The staff and Board of Directors at Dancemakers and Toronto Dance Community Love-In have come together through our shared values to articulate our heartfelt devastation at the loss of Palestinian life since the Israeli military's violent campaign of collective punishment was enacted in October 2023. We understand that these attacks are not isolated to this moment in history. The Palestinian people have long faced ongoing oppression, occupation, apartheid, besiegement, and exile, at the hands of the Israeli government, with violent displacement and mass dispossesion of lands- both of which are categorically acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, dating back to the Nakba of 1948.

We also share the feelings of outrage that many of our community members, artists, and program participants feel surrounding the Canadian government's complicity in supporting the Israeli military, and not supporting widespread calls for a ceasefire at the first opportunity. We affirm Jewish voices all over the world who decry this violence, calling out “not in my name,” and urge Canadian officials and Corporations to take more meaningful action towards ending the genocidal acts that continue to occur at home and abroad. We stand with Palestinians.

Dancemakers recently completed a research report that was assembled by the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence. Named in that report by both artistic researchers, and the Dancemakers community, are the following values:  “A Dancemakers that is, decolonizing, abolitionist, embodied, artistic, joyful, supportive, decentralizing; as well as one that is socially, ecologically and historically conscious”. As such, Dancemakers cannot uphold these values without acting practically. The learning of decoloniality requires embodied practice. With this we move forward in alignment with our declared values. 

Toronto Dance Community Love-In (Love-In) was founded in 2009 on values of inclusion, connection, and mutual respect. As a grassroots organization made up of artists, Love-In's mandate and accountability as an organization lies in our capacity to shift, evolve, and respond to the needs of the community. In 2021 Love-In embraced the understanding that social justice needs to operate in the foreground of what we do, releasing the following value statement: “The Love-In strives to create equitable, inclusive environments in all of our programming. We celebrate the diverse intersections represented in our communities, artists and participants. We work to integrate anti-oppressive practices into all levels of engagements. The Love-In urges participants to unpack and consider their complicity in white supremacy, coloniality, patriarchy, cissexism and capitalistic structures. The Love-In is committed to our continual education and to having a real impact on social justice and radical change.”

The urgency of this historical moment has moved Dancemakers and Love-In to partner as we revisit our responsibilities as treaty partners who live and work in Tsi’Takaronto. Our shared values as organizations highlight our commitment to the intersections of social justice. Our work must include the support of our Indigenous stewards, tangible action, decolonial practice, and continually working towards solidarity. It is our hope that sharing resources for Indigenous solidarity, Decolonial Learning, alongside resources for Palestinian solidarity, will support not only our process and practice, but yours as well. These struggles are deeply connected. We stand in solidarity with the Indigenous Nations of these territories and with Palestine. 

We recommit to:

• practical action through long-term holistic planning

• tangible allocation of energy and resources

• the education of our staff, board members, and contracted artist practitioners

• encourage patrons & community members to engage and contribute to liberation work

• speak out against oppression or marginalization when we see it occurring

Dancemakers and Toronto Dance Community Love-In will make greater efforts to build, grow, and sustain the values we have expressed within our organizations. 

The Dancemakers and TO Love-In websites now hold a shared resource page linked below. Here artists and community members can access different materials that support learning more about the historical context of the current moment, and how artists have made sense of it. We are committed to sharing knowledge to increase connectedness across colonial struggles. We hope this will deepen our capacity and lived action towards solidarity. 

We ask you to join us in supporting Palestine by amplifying these resources, your voices, and moving in accordance with the treaties of these territories. The labour of continually working towards decolonizing our arts environment requires ongoing collective engagement and collaboration.  

Read our growing resource list for Palestine support, decolonial praxis, Indigenous solidarity, and climate justice ↓