Thursday, March 15, 2012

DANCE to UNITE (DtU) #1

                                 
                                                      DANCE to UNITE (DtU)


A Founder's Diary:

The Story Behind Dance to Unite

To blog or not to blog?... That was my question...
After giving it a thought for quite a while I came to realize that my personal story can inspire others who might embark on a similar path in life and at the same time serve to help me, founder of a relatively new non profit organization, document all the needed steps in "making it happen" and include the story behind; all the little details, struggles and precious moments that sometimes tend to get lost or forgotten.

My name is Galit Adani and I am the founder of Dance to Unite,Inc.
Dance to Unite,Inc. (DtU) is a non profit organization that offers free dance classes and professional performance opportunities to inner city kids, our main mission is to expose children and teens to various styles of dance as the means to learn about different cultures with the purpose to promote acceptance, appreciation of diversity, a sense of unity and peace.

I often get asked : What made you start Dance to Unite ?

DANCE
Although DtU was founded officially in October 2009, my passion started many years before, I can trace it back to the years when I was a kid and grew up in Israel, where my love for dance and different cultures had started to flourish.
I didn't grow up as a "typical dancer", my mother didn't push me to take dance classes, in fact I was the one who wished to dance and even though I participated in a few dance classes ( for a short few months) I was by no means classically trained.
I got to fulfill my dream and take dance seriously only later, in my mid 20's, a time when most professional dancers would start thinking of an alternative way to make a living. I am convinced that my immense appreciation for the art of dance stemmed from the very fact that I didn't get the dance training I so wished for as a kid. The fact that I didn't enroll in dance classes didn't stop me from trying to emulate dance steps I got to see in music videos, choreograph moves with my friends and somehow perform in many talent shows in my school. 
Dance was always a big part of my life, growing up in a household that wasn't too happy I found dance as a way to escape, I created my own happy world filled with music and dance and even though according to the dance world I wasn't properly trained in my mind I was.

CULTURE
My first visit to NYC was at the age of 12, with my family as a gift for my bat mitzvah. I visited many cities in the U.S, but NYC held a special place in my heart because some of my relatives lived there; but mostly because I got to experience the city's unique multi-cultural essence and it's incredible energy. As a kid growing up in the 80's walking in the streets of NYC made a  lasting impression on me that has left an imprint on my life. Young kids were breakdancing in the street with a boom box to music playing loudly, this was new and fascinating to me. I wanted to ask those kids how they learned how to dance? They didn't seem to have money to take classes, in fact they were collecting money from the street's spectators. Hip Hop was a new growing culture and as a young girl from Israel who was experiencing its growth, I was eager to know more about it.

THE SPARK
I know that my NYC experience as a kid combined with my admiration for the television program Fame had sparked my interest and motivation to volunteer and learn about the Hip Hop culture years later. I have been blessed to become a volunteer dance teacher to inner city kids, under the non-profit organization : Groove with Me, for eleven consecutive years ( 1998-2009). At the same time I was taking dance classes in Queens College and at the prestigious dance school : Broadway Dance Center.  I had the incredible opportunity to take dance classes with some of the world's best dance teachers yet my personal favorite teachers were the very kids that I volunteered to teach. They were the ones who were blunt enough to tell me what dance moves were cool and what moves were "whack", I was learning about the Hip Hop culture through teaching the very kids who lived it… the truth was that even though on the outside I was the teacher, I was really the student.

IT IS ALL CONNECTED
A few years ago I found myself answering a simple question - " so… what do you do for a living ?"
My answer left the person who was asking the question a little confused to say the least…
"So you are a Hebrew School teacher and a youth program director at a synagogue in Connecticut, a Belly Dance teacher to Jewish modern orthodox women in Brooklyn and a Hip Hop teacher to kids in the inner city? What's the connection ?"
I joined the laughter, I don't take myself too seriously and understood why my answer seemed confusing and funny, but what seemed confusing on the outside made all the sense to me. My experience in dance was always connected to the human connections and cultures, I wasn't interested in the performance aspect as much as I was interested in the story behind the cultural dance, it was so natural for me to surround myself in an environment of various community centers, whether I worked in a synagogue or an inner city community center made no difference, it always involved people, cultures, education and dance whenever possible. It was all connected.
I was inspired to write a poem as an explanation to myself of why I chose to do what I do and how it is all connected, I ended the poem with the words : "join me and dance to unite" not knowing then that a couple of years later these very last three words will become our organization's official title.

ALL THE RIVERS RUN INTO THE SEA ( KOHELET 1:7)
And so a few years later all "my rivers": my love for education, kids, cultures, diversity, dance, empowerment, unity and peace all joined together and run into "my sea" : The non profit organization: Dance to Unite.

DtU was founded two and a half years ago but the work had started many years before. For people who share a similar spiritual path as me I would say that I was born to discover my true mission in life. Looking at the big picture I can see how everything that I have endured, from my childhood dreams to the painful obstacles, was there to serve as a platform for the realization of my life's mission : to teach and inspire unity among people!



       

LET'S CONNECT
Thank you for reading my blog! I am excited to share my story with you and invite you to join me on this fascinating journey. I would love to know your thoughts, answer questions and give my advice to anyone with an interest !

Check our website : www.dancetounite.org
Follow us on twitter : @dancetounite
Forward all questions / comments to Galit Adani at : galitadani@me.com