Dreamwalker grows its Community Outreach

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Dreamwalker grows its Community Outreach during the pandemic with support from Ontario Trillium Foundation!

Toronto, ON – Thanks to a $40,000 Resilient Communities Fund grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation in March 2021, Dreamwalker Dance Company has created the Conscious Bodies Methodology Handbook and General Outline Document. Conscious Bodies Methodology (CB Methodology) emerges from Artistic Director Andrea Nann's arts practice as a holistic approach to community building, in which multiple facets of the body, mind, and shared environments come into harmony. These influences are explicit in all Dreamwalker projects which increase awareness of myriad experiences of and between individuals living in the margins of social and cultural life in Canada. “The arts community has suffered deeply from the impact of COVID-19 and this grant comes at such an important time,” said Marit Stiles, MPP for Davenport. “I’m thrilled that Dreamwalker was able to use this funding to help rebuild and recover by designing and creating such an innovative, important and accessible tool that will help connect diverse populations to their exciting work.”

The grant was focused on enabling Dreamwalker Dance Company to develop online training and resources. Funds were used to help with staffing, purchasing online software licenses and sound recording equipment, as well as helping with costs for experts to create the online programs. In working with Handbook co-creators, Philip Davis, Danielle Denichaud, Isaiah Gilson, Andrea Nann and Michelle Silagy, in community with Crystal Castellan, Sid Ryan Eilers, Kelsi James, Hemantika Mahesh Kumar, Heryka Miranda, Mary Jo Mullins, Elysha Poirier, and Amer Rashid, Dreamwalker Dance Company has created the Conscious Bodies Methodology Handbook as an Embodied Companion for Dreamwalker Conscious Bodies Facilitators and Ambassadors to share CB Methodology with marginalized communities, in ways that sensitively consider the enriched nuances within diverse populations. Designed to encapsulate CB Methodology practice and remedy COVID-19 related consequences, the handbook provides facilitators and ambassadors with professional development and a knowledge base for delivering content both live and virtually. The handbook and general outline document also act as embodied experiential tools and are available to artistic collaborators, administrative team members, and its Board of Directors. These tools will enrich the understanding and personal e

xperience of CB Methodology as a practice rooted in Dreamwalker core values.

“These tools serve to bridge some of the distances people endure when we cannot physically be together, and emerge as a sustainable connection vehicle for Dreamwalker in its ongoing promise to inclusively and equitably seed and nurture relationships between diverse individuals across distance and time, so all can experience: embodiment, nature, and transformation in the presence of others,” said Andrea Nann, Artistic Director, Dreamwalker Dance Company. Dreamwalker continues to work to deepen its relationships with the Lands and First Peoples of the Places where it is honoured to live and practice. The forming of these tools has allowed time to infuse this commitment into the Conscious Bodies Methodology Handbook and General Outline document with breath-filled purpose. Dreamwalker is excited to share this with its communities and partners and is deeply grateful to the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Government of Ontario for this generous support. The Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) is an agency of the Government of Ontario, and one of Canada’s leading granting foundations. Last year, nearly $112M was invested into 1,384 community projects and partnerships to build healthy and vibrant communities and strengthen the impact of Ontario’s non-profit sector. In 2020/21, OTF supported Ontario’s economic recovery by helping non-profit organizations rebuild and recover from the impacts of COVID-19. Visit otf.ca to learn more.