Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging - Sarah Swenson
In my life’s work I’ve been fortunate to work with both multi-ethnic and ethnically homogeneous populations, including at orgs such as The Ailey School, The Wooden Floor of Santa Ana, as Director of Dance Education, The Colburn School, as Chair of Modern Dance, and now as consultant for the Museum of Modern Art. I’m acutely sensitive to issues of identity, ethnicity, gender, and class. I seek constantly to re-educate, and fine-tune my self-awareness, how I perceive others and how I may be perceived. I’m aware that Dance professorship carries an aspect of hierarchy, and I am not attached it. However, it is a study and a practice to be learned that has specificity, and while I may be an authority in my field, I endeavor to keep a balance.
My interest in my students is rooted in humanism: compassion, and a powerful sense of responsibility to open their minds to possibility, whether or not they gravitate toward an artistic life, while prioritizing their uniqueness as individuals. I’m not interested in power. I approach everyone with a sense of curiosity and respect, and actively avoid making assumptions. My experience is that my attitudes towards my students are appreciated by them, and they respond in kind. I believe that is because I make my respect for them clear. I have never had a complaint lodged against me. I provide opportunities for thoughtful peer critical response in which everyone equally participates. I’ve striven to create opportunities and recognition especially for women, as well as for minorities and people of all identities and abilities. During the past decade, while consulting for museums worldwide for the installation of Dance Constructions (and other performance works of Simone Forti’s), I’ve used my authority and position with MoMA to insist on the active pursuit of diversity in the recruitment of performers for Simone’s work. This has been mostly but not always successful, and I’ve been frustrated by the resistance to the inclusion of disabled movers. During a semester at a major southern California university in 2019, I noticed how much more diverse the student body had become since 2013, enough so that my signature work Fimmine was cast almost exclusively with dancers of color, a perspective I had longed to bring to this piece, and about which the participants were aware and appreciative [“There are all white/euro casts, so there can be all BIPOC casts.”], evidently the first time it had happened in this context. I’ve aggressively and consistently sought a diverse composition for my own Vox Dance Theatre from it’s inception, and in the last 3 years made the decision that the company must be not only an ethnically diverse, but age diverse, which currently spans from 24 to 73. I see ageism as the last frontier.
I grew up as the daughter of one of the co-founders and co-authors of the revolutionary book Our Bodies, Ourselves, and was sensitized at a young age to the primary issue of bodily autonomy for women and all human beings as an element of equality, equity, human and civil rights, ageism, and the ongoing, pervasive impact of colonialism. This POV was embedded in my sensibility from childhood and has remained the foundation of my world view held in the studio, professional, and personal life. My friend and elder Loretta Ross has had a great influence on my thinking and attitudes about the issues surrounding difference and ability. Her positive attitude of love and forgiveness for the full array of human aggressions, micro and macro, that we confront on a daily basis has given me courage.
During my tenure as Chair of Theater, Music & Dance at a 4-year liberal arts college in central MO, I sought to expand awareness of cultures outside the mainstream mid-west by launching a Visiting Artist Program with two music residencies and lectures by performing artists from Italy (Musicantica), and Israel (Yuval Ron Group), both of which were received with great enthusiasm and interest.
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In my life’s work I’ve been fortunate to work with both multi-ethnic and ethnically homogeneous populations, including at orgs such as The Ailey School, The Wooden Floor of Santa Ana, as Director of Dance Education, The Colburn School, as Chair of Modern Dance, and now as consultant for the Museum of Modern Art. I’m acutely sensitive to issues of identity, ethnicity, gender, and class. I seek constantly to re-educate, and fine-tune my self-awareness, how I perceive others and how I may be perceived. I’m aware that Dance professorship carries an aspect of hierarchy, and I am not attached it. However, it is a study and a practice to be learned that has specificity, and while I may be an authority in my field, I endeavor to keep a balance.
My interest in my students is rooted in humanism: compassion, and a powerful sense of responsibility to open their minds to possibility, whether or not they gravitate toward an artistic life, while prioritizing their uniqueness as individuals. I’m not interested in power. I approach everyone with a sense of curiosity and respect, and actively avoid making assumptions. My experience is that my attitudes towards my students are appreciated by them, and they respond in kind. I believe that is because I make my respect for them clear. I have never had a complaint lodged against me. I provide opportunities for thoughtful peer critical response in which everyone equally participates. I’ve striven to create opportunities and recognition especially for women, as well as for minorities and people of all identities and abilities. During the past decade, while consulting for museums worldwide for the installation of Dance Constructions (and other performance works of Simone Forti’s), I’ve used my authority and position with MoMA to insist on the active pursuit of diversity in the recruitment of performers for Simone’s work. This has been mostly but not always successful, and I’ve been frustrated by the resistance to the inclusion of disabled movers. During a semester at a major southern California university in 2019, I noticed how much more diverse the student body had become since 2013, enough so that my signature work Fimmine was cast almost exclusively with dancers of color, a perspective I had longed to bring to this piece, and about which the participants were aware and appreciative [“There are all white/euro casts, so there can be all BIPOC casts.”], evidently the first time it had happened in this context. I’ve aggressively and consistently sought a diverse composition for my own Vox Dance Theatre from it’s inception, and in the last 3 years made the decision that the company must be not only an ethnically diverse, but age diverse, which currently spans from 24 to 73. I see ageism as the last frontier.
I grew up as the daughter of one of the co-founders and co-authors of the revolutionary book Our Bodies, Ourselves, and was sensitized at a young age to the primary issue of bodily autonomy for women and all human beings as an element of equality, equity, human and civil rights, ageism, and the ongoing, pervasive impact of colonialism. This POV was embedded in my sensibility from childhood and has remained the foundation of my world view held in the studio, professional, and personal life. My friend and elder Loretta Ross has had a great influence on my thinking and attitudes about the issues surrounding difference and ability. Her positive attitude of love and forgiveness for the full array of human aggressions, micro and macro, that we confront on a daily basis has given me courage.
During my tenure as Chair of Theater, Music & Dance at a 4-year liberal arts college in central MO, I sought to expand awareness of cultures outside the mainstream mid-west by launching a Visiting Artist Program with two music residencies and lectures by performing artists from Italy (Musicantica), and Israel (Yuval Ron Group), both of which were received with great enthusiasm and interest.
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