Dance/Movement Therapy As a Tool to Address Racism and Injustice in Service Learning

This author developed a community engagement project within a predominately white, higher education service-learning course to explore racial identity, unrealized bias, and privilege through movement and other artistic modalities. The students explored how movement could aid in fostering community dialogue, bring awareness to their racial identity, and create a more empathetic and compassionate campus community. Through the exploration of a traditional service-learning program delivered in a primarily dominant group, this research investigates how applying a critical service-learning model in conjunction with dance/movement therapy theory may strengthen the understanding of personal and community values around racial awareness and how shared art can increase the stakeholder involvement. The movement-based community engagement project implemented for this research supports and informs the students’ process in increasing their awareness to systemic racism, dominant voice privilege, and the ongoing work of ally-ship