Support Black Artistry at Brownbody

“It is so important that African Americans know and understand our history and understand it so that we can identify the racial injustices that has been re-engineered thru time to current.”

    -Audience member

Brownbody ignites the sacred within to transform and sustain Black artistry through a blend of dance, theater, figure skating, and education.

Since 2007, we’ve worked with Black artists and community partners to build artistic experiences that disrupt biased narratives prompting audiences to engage as active participants in the journey. Our work expands the bounds of figure skating and dance, and works across communities to encourage thinking differently about how the past informs the present.

Steeped in Black and African diasporic ways of life and artistry, we work to create nourishing spaces for Black and Brown communities. Whether it's our Learn to Skate Program, a workshop series, apprenticeships, or new premieres and national tours, we continue to strive to reimagine the ice and the stage to shape, ignite, and sustain Black folks in revolution + transformation + healing. The ice is a medium for more than jumps, spins and sequins. It can also be a place where all cultural traditions and bodies are affirmed and valued.

“It was all so beautiful and important to me. I'm a Black and biracial woman and I grew up figure skating in Minneapolis. I have never seen such loving, respectful, affirming, validating representations of Blackness on Ice. I cried tears of joy.”

    -Audience Member

This year, we are developing a new work that captures and imagines the gestural, common, and less visible locations of Black/African diasporic movement through an exploration of personal histories through a Black cultural experience. As well, we hope to reach 60+ youth and adults through our Learn to Skate program. We launched Learn to Skate due to needs within the communities we serve, and now, after four years, we have created a safe and supportive space where Black and Brown communities can find joy on the ice.

“She loves skating and has no idea it's white-dominated–thanks to you all.”

    -Learn to Skate parent

We work to keep Learn to Skate as affordable (free) as possible by offering all classes as pay-as-able, and covering our expenses through community donations. Not all of our participants own skates to use during our lessons, and while we try to have spare skates available, we sometimes are not able to accommodate our students with the quality of skates because we are reliant on ice arenas that have rental skates available for our use. Unfortunately, icetime and such ice arenas is not always available. Hence, we are working to raise funds to purchase our own set of rental skates our Learn to Skate participants can use on a complimentary basis. And while we were able to bring our latest premiere to one new tour location, the cost of renting audio and lighting gear for each ice arena limits our ability to share the work more widely.

Help us on our journey by making a contribution. Your donation helps every aspect of our programs:

$15: one lesson for one of our students

$100: one pair of new skates for students who cannot afford their own skates

$220: one hour of ice time for Learn to Skate or Rehearsal

$500: one piece of audio or lighting gear that enables us to tour our work to new communities

Any donation amount (even $5!) enables us to do our work. Thank you for your consideration. 

And even if now is not the right time for you to contribute to Brownbody, please share our work when you can. We’d really appreciate it. We are so grateful for your support. Much love.