thINKingDANCE is a consortium of dance artists and writers who work together to provide critical coverage for dance, to build audiences for dance, and to foster the art of dance writing.
Based in Philadelphia, thINKingDANCE increases visibility for local dance, encourages new forms of dance writing, broadens the scope of dance coverage in our city, and increases audience receptivity to dance.
Our Story
Lisa Kraus and Anna Drozdowski founded thINKingDANCE in 2011. Inspired by their experiences as Fellows of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Arts Journalism Institute at the American Dance Festival, they felt the need to create a forum for high-quality writing focused on the burgeoning dance scene in Philadelphia. In its first year, thINKingDANCE received funding from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through Dance Advance from which it created its website, developed editorial guidelines and systems for internal communications, and built mechanisms for outreach and readership cultivation. Eighteen Philadelphia-based writers were selected through a competitive application process. A training scheme of intensive workshops was initiated with a section of each workshop made open to the public. Some of the nation’s leading dance writers and critics spent time with thINKingDANCE (including Wendy Perron, Elizabeth Zimmer, and Deborah Jowitt), helping to develop the organization’s voices and skills.
As funding from the initial grant ran out, writers, editors, and those in leadership roles worked on a volunteer basis. Fall 2013 brought a commitment to creating more infrastructure around thINKingDANCE’s programming as the organization began a shift from being a founder-led organization, with Lisa Kraus driving many of the group’s activities, to a more sustainable model with multiple leaders with key responsibilities. A Board of Directors and Editorial Board were named and financial systems were implemented. Others from within the group stepped forward to lead education and communications teams.
We’ve now published over 1400 articles about the Philadelphia dance community and beyond. Each one goes through a careful and thorough two-tiered editorial process. Over 30 people are involved with the publication, either as a writer, editor, staff member, board member, or some combination of these roles. thINKingDANCE members have a wealth of experience in the dance field and elsewhere, as dancers, choreographers, university academics, or other professionals. They are deeply knowledgeable, passionate, and invested in improving both the quantity and quality of discourse in the dance field.
Our Leadership
thINKingDANCE’s leadership structure supports collective visioning and consensus-based decision making. Our Editorial Board consists of leading editors who develop editorial policy together. Each member takes a three month term as Lead Editor and Assistant Lead Editor each year, in lieu of a sole Editor-in-Chief.
The Executive Director and Assistant Director of thINKingDANCE manage the overall operations of thINKingDANCE, including supporting fundraising, organizational development, outreach and partnerships with our external communities. thINKingDANCE has a number of internal teams that take the lead on communications, in-person event planning, connecting with educational institutions to run dance writing workshops, and other adjacent programs aligned with our mission. As a non-profit organization, thINKingDANCE also has a Board of Directors who support the writers and leadership team in carrying out our mission.
Dismantling & Decolonizing
thINKingDANCE holds a commitment to dismantling gatekeeping in our field and decolonizing our writing and organizational practices. This work has taken different forms throughout our history, but continues to be central to our work and mission.
The Intersectionality Network (IN), was a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee initiated by thINKingDANCE writers Mohan Bell and Preeti Pathak. From 2018-2020, the IN researched the demographics of our writers and coverage, created a community agreement, and organized trainings for our writers and editors. Our Decolonizing Dance Writing Project, led by tD writer Gregory King, deepened these conversations within our writing by pairing writers of color within tD with artists of color from around the world for a series of open-to-the-public workshops and published articles.
tD continues this work through organization-wide initiatives to move towards equitable pay scales, centering a conversational editing process focused on writer voice and agency, and through our continued relationship with Critical Minded.