Celebrating 2 Years of More Than Movement
Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide opportunities for Rae Studios’ instructors and staff to grow their teaching skills and social advocacy as well as educating the Rae Studios community about dance history and culture through community building, education, and anti-racism work.
Values
Decolonization/Antiracism, Compassion, Community, Knowledge
Vision
We envision a world where the dance community is safe, supported, and respected.
Description
Rae Studios’ More Than Movement is a professional development program dedicated to helping instructors and staff grow as artists and individuals. Through curated resources, educational workshops, guest speakers, and special events, More Than Movement is committed to building an inclusive movement environment for the Rae Studios community. We focus on the following topics to achieve this goal: being responsible and respectful guests of Black dance forms (e.g., Hip-Hop, Jazz), educating our students on the history and culture of dance forms from around the world, addressing implicit and explicit biases (e.g., sizeism/fatphobia), and many more!
More than Movement Living Resource Document
Check out our More Than Movement living document with resources for history, culture and foundation of a variety of dance forms as well as resources for antiracism and decolonization.
Committee Leads
More Than Movement is produced by Lexi Nutkiewicz, Kristie Lui and Rae Studios Management and was originally created by Trisha Fuerte in April 2021. Since then, the committee has developed the More Than Movement program and dedicated time to researching topics, creating resources, coordinating speakers and workshops, and facilitating conversations with Rae Studios instructors and staff surrounding artistry, leadership, social advocacy, teaching skills, and knowledge of dance history and culture. Get to know our current leads and their backgrounds below:
Kristie (she/her/她) has been training in various streetstyles and clubstyles since she was 19. While her first love is Waacking because of its tenets of acceptance, expression, and empowerment, she also enjoys training in other dance forms including Hip-Hop, Popping, Waving, and Housing. Kristie is Co-Director of Str8jacket and believes in modeling empathy, transparency, and integrity as her leadership style. Kristie began her antiracism journey in 2020 and utilizes dance as a tool to create social and philosophical change. In her free time, Kristie hangs out with her dog, Morty,
Lexi (she/her/היא) started dancing Hip-Hop at age 7 and began teaching dance at age 15. While attending the University of Colorado Boulder, she led the initiative to incorporate Hip-Hop education into VeRVE Collisionz’s annual dance competition, the largest street dance competition in Colorado. After graduation, Lexi moved to the Bay Area and joined Str8jacket, whose mission is to preserve the Bay Area Hip-Hop dance community. Under Str8jacket, she trains in various dance forms such as House, Waacking, Locking, and Hip-Hop. She currently serves as their Outreach Coordinator and helps further the team’s Hip-Hop education. She strongly believes in the power of dance as activism and is excited to be part of the More Than Movement Committee!
If you are interested in volunteering time to be a part of the More Than Movement Committee, please email our More Than Movement Committee leads, Lexi and Kristie at morethanmovement@raeagency.com. This blog post will serve as the living page for the More Than Movement program and will be updated frequently with more resources, program timeline updates, as well as internal and external event details and recaps.
Highlights/ Accomplishments
Developed a living document with resources for history, culture and foundation of a variety of dance forms as well as resources for antiracism and decolonization.
Hosted over 10 events/ workshops focused on decolonizing dance spaces and educating the community about the history, culture and foundation of dance forms
Hosted "What Moves You", an all-levels and all-styles open session
Hosted More Than Movement's 1st Support Our Styles (S.O.S.) in Sept 2022 which brought a variety of street dance instructors to teach in an intensive style format
Collaborated with various Rae Studios instructors to host Support Our Styles: Holi Edition, Where Fatphobia Lives panel discussion, Jazz Dance Education social media campaign, Mental Health Month 2022 social media campaign, and more.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or comments regarding our More Than Movement program or have any resources you’d like to share, please email our More Than Movement Committee leads, Lexi and Kristie at morethanmovement@raeagency.com.
Please continue to follow this page, our Rae Studios newsletter, and on social media for upcoming events, workshops, speaker series, panels, performances, materials for dance educators, and more. We look forward to growing as artists and community leaders that will show the world that what we do is #morethanmovement .
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