Open the Circle (OTC) just finished our 2018-19 project report and wanted to share it with our community. As you'll see in the report, it's been a period of growth and significant community impact, bringing Chicagoans together through our footwork summer camp, public dance downs, film screenings and much more.
As highlighted in the report, since founding OTC, we have:
- Demonstrated how Chicagoans can engage with footwork to foster education and community organizing, including supporting a "footwork saves lives" campaign, emphasizing footwork as an explicit anti-violence strategy made by and for Chicago youth.
- Produced eight dance down events that included over 10,000 attendees predominately from low-income black Chicago neighborhoods, featuring over a dozen different youth dance troupes from the south and west sides of the city.
- Established a Footwork Summer Camp, offering instruction to over 300 young people, keeping them safe and healthy in a fun educational environment, and providing jobs for a dozen local dancers to teach the youth and develop curriculum around footwork.
- Created the opportunity for Chicago youth to be on television as dancers and footwork artists, including TV spots on ABC, FOX and in an online documentary on Mic.com.
- Mobilized support for the development of Body of the City, a forthcoming feature-length documentary about Chicago footwork, supported by grants from the MacArthur Foundation and Field Foundation of Illinois.
- Raised over $290,000, more than half of our initial fundraising goal of $500,000, as of September 30, 2019.
- Channeled 80% of OTC’s expenses directly to members of the footwork community, a total of more than $120,000 through September 30th, 2019.
- Established partnerships with leading civic institutions including the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago Summerdance, Chicago Votes, Chance the Rapper's Social Works, Theaster Gates' Art + Public Life at University of Chicago and the Chicago Park District.
- Mobilized support for the development of IN THE WURKZ, a footwork performance supported by a National Dance Project Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), a "year of theater" grant from the City of Chicago, and funding from the Joyce Foundation. You can see the community debut of IN THE WURKZ at Links Hall in Chicago in December (more info here).