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Making a Connection Between Movement and Social Movements
“People protest in many different ways,” a young activist in the Bay Area says. For her and others in her performance group, one way is dance.
When racial justice protests were sweeping the country in June, Shayla Avery, 16, chose her school in Berkeley, Calif., as the site of her first demonstration.
She planned it all out: The demonstrators would march about a mile from San Pablo Park to Berkeley High School, joined by drummers; she would accompany them, standing in the back of a flatbed truck, blasting music and directing the chants through her bullhorn.
On the day of the protest, her plans came to life. Hundreds of young people from the East Bay showed up, including classmates and staff members from her high school, as well as dancers from her youth performance group at the Destiny Arts Center in Oakland.
With the music pumping and the drummers urging the marchers on, the Destiny Arts dancers couldn’t help but dance.
There were hip-hop and Afro-Haitian styles, as well as freestyle dancing with homegrown East Bay moves, like the smeeze, originated by an Oakland dancer called Chonkie. Soon, the young dancers were at the front of the crowd providing the march’s energetic momentum.
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