Join us in co-creating a new dance culture focused on safety, inclusivity, permission & possibilities. One that invites Fusion, Contact Improv, Ecstatic Dance, conscious dance/movement forms and Sex/Kink-Positive communities to blend & play together on one dance floor. Our intention is to create a community culture that focuses on attunement, inclusivity, and exploration, while catering to the accessibility & safety of Queer, BIPOC, and differently abled communities.
We’ve secured a gorgeous 5,000 square foot dance floor in Oakland for every 1st Friday of the month. Our vision is to grow this into a weekly community place to gather, dance, play and explore together. We invite you to come and help us bring this vision to life!
The flow of the evening
7-8:20pm ~ Each month will have a different class/playshop. The class topics will vary, but they will all focus on verbal/non-verbal communication skills, attunement and different ways to play/explore on the dance floor. The class will help to begin to build trust, connections and bonds that we can bring into the evening’s dances.
8:20-9pm ~ A brief interactive, consent and skill building opening circle. The consensual dance portion will be about using words to negotiate during a dance and practicing setting boundaries. Then we’ll split the room into those who want to learn some Contact Improv fundamentals and those who want to learn some Fusion fundamentals. Eventually merging the room for Contact~Fusion dancing!
9-9:50pm ~ The DJ will play Fusion style music, with breaks between songs for folx to be able to directly ask others to dance.
9:50-10:50pm ~ The DJ will play songs that transition into each other, building the energy of the dance floor.
10:50pm ~ A brief closing circle to take in the entire experience as a community.
Creating Safety and Permission
To create more safety and permission on the dance floor for the social and free form dance time (9-10:50pm), we will have two circles of rope laid out on the dance floor.
THE BLACK CIRCLE = SOLO DANCING
One circle of black rope will create a dance area for those who want to dance alone or just be in their own space and not be approached by others. An issue we’ve seen at Ecstatic Dance spaces is that some people just want to dance alone but don’t have a way to overtly signal that so they end up being approached to do contact dances. (This has been an issue especially for female-bodied folx being approached by a line of cis-men). We desire to create a way for the desire to dance with oneself to be clearly signaled and completely supported.
THE WHITE CIRCLE = SENSUAL/FLIRTY/SAUCY DANCING
One circle of white rope will create a dance area for those who want to invite in more sensuality/eroticism/sauciness into their dance. You’ll be able to playfully/flirtatiously invite others to consensually step into the circle with you or you can just step in by yourself and perhaps be met in a dance by someone who is already in the circle. Our intention is to create permission for sexy/saucey dances for those who want to explore them so they don’t have to wonder excessively about what’s acceptable. However, flirty/saucey energy will be the focus only in the white rope circle so that those outside of this circle can feel safe and certain that that energy won’t be brought into a dance without an explicit invitation to step into the white circle. We’re containing explicit sensual/erotic/flirty/saucey and physical interactions limited to “almost-kissing” to this circle.
Community guidelines
- No Alchol
- No chatting on dance floor unless you’re negotiating the dynamics of dance. This is higly encouraged.
- No fragrances (so we can be inclusive of scent-sensitive people)
Our desire is to create a unique and new dance culture. We’re creating a video overview of this culture so that we can have clarity about the agreements of the container we’ll be stepping into and so that everyone doesn’t have to sit through a long talk about the community’s ethos and guidelines at every dance event.
IMPORTANT: It will be mandatory to watch the video before attending your first Everything Everywhere All At Dance. You’ll also need to sign a waiver. NOTE: In order to sign the waiver, you also have to provide a secret word from the video, so that we know you watched it for real! 🙂
Income based Tiered Tickets
To create more accessibility and to address the disparity in incomes/finances, we’re asking folx to pay the highest amount they comfortably can knowing it will offset the difference for those who can’t.
- $30 ~ Living comfortably, rarely stressed about money
- $25 ~ Doing well but money can be an issue at times (this is our average amount we’re aiming for)
- $20 ~ Money is tight
- $10-15 ~ This is available for BIPOC folx*
*If you identify as BIPOC (black, indigenous, person of color), feel free to only pay $10-15 (NOTE: $10-level will all go to the venue, $15-level will contribute to pay teachers/DJs/organizers). By offering this, we intend to make the event more accessible and inclusive while simultaneously working towards more BIPOC representation in the extended dance communities. For LGBTQ and disabled folx who aren’t BIPOC but whose incomes have been impacted by other systems of oppression, reach out to eeaadance@gmail.com and we’ll add your name to a list so the front desk knows to allow you to pay on the $10-15 sliding scale.
We welcome any feedback as we navigate the complexities of this offer.
Admission is paid at the front desk at Just Dance Ballroom. Payment methods include Cash, Check, CC/Debit or ApplePay (we may implement Venmo and PayPal options later).
Thank you!
Co-creating community through Feedback and repair processes
As we begin to build this community and create a new dance culture, we really value your feedback. If you’ve had an incredible experience already at an Everything Everywhere All At Dance, we would love to collect some testimonials to put up on the website and possibly in other promotional material/social media posts.
We will be working on our Community Ethos and developing our approach to navigating any negative experiences that happen within this dance community. These types of experiences might range from uncomfortable exchanges, feelings of misattunement, microaggressions, being or feeling harmed, as well as consent violations. Our intention is to create a culture that invites feedback and is committed to repair through a restorative justice lens and process.
If you have any experience like those listed above, it’s really important to the health and safety of the community for these to be brought to our attention. Sometimes it’s easy (especially as a female-bodied individual) to think “oh, it wasn’t that bad” or “maybe it was just me” but we encourage you to listen to your intuition and, even if you just had a slightly uncomfortable exchange with someone, to be aware of and let us know about such exchanges in case it turns out to be a pattern with a certain individual. Those unchecked patterns can lead to a chain of uncomfortable experiences that, if not addressed, can result in someone -at best- not feeling comfortable to come back but -at worst- being in situation that requires legal intervention.
Let’s all work together to welcome giving and receiving compassionate yet firm accountability as well as opportunities for repair. If you have any questions about this, please reach out to us at eeaadance@gmail.com. You can also submit feedback – positive or less than positive – by clicking the button below.
