy nonprofits. Performances and introductory-level classes are offered by over 60 local dance companies presented on multiple outdoor stages along Harvard Square’s Massachusetts Avenue and in JMBT studios. Over 20 local nonprofits display exhibits to engage attendees and raise awareness about important social and environmental issues. Offerings by local businesses, exhibiting artists and food vendors are also made available. The Festival is free to the public and attended by approximately 20,000 people.