Berkeley | POC Jam

February 18, 2027 at 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM

The Finnish Hall, 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley, CA 94702, USA

POC Jam every 1st & 3rd Tuesday at Finnish Hall (Berkeley) from 8-9:30pm. The POC Jam happens upstairs, while the Tuesday Jam happens downstairs (see separate calendar event). Dancers identifying as people of color are welcome to access both spaces for one sliding scale donation. Nobody turned away for lack of funds. contact: poccijam@gmail.com Mission Statement The POC (People of Color) Jam will provide a much-needed space for existing and future POC dancers to be centered within the larger CI community. Additionally, we hope the jam will support the evolution of the BayArea CI community into a more diverse, inclusive and equitable space. Our hopes and guiding intentions for the jam are as follows: To create a safer/braver space for POC within the historically and predominantly white CI community. We acknowledge that the systemic inequities and social marginalization of POC communities inherent in our society at large also reverberate into our dance spaces. Providing a consistent POC jam space helps to counteract these inequities by centering POC dancer’s experiences, needs and contributions. To create a more accessible entry point into CI for POC who have yet to be introduced to the form. Learning CI is, in and of itself, an unfamiliar and vulnerable experience. When layered over with the complex and challenging dynamics POC experience when entering and existing in predominantly white spaces, learning contact can feel alienating and inaccessible. By providing a consistent POC jam space we hope to reduce the social emotional barriers many POC people feel when entering and existing within the CI community, allowing them to feel less inhibited as they build their practice. To provide quality and beginner friendly CI training existing and new POC dancers. By providing classes designed with the beginner in mind, we aim to provide POC dancers with the skills and awareness needed to feel capable and comfortable engaging in CI. We will prioritize teachers of color and also will invite white-identified teachers. While we intend to pay teachers, we will also provide the opportunity for white teachers to donate a class or classes as a demonstration of allyship and support for the cause of making CI more accessible, welcoming and inclusive to POC people. To serve as a bridge for new POC dancers wishing to join the larger CI community. We hope that the POC Jam will provide an accessible pathway for POC dancers to feel more resourced, socially connected, comfortable and confident to enter the wider CI community. While this is the choice of each individual dancer, we as facilitators intend to encourage and support this aim because we believe in the power of bridge building to create social change and hope to see POC brought from the margins of CI to the diversified center.