Help Eco Artivism Grow!

Support Eco Artivism: Dance, Leadership, and Earth Care

Dancing Earth’s Eco Artivism program is a groundbreaking arts leadership initiative rooted in unceded Ohlone territory in California’s Bay Area. Through movement, ritual, performance, and community dance classes, we nurture collective liberation and deepen care for the Earth and all its beings.

Now, we need your support to continue this vital work. Our goal is to raise $5,000 to sustain and expand our efforts into 2025 and beyond.

What Your Contribution Supports

🌱 Teacher Training: Empowering dance artists to become leaders in their communities, using movement to inspire ecological and social change.

🌍 Community Dance Classes: Providing movement-based experiences that connect us with the Earth, ourselves, and one another.

🎭 Performance: Site-responsive, multidisciplinary works inspired by ecological themes and community stories.

🎉 The Listening Project: Launching in 2024, this initiative will gather wisdom from matriarchs and elders, culminating in a transformative performance premiering in Fall 2025.

Our Impact in 2024

This year, Eco Artivism reached 917 audience members through 29 community classes and 15 performances across the Bay Area, Santa Fe, and Mexico. Led by Artistic Director Rulan Tangen and five visionary Teacher Training graduates, we empowered communities to explore movement as a pathway to collective liberation and environmental care.

Highlights include the continued success of Eco Elegies, a performance ritual shaped by teachings from Indigenous leaders, scientists, and activists of the Amazon rainforest. Each performance told community-responsive stories, weaving together local artists and ecological themes to inspire advocacy and healing.

Looking Ahead to 2025

We’re excited to launch the Listening Project, a groundbreaking initiative that gathers wisdom from elders to inform a new performance premiering in Fall 2025. With your support, we’ll expand our community classes, cultivate more leaders, and create art that brings people together in celebration of ecological resilience and cultural heritage.

Join Us in Making a Difference

Every dollar brings us closer to fostering a world where art inspires advocacy, connection, and healing. Together, we can nurture the Earth and all its beings through the power of movement and creativity.

Thank you for being part of our journey. 🌿

Donate Today!

Hear from the Eco Artivism Dancers

Emma Quan Dewey

What does Eco Artivism mean to you ? “Eco Artivism is an embodied practice rooted in care and sensitivity, that mobilizes performance ritual and movement exploration to tend to our relations, human & beyond human, and the social, political, ecological and spiritual structures that hold those relationships. It's a practice of change-making that understands that transforming systems of oppression into more liberated ways of being requires a deep rooting and presence to the self and the self's entanglements with the beings we coexist with.”

Taraneh Sarrafzadeh

How has EcoArtivism impacted your communities? “We’ve seen Eco Artivism expand the understanding of how movement and dance reconnect people to their intuitive memory of ecosystems, offering embodied education that fosters relational thinking and ecological stewardship. Diverse audiences have been deeply moved by themes of water, migration, ecological mourning, 'mixed-icism,' biodiversity, and compassionate interconnectedness brought to life through embodied poetry.”

Nabra Nelson

How has the Teacher Training program influenced your leadership for your communities? “The Teacher Training program was an enriching experience, blending collaborative learning with expert guidance from the amazing Rulan Tangen. She encouraged us to embrace our unique styles and craft workshops that connect with audiences, current events, and the Earth. This program transformed my teaching, helping me lead with empathy and integrate environmentally-informed techniques.”

Tara Bucknor

Can you share about your experience performing Eco Elegies in 2024? Eco Elegies is “ever changing, ever adapting to fit the settings, cause, surrounding, and dancers. This piece is like water, taking the shape of its container, or like a palm tree, bending but never breaking. In Mexico, it was touched with so many more elements: live music—the flute, the drums, the voice— spoken word, the curiosity of young children. The work is like a cast iron pan, everyone that touches it leaves a part of themselves, leaves the spices from their palms, and leaves the work well seasoned.”

Ronice Stratton

What was one of your favorite EcoArtivism activations? “Our National Water Dance activation at the shores of the Albany Bulb honored the Bay’s brackish waters and invited the community to explore their connection to our local watershed and the waters alive in their own embodied memory. Through movement, collaboration, and the powerful percussion of artist tagoliloooooong and ensemble, we spotlighted water issues while offering intentions for the health and liberation of waters everywhere.”

Learn more about the production Eco Elegies here: https://www.dancingearth.org/ecoelegies

Help Eco Artivism Grow!

By Dancing Earth Creations Inc

Help Eco Artivism Grow!

Empowering Community Through Dance, Leadership, and Earth Care

Team Members