Gratitude in Transition

by Kirsten Kaschock

Did you ever walk into a room and feel like you’d come home? Lisa Kraus and Anna Drozdowski gave me that gift at the first ever thINKing DANCE meeting in the fall of 2011. That day I met nearly two-dozen people who loved dance. People who wanted to write, talk, and think dance. Dancemakers and dancers, poets and critics and lawyers—all with the desire to put words in the service of a form too often left out of public discourse on the arts.

As tD transitions into new leadership—after a two-year term, I have handed over the mantle of editor-in-chief to Julius Ferraro and the executive directorship will pass in March from Megan Bridge to Ellen Chenoweth—it only seems fitting to thank those who have made thINKing DANCE the vital organization that it is, and who continue to support its growth and expansion.

So thank you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring about the ongoing discussion of dance and of art in our world. Dance can and does step in to fill a void when language fails. Sometimes language—given that moment of reprieve—can pick up the thread again, taught how to by movement. This I believe. When we write about dance we write deeper into lived experience; we grapple with our world and with humanity in a way that struggles with the realities of bodies, time, force, and space. These are necessary reckonings.

Today and always.

Lisa Kraus’s unfailing vision for this site continues as its core, and the five years she has spent guiding and nurturing this organization have given it a structure that will allow it to stretch and grow. Without her founding vision and tremendous leadership, tD would simply not be. And I, more personally, must thank Lisa for urging me to deepen my investment to tD two years ago by stepping into a larger curatorial role. Her model of passionate commitment is one I can only hope to emulate.

In December, thINKing DANCE ran a Hatchfund campaign that will help us bring more thoughtful reviews, think pieces, interviews, and aesthetic responses to our readers in 2017. We reached our original goal through the donations of nearly one hundred donors. To each and every one of them I want to say thank you. Your generosity supports our work which, in turn, supports the conversation about dance in Philadelphia. Everything is connected. And our connections are what sustain us.

Our campaign remains open until January 18th. Donations received towards our stretch goal will help pay writers, editors, and the guest teachers that tD brings in to deepen our craft and to challenge our habitual notions of just what is possible in this virtual space. I want to thank you in advance should you choose to contribute, or to contribute more, to this essential institution. I also want to invite you into our archives—and welcome you into our community of reading, discussing, and thinking dance. This home I’ve found.

By Kirsten Kaschock
January 8, 2017