Stance on Dance is a 501c3 dance journalism nonprofit that educates the dance community and wider audiences about dance from the perspective of underrepresented voices and access points. They do this through publishing and distributing online content and a twice-a-year print publication.

Through their wide array of international content — essays, interviews, podcasts, poetry, cartoons and more — Stance on Dance expands conversation beyond studios and theaters to illuminate the breadth and impact of dance as a practice.

Tabled: Funding and Social Justice

April 4, 2022

“I think a lot about the itchiness of private cultural philanthropy. It’s a uniquely American institution that developed out of massive Gilded Age wealth inequality and continues today. Class identity plays a role in terms of access to individual donors.” - Megan Wright

Tabled: Gender and Sexuality

March 31, 2022

“For me, also as a nonbinary person, I feel fluid. Sometimes it’ll be extremely masculine. Sometimes it’ll be extremely feminine. Sometimes it’ll be extremely everything. Sometimes it’ll be extremely nothing. Sometimes people will not recognize me.” - Kevin Seaman

Tabled: Labor and a Living Wage

March 28, 2022

“One of the things I do now is send invoices with the full price, and then I’ll mark down the discount from what it is, as if to say, “This is my worth, but I’m doing you a favor because I love you as a friend or I love you as an organization.” I try to save my good favors for close friends and organizations I really love and want to help.” - Steven Jones

Tabled: Race and Identity

May 31, 2021

“Every time I open my mouth, I’m suddenly that angry Black woman. Then the pandemic happened and suddenly y’all want me to open my mouth. You fired me from your dance, you told me I was mean, you let your dancers point at me and cry and yell. And I had to be quiet and take it because if I open my mouth, I’m an angry Black woman, when I’m actually the sweetest.” - Jhia Jackson

On the Mental and Emotional Dichotomies of the Artist

January 25, 2021

“I feel this inherited pressure to constantly be productive in order to be successful and get money. I think it’s really important to take breaks. It feels like one of the hardest things for me to do as an emerging artist because there is this attachment to the idea that one must hustle to make a living. But within the dance world specifically, we, as artists, are not getting paid enough to really thrive.” - estrella/estrellx supernova

On Recruiting an Audience

November 23, 2020

“What we’ve found historically is that, if you’re new to ballet, you’re going to buy the Swan Lake ticket, no matter how much I try to tell you that the cool new work is much shorter and you’re going to like it better. If you have never been to the ballet, you’re going to buy Swan Lake first, and it’s going to take three to five years before you buy tickets to something else.” - Jennie Scholick

On Appropriating Gender, Sex and Identity

August 17, 2020

“One of the ways that I decolonized the system of performance was that, when I put together performances, there would be food, tea, and conversation, the stuff that connects people beyond going into a theater and sitting in a chair. I want to create spaces where we are co-creating as audience, choreographer and performers. We all co-create what happens, which dismantles who holds the power in the room.” - Bhumi B. Patel

On the Ethics of Production

June 1, 2020

“It’s the degree to which we have power to lead conversations. I think it’s ultimately about getting creative, sharing information, borrowing materials, reusing materials, leading conversations like this, and, sometimes you end up having to go to H&M.” - Monique Jenkinson

On Labor and a Living Wage

March 19, 2020

“The first three years that I was running the company, we said yes to everything; every showcase in Sausalito, everything in San Mateo, every little performance. We were there full on; full company, full costumes, and we were just hemorrhaging money. The point was to build a track record, because I didn’t have one yet. Now, I find myself giving different advice…” - Charles Slender-White

Reaching for What’s in Front of Me

August 22, 2016

When I was younger, I really got into The Bell Jar. Without taking too much of an emotional nose dive into teen angst, I will say that The Bell Jar, even at such a young age, was very impactful. Specifically, the passage about figs seemed to make an imprint on me.

How Can Making Dance be a Feminist Act?

June 11, 2015

“We believe the medium of dance can be used as a tool to amplify and point attention to feminism and the concepts that surround and support it.” - Courtney King & Melissa Lewis (hers and hers)

Ballet to Me

January 23, 2014

I recently washed my ballet tights and somehow they all ended up grey. I now have four pairs of pink, grey-tinged tights. Of course, this does not pose an immediate problem, but for the day I enter a ballet class, I do not desire that my tights are what makes me stand apart.