Community Study Halls
history
Community Study Halls (CSHs) are public conversations for dance workers to gather and connect about shared values specific to cultivating healthy, equitable, and ethical workplaces in the professional dance field. CSHs are designed to be places where dancers and people who hire dancers can speak frankly about the equitable hiring practices, working conditions they desire, and how to make them a reality. The conversations are facilitated to balance the serious issues and emotions that arise with humor, levity, and community building. Learn more about previous discussion topics and facilitators below:
2023-24 series (funded in part by the San Francisco Arts Commission)
2025 series (funded by the Zellerbach Family Foundation)
Originally launched by Emily Hansel in 2023, the CSH series is about to embark on its next iteration in 2026.
Winter series 2026
Thanks to a generous grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Community Study Halls are back for another round! (For the sake of transparency, you’re invited to check out our project budget, if you’re interested.) Here’s what you can expect:
Each event is FREE and open to the public.
Each event is led/facilitated by a different artist—see below for our super sweet lineup!
A delicious, catered meal is provided FOR FREE at each event.
All events are held at Steppin’ Out Dance Studio (697 S Van Ness, SF), which we chose for its ADA accessibility, close proximity to public transit, and lack of affiliation with large, powerful Bay Area dance institutions.
All Bay Area dancers, choreographers, and other dance-workers are invited to come as you are and listen/share/learn/educate/observe as much or as little as you feel compelled.
These conversations tend to be quite motivating and action-inspiring for participants, but they are also relatively short discussions in the grand scheme of things. Rather than leaving each session agreeing with each other or having concrete action plans for future organizing, these events are focused more on brainstorming and sowing seeds.
You’re welcome to come to one, several, or all events in this series! Please RSVP to each event you plan to attend so we know how much food to order.
Our four facilitators have been meeting and planning their events since November, and we are eager to welcome you into the thoughtful conversations that have been burgeoning. Listed below, in chronological order, are the three Community Study Halls on offer this winter:
How to make good work
Facilitated by Meredith Webster
Sunday, January 11th
Meal at 1:30pm, conversation 2:00–4:00pm
Steppin’ Out Dance Studio (697 S Van Ness, SF)
We spend a lot of time writing grants and convincing people that the more money they can give us, the better our artistic work will be. Yet we all know money itself is not what makes art “good.” Let’s step outside the fundraising mindset for two hours and talk about what other aspects of our work make it better. We’ll explore our personal values as choreographers, performers, and audience members, and dig in to what makes a work meaningful beyond aesthetics or production value.
The conversation will focus on collective brainstorming starting with some of the following prompts:
What elements of your creative process make your work better?
What type of feedback have you gotten that was truly constructive?
When does feedback from others make you feel less confident about your work?
What kind of interpersonal structures might help us all be better artists?
What would an infrastructure of dance writing mean for dance in the Bay?
Facilitated by Kevin Lo
Monday, January 26th
Meal at 6:00pm, conversation 6:30–8:30pm
Steppin’ Out Dance Studio (697 S Van Ness, SF)
In the dance field, there is a common preconceived notion of writing about dance existing as review, as something that gets publicly published in the newspaper. But dance writing can be infinitely more expansive when we think about it more as a reflective or refractive practice. What does a performance provoke in you? How can continual cross-disciplinary refractions elicit interacting with each others’ work in more intentional ways?
This conversation will touch on interrogating personal motivations for writing, diminishing the pressure that comes with writing for public consumption, and brainstorming potential infrastructures that could facilitate more dance writing.
playdate
Facilitated by Rose + Zoe Huey
Saturday, February 21st
Meal at 4:00pm, conversation 4:30-6:30pm
Steppin’ Out Dance Studio (697 S Van Ness, SF)
Play as -
Imagination, pretending, performance, improvisation
liberation from seriousness, the need to know, perfectionism, scarcity mindset
Permission to try new things, build trust, take risks, fail, experiment, be vulnerable
Rigorous practice, a portal, a value system, a tool
Come join us in conversation as we define, remember, and reimagine the expansive possibilities of what play can be and how we can use it in our artistic practices
What is your relationship to play?
Where do you see play in the world?
Who are your teachers in play?
What is play’s role in depressurizing a creative process, and bringing in other ways of working that are more experimental?
When or how has play surprised you?
What else can play do or be?