Reflections on the performance felt room by BodyCartography Project The performance space is a stage-less, featureless, roomy white cube with only the functional elements in it: white dance floor, lights, speakers, no chairs. Five dancers share floor with the audience. A pile of white cloth in the corner: dancers will use that. Most of the audience members sit along walls, but some break off towards the center of the space, wondering among dancers before taking position on the floor. One…

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  When I am initiating participatory projects, I am engaged, of course, with the questions and issues specific to the context—in this case, the labor issues within and feminist potential of erotic dancing. But I am also thinking about overarching issues of participation and organizing. In my artist statement, I say that I am interested in creating spaces for people who don’t necessarily consider themselves activists, but want to be engaged with the political issues that affect their lives. This…

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  Associate Professor and Director of the Multicultural Resource Center at St. Cloud State University, Iyekiyapiwiƞ Darlene St. Clair, a citizen of the Lower Sioux Community, has worked with pre-service teachers for the majority of her career in education.  “As a scholar and as a teacher, I have some ambitions, and it’s to change the paradigms of all Minnesotans,”  St. Clair said. “So, I have this sort of modest ambition.”  Viewing education as a tool of colonization for Dakota (and…

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