Who should be teaching?

That awkward question! Who should be teaching each of these dance forms? 

Is the person teaching... of that culture? Just asking this question we can feel the cringe of social awkwardness... of avoiding the political topics because we're afraid of saying something offensive, and so we don't even ask.

BUT when we get that question... we're thrilled!  That's why we're here on this journey with you. This is the conversation we should be having! 

And that's just it. It's a conversation, it's about asking questions, and even we (Jennalee and Ria) don't have all of the answers.

But we're here to add a little nuance.

One question that we've been asked is, "Where was that instructor born?". The intention here might be correct, but we believe this isn't quite the detective work we want to be doing. Upon reflection, we know that the notion of culture and identity is not necessarily tied to birth place. And to really throw in a curve ball, we have our evolving Cultures of Hip Hop or Bollywood, for example, which began in one place, but now have root systems across the globe.

Let's run with the Hip Hop example. Hip Hop started in the Bronx with a very small group of African American/ LatinX communities in the late 1970s. What's so cool about that is that many of the creators are still alive, and are participating in conversations about who should teach and share the culture. Even cooler is that our instructors have learned from OGs*; either originators or 2nd generation. So even though none of us were born in the Bronx, we have gone to the root source to learn and participate in the culture. SO COOL.

Thus the conversation in Hip Hop, as I understand it, is if you know your stuff, learned it from the source and are authentically participating in the culture, then... it doesn't matter where you are from. ALSO COOL.

And each culture has its own expectations, structures, regulations, elders and hoops to jump through. (!!!)

SO, the question we SHOULD be asking, (and that Ria and I ask ourselves all the time) is SHOULD that person be teaching? Are they a good cultural ambassador? Do the elders/OGs of their community approve of their leadership? Have they gone through the appropriate training in that culture? BUT ALSO, are they a good teacher?

We could go on and on but not every cultural ambassador is ALSO a great instructor for kids. 

This is what makes our team so unique (and hard to find).

As always, this is in a conversation. Let us know your thoughts. We're not able to answer all of your appropriation fears, but hope by sharing our learnings we can help make the conversation a little less scary.

*a slang term standing for Original Gansta, but meaning a highly regarded originator/creator