Parcon at J4J EarthDance jam: and as the co-facilitator

The theme for the July 4th Jam was Knotty Growth, representing how growth can be messy. And it could also be heard as “naughty,” as in subverting expected behavior and encouraging play. À la PISAB, we began the festival with community agreements that called for respect and learning. Part of our definition of respect meant that in the event of backlash to the emergence of a newly race conscious space, white allies and organized emotional support would be the first line of contact to address threatened white people. We had POC meals and jam times, designated white ally workshop times and movement workshops integrated with social reflection. Roberta Wilmore, Earthdance’s new part-time diversity coordinator, led a workshop on intersectionality and lead discussions. I also modified logistical town hall meetings, to have “heart-to-hearts,” where the community could revisit agreements and offer appreciations. Although I was fairly alone within the organizing team as a person of color, the jam felt like a huge milestone in my learning and my facilitation of collective process. Most importantly, I felt respected, safe, seen, and a sense of belonging. I suspected that I was not alone.

Parcon Resilience Facilitator Training 2019

Congratulations to the 2019 Parcon Resilience(PR) Facilitator Training cohort! We are a 12 person collective that spans from San Diego, CA to Boston, MA with desires to use this work in dance, psychotherapy, theater, race equity work, and visual art teaching. Together we embarked on an 8 day intensive experience inviting our minds and bodies to learn the PR framework and to dive deep into collective consciousness building! I am so excited to build together into the future!

Testimony:

"Dancing to fulfill our needs. In the midst of #stretchingandgrowing last week with such brilliant and remarkable humans, I sometimes found myself doubting the value of my own contribution to the group. We then did a partner exercise in which one person expresses a need they feel in that moment. The partner supports them in meeting the need through movement, touch, etc. My need: to feel adequate, useful, needed. Thank you, @ur_leo21 for helping me break out of my mental fog and feel powerful in my body again." -from Anne Tangi

"As much as I have spent all but 5 years of my life dancing and love it very much, I couldn’t help but wondered if I would ever reach people with my dancing, enough that I would make an impact. I also couldn’t help but entertained the thought that there are more important things to take care of in the world, and perhaps spending time dancing is a privilege of the self-indulgence. Yet I’ve stuck with it not only because it makes sense to me but also because of the places dance has taken me and the people have I gotten to be in relationship with. 

This summer was a sweet reminder of the beauty inside this mess. From wcciJam, I met Andrew Suseno and Kimberly Tate, where I was exposed to Parcon Resilience. I resonated deeply with the work as a powerful tool to imagine and nurture empathy, which can lead to long-termed and sustainable changes in the way we are with each other. Post wcciJam, I followed my intuition to join the first cohort of Parcon Resilience Facilitators in an 8-day intensive in New York. So much sweat, tears, bruises, and revelations were shared through dances so good I wished I could spend the rest of my life doing just that. But there is no time to be sleeping in comfort – for we are nowhere near the end!
When Andrew asked me why I wanted to engage in anti-racist work, these are the answers I couldn’t remember in the moment:

In high school, my ex used to walk around school saying “I hate blacks” in Vietnamese, to black students. I was too ignorant and naïve to know what was going on, so I let him continue to say that shit till a mixed kid threaten to punch his face out and he stopped.

When I first started dating my husband, my own family’s first reaction was shock. “You’re dating a black guy??? Is he in a gang? Etc.” Around the same time, I stopped going to nail salons.

When I used to work as a manager of a restaurant, a Mexican woman screamed at me from across the room, “You’re a China, I know you are!” – as she kept asking my co-workers where I came from. No one stepped up to defend me.

Last week, a white man to whom I am a stranger asked me if I my husband was white or Asian. When I responded “he’s mixed,” the follow up questions were “what kind?” and “Is he a US citizen?” And I kept responding!

This morning, before I took my niece (who is black) out shopping, my husband asked me for a favor. He said “Could you please make sure no-one touches her hair like she’s a little doll?” and I understood why he asked.

I want to do this work because I have no other choice. I want to do this work because my sanity depends on it. I want to do this work because I want to see justice served in my lifetime. I want to do this work because I feel it is my life purpose. I want to do this work because it is better to weep in community than to smile in utter loneliness. I don’t want to feel lonely anymore!

SO! I am calling for support so we can continue to build community, to ensure that there is enough financial resources to compensate the new facilitators who is going to share Parcon Resilience with their communities back home. I calling for support so that there can be fair and equitable compensations for those who have and will continue to put in the work, in order to sustain and grow this beautiful idea into a reliable resource for change. " - Nhu Nyugen

Joya Powell and Movement of the People Dance Company

Joya Powell and Movement of the People Dance Company

Parcon Resilience class to Movement of the People 11/5/2018

TESTIMONY:

JOYA POWELL AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE DANCE COMPANY

"WHAT A PHENOMENAL MORNING EXPLORING MOVEMENT POSSIBILITIES AND LIFE POSSIBILITIES WITH GUEST ARTIST ANDREW SUSENO IN HIS -RESILIENCE THROUGH MICRO-AGGRESSIONS CONTACT-IMPROV WORKSHOP. THE EMBODIED PRACTICE WAS EMOTIONAL AND INSPIRING, GIVING US SEEDS FOR MOVEMENT MAKING AND LIFE. WE ARE EXTREMELY GRATEFUL!  " - JOYA POWELL   #MOPDC #DANCEISRESISTANCE #DANCEITOUT#MAGICINTHESTUDIO #DANCEREHEARSAL #EMBODIEDPRACTICE

Maria Bauman and MBDance

Parcon Resilience Company classes to MB dance 3/24 & 3/31/19

DESIRE: a Sankofa Dream by Maria Baumen-Morales April 5/6 at BAX 7:30pm

I had the pleasure of coming in to share Parcon Resilience two times with MBDance! Thank you Maria for allowing me to share the work with you company! I had so much fun stretching your embodied concepts around touch, connecting with the environment and expectations in human relationships. Good luck with your performance this coming weekend! I will be at Oberlin!

Testimony:

Maria Bauman and MB Dance Company from FB. “Yesterday Andrew Suseno came to MBDance rehearsal to lead some of the Desire: A Sankofa Dream (a work-in-progress) cast members in a workshop on partnering with the space and partnering with each other. It was wonderful! He was generous and he offered clear and specific tools with prowess. Thank you, Andrew! Y'all book him for ParCon workshops and for People of Color Contact Improv workshops and jams!” -Maria Bauman

Parcon Resilience blogs organized by themes

Our April immersion focused on falling, consent, comfortability and extensions. 

April 7th, 2018

Ione and Colleen working on extensions

Joanna working with an extension

Nancy and Gabe testing out their comfortability

Nancy working on weight-sharing with different parts of her body

Shana using extensions to explore the environment

Joanna working on weight-sharing

Gabe falling with grace

Site-specific Wed Nights

Where: Nelson A Rockefeller Park (West on Chamber st until you get to Battery Park)

When: Wednesday 6:30-9:30pm

Classes are open!

Realizing liberation is impossible without self and relational awareness and the desire to learn.

Parcon Resilience is a POC centered practice. It opens up the practice of liberation to incorporate the mind through the body in relation to itself, others and the environment via creative movement and weight sharing. In this workshop movers will develop their tools for self-care, making boundaries, and making requests of themselves and others to center and get what they want. Participants will also develop active listening skills connecting language to movement, touch and the development of structured improvisations to support the deepening or investigation of experience as a collective. These tools are powerful and give us access to working with the conscious and subconscious. Our lens will be anti-racist and anti-oppressive and the themes will be our relationship to power, self, community and the world we live in.

Classes will be ⅔ majority people of color. That means if you are a white person you must: 1) RSVP with us to see if there is space or 2) bring two non-white friends OR 3) be placed on a waiting list until our ratios balance.

For now while we are recruiting there are open classes in thru the summer; the rate is $15-$35 a class.

*NO ONE WILL BE TURNED AWAY BC OF FINANCES! We will work it out! Email Kimberly with questions! architate@gmail.com

*No class June 26th or July 3rd.

BIPOC Contact Improvisation Jams and Long Table of 2019

BLOG under re-construction… outline for post Jan 14th, 2020

Add picts from Long Table:

Short description of Long table:

Short descriptions on BIPOC CI JAMS at Gibney/MNDFL

POC CI jams at Oberlin, Toronto, Glacier, wcciJAMS

Add pict from Podcast from Dance Union and link: link to CQ article…

Add Jojo Lamboy photos

POC students at the end of a POC Affinity Parcon Resilience workshop at Oberlin this spring.

*Report on

LONG TABLE DISCUSSION @ GIBNEY

Embodied Anti-racist Practice Groups

Decolonize the mind and the body!

We have begun a deep investigative process to incorporate Parcon and somatic practices with the Undoing Racism curriculum of the People’s Institute and Beyond.

Practice groups in East Harlem are forming now and will reopen after 10 weeks.

*Participation is open to all. Priority goes for people who have completed the Undoing Racism workshop, or who are part of our target intersectionality: seniors or people with disabilities. Groups will close once they reach 12 members and a waiting list will be kept to carry over into the next cycle.

When: The first round of this was amazing! Thank you for those who participated. We will begin another round of Practice Groups once we build the next class list to 10 people!

Keynote Speaker at the Creative Aging Conference

Over 1000 seniors came to the Conference for Aging Artfully. I had the honor of being asked by Gale Brewer to be a Keynote Panelist to share about my Su Casa Parcon work with seniors and to speak about my thoughts on Creative Aging. It was so wonderful to be aligned with Gale and my fellow panelist. I am excited to be part of this movement!

Thank you so much Gale Brewer! It was a pleasure to meet you!

When: August 8, 2018

Where Fordham Law Center

Cada Paso

Cada Paso is a non-profit in East Harlem that leads walking tours for mostly Latino families to learn about health living options in NYC. They cover topics such as the Green market, Play, Civic Engagement, WIC, education for adults, and etc.

What: This summer we began to experiment with teaching Parcon around a theme that Cada Paso was focused on. If it was Green Markets, we used Parcon to embody the dynamic relationship between local farmers and consumers versus a big faceless corporations with blander food. If it was play we invited the adults to engage in novel movement on the children’s playground and invited creative interactions with their children.

When: During the summer of 2018

Special Thanks to

Doctor Cappy Collins. The project was a success. Perhaps we will continue again once COVID lifts. A couple of the participants from these workshops ended up coming to local East Harlem classes at the Johnson Houses in East Harlem in the Winter of 2018.  

Highline GO * Kimberly for photos?

The Highline was excited to pull us in to teach an intergenerational class on design for their summer event GO!

Who: Kimberly Tate (D A N C I T E C T U R E) and Andrew Suseno collaborated.

What: Two 20 minute mini workshops for parents and toddlers using an open space with colored tape on the floor in beautiful patterns to inform our movement and Parcon with each other.

Special Thanks to:

Highline programming team for giving us this opportunity to share the work.

We got some advertising press in the NY TIMES for the event!

Move Different Research

When: October 19th, 2018

Performers: Ione Lewis and Andrew Suseno

What: We performed for the opening night of Move Different Research! This was the opening of a new studio called, MDR.STUDIO by Kenta Naoi. “The goal of this exhibit is to create a space to build community around examining our relationship with movement through an interactive installation, performance, workshops, and discussion.” They created a cool modular gym that interacts with the participant through light and sound!  

Where: LES at 198 Allen St Gallery in Manhattan. 

Special Thanks to:

Ione Lewis for an awesome performance

Kimberly Tate and Akhim(Funk Buddha) for helping me with the music selection.

Nelson Gutierrez for allowing us to share this and rehearse with the seniors at La Corsi.

AND Kenta Naoi and Laura Ravn for inviting us to be part of opening night performances for this amazing weekend.

!!!Seniors in East Harlem

Parcon Resilience classes are currently offered at two senior centers in East Harlem. Following the overwhelmingly successful Su Casa LMCC spring 2018 series at La Corsi, we were awarded another Su Casa Artist’s in Residency at the Jefferson Senior Center a few blocks away. Their shared mother organization is Union Settlement. They have taken us on financially to continue offering classes at La Corsi without the LMCC grant.

When through 2019

Mondays 10:30-11:30am @ La Corsi Senior Center, 307 E116thst, NYC, NY 10029

Thursdays 10:30- 11:30am @ the Jefferson Senior Center, 2205 First Ave, NYC, NY 10029

Friday 10:45am - 11:30am @ The Carter Burden center 312 E 109th st, NYC, NY 10029

What:

Parcon Resilience

@ La Corsi, we have utilized a modular adapatble gym which you can see below. Ramps, benches, bars, and poles are all adjustable to hang on or to sit on an turn around at whatever angles work best for the bodies at play.

Testimony

Contact us if you have any questions!

Flow and Rhythm Studies

I am curious how music and House can integrate with Parcon. The following are my on going experiments into flow and musicality.

These are links to other videos I could not post:

1. Flow on Duke Ellington stairs. (summer 2017)

Intergenerational Parcon Play

Where:  Church of the Living Hope, 161 East 104th St, NYC, NY 10029

When:  2-5pm May 19th, 2018

Who:  An intergenerational Parcon workshop with participants from the Su Casa Residency program and their families. 

What: We explored objects exploring the environment. A plastic shovel sliding along and around a metal railing versus a rubber stopper needing to roll along its surfaces. Then we explored consent in making contact with each other. And we ended by moving our partner as we did our objects, and then found ways to support their exploration in Parcon.

Andrew Suseno is a participant in SU-CASA. SU-CASA is a collaboration among the New York City Council, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department for the Aging and the City's five local arts councils. This program is administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and supported by public funds from the New York City Council in partnership with the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Department for the Aging. LMCC.net.

Parcon and Non-Violent Communication Jam

Testimony from May 23, 2018

Despite not knowing anything about Parcon, I loved Andrew’s meet up. It’s deeply inclusive, empathic, and gentle. The meet up merges movement with learning to assert yourself in a way that is empowering. I wish there were more things like this in the world, and not to mention it is only $5! Andrew and Shana are clearly socially aware and in being so cater consciously to individuals marginalized by society. If you’re into spiritual movement and intuitive connection you should definitely check these meet ups out! -- Christine Lee

Parcon makes me feel alive in a way that I haven’t felt before. Combining the best of contact improv with the opportunity to dance outdoors connects me with my partner, my body, and nature. I appreciate the opportunity to experience NVC while dancing.  Andrew creates a space for people of all abilities, ages, genders, and races to explore movement and social justice in one very fun package.   - Ana Wieder

May 30, 2018

"It's hard to put into words how a simple decision of showing up and seeking discomfort brought me to self exploration through Parcon and a damn good time with a humbling folks. To explore and forge relationships through exploration of touch and movement is the essence of what Parcon is about. What's so powerful about such community is that I can go home and continue to live my life but now with much more awareness of my environment."  -Rimsha Warda

---

Initial Invitation…

I am super excited to explore this work with Shana Deane. She is a long time facilitator of the Non-Violent Communication (NVC) work and member of the Parcon community. NVC is a tool developed to break down the way we think about ourselves and the world to nurture connection rather than violence. Parcon is a way to physicalize that thinking into our relationships through movement and contact. These relationships can be with an object, another person, and the place. This opens up many many possibilities for play and transformation!

Ontario Jam 2016, 2017

Javaka Steptoe taught a Parcon class at the 2016 Ontario Jam!

The 2017 Ontario Jam I taught. It was amazing! 75+ people Parconning in the park. At one point in time I looked across the whole park and everywhere I looked people were engaging in weight sharing and climbing on the objects around them.

Art of Retreat

The Art of Retreat is a North American conference for Parkour instructors to share knowledge and best practices. In 2015, In New Jersey, I was invited to teach a Contact Improvisation class. This evolved into the first exploration of Parcon.

Javaka Steptoe went to teach in 2016 on Roosevelt Island, NY

2017 took place around Battery Park , NY ....I unfortunately do no have any photos for this one!