Notes from the Meeting on Building a Culture of Active Consent

Members Present:

Chloe Urban

Martin Steingesser

Nicole Gallagher

Neil Sattin

Oracle

Jason Ames

Basic Agenda:

How do we structure a larger community conversation about building active consent on and off the dance floor?

1. How do we inform new dancers?
2. How do we inform existing dancers?
3. What process is in place to address issues? Is it predictable and standardized?

Proposal from the committee:

We propose to have two separate facilitated conversations. Suggestion is to have a male-identified group, and a female identified group, in order to foster safety. And then each group can select delegates to come together to share the results from each group conversation.

The goal of the meeting is to talk about ways that we can promote consent on the dance floor. How do we get permission for a dance? Within a dance (i.e. as a dance continues)? How do we avoid (re-)traumatizing people who have come to the dance not necessarily to be “social,” but instead to find themselves through the dance?

How do we ask for a “yes” instead of waiting for a “no” (which would mean, generally, that a boundary was being crossed)?

How do we educate our community?

And what process do we want to have in place when boundary violations do occur?

Idea is that each meeting would consist of potluck/conversation - and potentially dance as well. Ideally the two meetings happen on the same night (different locations).

While we want the groups to come up with their own ideas for solutions, we also came up with some “seed ideas” that we thought would be good to be considered on their own. Those are:

• New poster that clearly communicates community expectations - to which new and existing dancers are directed by the greeter.
• Could potentially have a second “greeter” whose job it is to point out board, talk about consent, etc - so it doesn’t all fall on the one person there taking money.
• Video that people could watch that illustrates some “don’ts” and “dos” on the dance floor.
• Workshop that helps us engage in consent for/during dances.

We also talked about the possibility of having bracelets on hand that people could wear to indicate simply that they wanted to dance alone. If you’re wearing the bracelet, you don’t want people to approach you for dances. If you’re not wearing a bracelet, then you’re in the “grey zone” - where the consent conversation becomes more nuanced and necessary.

It seems like any of these items could simply be adopted by the Meraki - and at the same time because we want to foster community conversation, awareness, and participation, that we would go with the potluck idea. The meetings also allow for possible healing in any way that the community needs to voice what’s going on and feel supported by other community members.

ADDENDUM/COMMENT SUBMITTED BY ORACLE REGARDING REPORT

While I (Oracle) agree with most of what Chloe and Neil suggest, for the written
record, I do differ on a few points that I believe are important.

1) This is a society wide, cultural issue.  The dance community(ies) seem to
handle it better than society as a whole.  It is an opportunity to provide
some sort of service.  Framing it as a problem is, well, a problem!

2) I feel outside facilitators with broader experience rather than PCD-only
facilitators would be helpful from the start.

3) Likewise, I'd like to see us involve other Portland area dance communities
in this effort rather than limit it to PCD only.  We can only invite, so it
may or may not work.