So this video just came out by Jessica Carro of Zoukology!
Things have since gotten quite messy since the @chegadeassedionadanca instagram page was created. A #metoo-type movement has male instructors turning against women and vice versa. It’s also motivated others in the scene to create new anonymous pages targeting certain artists, which can be very dangerous.
In this new video, ZOUKOLOGY will give you the rundown of what you need to know and give suggestions on how organizers and other key figures in the scene can help make a difference and actually create change rather than continuously arguing about the matter. Oh, also, Zoukology got served by an attorney for our last video! That’s right, guys! Click play to hear aaaaalllll about it 🙂
A few years ago I created a web tool called ReportaDancer.com. Yes, you’ve guessed it right what it does!
ReportaDancer.com never got publicly released and took it down after I had finished building it. Here’s why…
I ran the system through some friends and they advised strongly against releasing it and warned me about the legal repercussion.
It’s a dangerous path when trying to take the law in your own hands, it can get very messy. I would be risking my home, my business, all my assets if I were to get served or sued. I thankfully took their advice and the system never saw another daylight.
Though I created it out of good intentions, it was not the right approach and would have to deal with the danger of half-truths, exaggerations, and also malicious false accusations. This would give way for more lawsuits.
And there are the complications of leaked reports getting into the wrong hands which again would pose a threat of being sued for that.
We recently looked at resurrecting or re-reviewing ReportaDancer.com again, but after some more careful thoughts, again, it’s a terrible idea…
So what now?
How do we deal with abuse, sexual harassment, and misbehavior in dance?
Abuse and sexual harassment come in many forms and definitions. This is not a gender war but tends to occur to women more often than men based on observation (this can be fact-checked).
This issue seems to pop up loudly every few years. Lots of voices anonymous and sometimes non-anonymous stories that erupts the dance world from predominately women.
After a few weeks or many months of “awareness”, it tends to fade away and no long-term solution is ever found. It gets kicked under the rug unintentionally. Predators and abusers may go into hiding or apologise and try to rectify their behaviors. However, new predators and abusers will appear and this whole vicious cycle begins all over again.
This is a super complex problem, especially the international legal system does not favor any of this. Therefore, it’s easy for predators and abusers to get away, they know this that’s why they do it. Local legal systems are also expensive and the victims do not report to police for many reasons.
What we need a long-term SELF-SUSTAINING solution that focus more on PREVENTION than a cure.
In my honest opinion, this isn’t a single person or any single organisation problem to resolve. This is a community problem that can only be solved by the community and the people who are part of it. If we want to solve this, YOU need to be part of the solution and help.
Being a bystander and hoping someone else solves this will not make the problem disappear. We ALL (ladies and gents) need to be extra vigilant, caring, and supportive. Let’s not make it easy for predators and abusers, make it difficult for them because we’re here to protect each other by building a working solution around this problem.
It’s impossible to fully prevent this problem, however, it is very POSSIBLE to minimise freedom of movement or cut short the timeframe of abusers and predators from being detected with the correct solution system in place.
Domi&Hoi Team is working hard behind the scenes with a better and more solid long-term solution when it comes to abuse, sexual harassment, and misbehavior in our Brazilian Zouk dance community. Our solution concept has been drawn. We’ll be releasing more info about this very soon how we plan to tackle this re-occurring issue.
Don’t worry, you will be involved to make this work, everyone in our Brazilian Zouk community needs to help and be part of the solution. If we all want a safer dance community, then we all need to help.
I’m so glad we’re not the only ones who are trying to find ways forward. Laura Riva (organiser of Canada Zouk Congress and blogger at Danceplace.com) has recently made a blog about their solution which is creating a Professional Association.
Have a read at how they are approaching this problem: It’s Time for a Professional Association
The idea Domi&Hoi Team is working on is different to Laura’s, but it would certainly compliment of having a professional association. We’ll reveal more of the plan in a few days, right now we’re creating some simple presentation slides to explain how it works and what we can all do to help make it safer.
Watch this space: DontStaySilent.Dance
Hoi x
