On Board(hers).

I started On Board(hers) in 2018 in Columbus, Ohio as a response and a form of a resistance to the anti-immigration rhetoric present in political discourse and the media.

In On Board(hers), we offer contemporary dance workshops to immigrant womxn from different origin, age, race, socio-economic status, level of education and dance background. Based on their testimonies, we create collective choreographies that amplify their stories. We use movement, language, and trauma-informed techniques to show the healing and therapeutic dimension of community dancing and confront the impact of immigration, displacement and/or multiculturalism on their life and identity.

By collecting testimonies and facilitating the transformation of traumas into movement forms, we seek to model best practices for transformational community engagement through storytelling and show how global mobility is part of contemporary national and global history.

On Board(hers) is a space where vocal accents, multilingualism, and cultural pluralities are valued. It aims to create a sense of community in defiance of those who target social, cultural and racial differences as a threat. In our workshops, we explore the richness and importance of global mobility, as well as the power dynamics and tensions at stake.