Ballet Hispánico is New York’s leading Latino dance company dedicated to fighting systemic stereotyping by fusing classical ballet, contemporary innovation, and traditional Latin dance styles like flamenco, mambo, and salsa. Founded in 1970 by Tina Ramirez in the wake of the civil rights movement and now led by Artistic Director Eduardo Vilaro, the company frequently commissions and performs works that tackle political themes, cultural identity, and historical silences relevant to the Latin experience. Trança, Club Havana, and In Con Brazos Abiertos are three works that focus on the political complexities experienced by marginalized Latin communities in Brazil, Cuba, and Mexican-American cultures respectively.  This summer, Ballet Hispánico will appear at the BAAND Together Dance Festival at Lincoln Center and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. More

Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet (JGCO) is a Brooklyn-based contemporary dance theater company that uses highly kinetic choreography and multimedia to showcase real stories of civil rights abuses and the Black experience. In its landmark production Remembering, founder Jamel Gaines mixes traditional African dance and modern storytelling to depict the history of Africans forcibly ripped from their homelands and sold into slavery in the US, and the enduring legacy of racial injustice. Rather than just a standard show, the choreography acts as a tool to honor history, using the dancers’ bodies to act out the historical and modern struggle for freedom. Other notable pieces include Thank You, which celebrates the 60th Anniversary of the 1963 civil rights March on Washington, and Four Little Girls, a tribute to the tragic 1963 Baptist church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. JGCO maintains a deep commitment to community activism by providing educational programming, scholarships, and performances designed to empower the next generation of young dancers. More

Lenora Lee Dance (LLD) is a San Francisco-based multimedia company that uses immersive dance to speak out against xenophobia and preserve the history of the global Asian diaspora. Led by Artistic Director Lenora Lee, the group creates performances of living history that focus on real-world immigrant struggles. These include Within These Walls, which shows the traumatic confinement of Chinese immigrants at Angel Island, and A Bridge to Now, which uses live dancers and film to reveal the historical unfair treatment and ultimate survival of Chinese enslaved workers in Peru. The company shares these powerful themes across the country, performing at major venues like San Francisco’s Dance Mission Theater. More

Step Afrika! is a Washington, D.C.-based professional dance company that turns body percussion into a loud, rhythmic history lesson about migration and labor struggles. The group blends stepping and South African gumboot dance to create educational shows that promote fairness and equity. In their acclaimed production The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence, featured this summer at New York City's Joyce Theater, the dancers use their feet like drums to echo the physical footsteps of millions of African Americans who fled civil rights abuses in the American South. This season, they are also hosting their annual Summer Steps youth program at D.C.'s Arena Stage. More