Dance Schools
We challenge the commercial veneer that’s been affixed to hip hop, and honor the ancestry and healing power of Black social dance forms within the ancient continuum of African Diasporic storytelling and art.
Dance Mission Theater
Dance Mission Theater (DMT) is an artist driven space dedicated to inclusiveness, fairness, and justice. They create, produce, present, and teach feminist and multicultural dance/theater, engaging a diverse group of Bay Area artists, audiences, and students.
EP has been a resident company at DMT since 2010 and Nicole Klaymoon has been teaching house dance classes there since 2015. DMT is a beloved co-presenter of EP’s GET FREE Festival. EP has presented 5 home season shows at DMT.
ODC/Dance School
ODC is dedicated to the lifecycle of the artistic process. Through their company, school and theater, they aim to inspire audiences, cultivate artists, engage community, and foster diversity and inclusion through dance.
EP was awarded a three-year residency at ODC and a technical residency where EP got to develop production ideas. ODC co-produced Seed Language, House of Matter, and commissioned Music of the Actualized Child. Nicole Klaymoon has served on faculty in ODCs dance school for more than 10 years. Klaymoon is also the co-founder of Seeds, ODC Dance Schools first hip hop youth company.
Destiny Arts Center
Destiny Arts Center is a nonprofit violence prevention, arts education, and cultural center in the heart of Oakland.
EP has had the opportunity to serve as resident company at Destiny Arts Center since 2015. We’ve held ongoing weekly rehearsals as well as produced four original evening length works at Destiny Arts Center, including a Restorative Practices Festival (2017), and one weeklong dance festival Rennie Harris’s Illadelph Legends of Hip Hop Festival (2015).
In 2015 EP and Destiny Arts Youth Company partnered on a two year long production to create the multi-generational production Seed Language: A New Identity, directed/choreographed by Sarah Crowell, Rashidi Omari, and Nicole Klaymoon. Destiny Youth embodied vital voices of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Black Panther Party to create a timely conversation on race, privilege, power, healing and the need to act. This included a sold-out nine-show run at Laney College that culminated in another sold-out production at A.C.T. Theater (San Francisco, CA).
Made possible through the generous support of The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation
Behind the Scenes of Seed Language: A New Identity. Filmed at Destiny Arts Center
“Say Their Names”
Monologue performed by Jessica Hairston
Dancers: Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company & Destiny's Junior Company
Directed by Sarah Crowell