A Call to Action for South Asian dancers in America.

Colonization has had us carry truths and lies at the same time. Decolonizing is our current mandate. And it’s time to face it: many South Asians are racist against dark-skinned individuals of their own cultural background, and Black people. Many South Asians are also casteist, and discriminate against people based on hereditary social classes and subclasses designed to divide the diaspora and oppress the most vulnerable. Therefore, if these weeks of global uprising have taught us anything, it’s that we must look at how we have contributed to the oppression of Black people in America.

I write this letter <<full letter link>> today in hopes of holding myself and my community accountable in our collective complicity that upholds the dance industry’s white supremacist foundation. This letter is open to any of you in the field who want to join me in signing itas an active measure of both solidarity to the wider dance field and accountability to the network of cosigners that support this commitment presented today. I hope to create a future for our children where true harmony is possible. Globalization has given us the opportunity to dig deeper into our roots, our understanding of how we got here, our understanding of where we failed, and how dance helped heal us through this time of reckoning. I offer this opportunity as a way to collectively begin our anti-racist work as a community of creatives who have something to say.

Sign your NAME, TITLE, ORGANIZATION (if any). You may absolutely sign as an individual/freelance artist as well in the form of NAME, PROFESSIONAL TITLE.

Thank you for your time.

Brinda Guha

Director, Kalamandir Dance Company, Inc.

Faculty, Kalamandir of NJ + Queens Dance School

Collaborator, Soles of Duende

Curator, Wise Fruit NYC

Programs Assistant, Dance/NYC