Is the world splintering on different?
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What if difference was never the problem?
Perhaps the problem has never been our differences, but the way we have learned to see them.
Difference was never meant to divide us.
Difference was meant to invite us to see through another person’s eyes and discover more of ourselves in the process.
Every generation inherits dance.
Some preserve it, some expand the art form.
Great civilizations are shaped by those who embody differences.
They understand that every new perspective is not a threat to identity, but an opportunity to deepen our shared humanity.
The Shapers.
They challenge conversations, ask deeper questions and change the way humanity experiences dance. Their legacy is not simply choreography, but a new way of seeing that continues to inspire artists across generations.
We stand on the shoulders of these Shapers, who chose a different path.
The Seekers.
Evolving artists who choose curiosity over certainty, and exit their own frame to allow different cultures, perspectives and lived experiences to define where dance might go next.
Every Shaper was once a Seeker.
Before they transformed dance, they were transformed by it. Every Shaper began with curiosity — a willingness to question, to explore and to remain open to new ideas, cultures and ways of seeing. Their legacy was not born from having all the answers, but never stopping the search.
It is this lifelong commitment to seeking that continues to shape the future of dance.
DNCE DFRNT.
A global movement connecting the artists shaping dance today with those who will shape it tomorrow.
Not to preserve dance, to keep it evolving through conversation, perspective, exchange, curiosity and connection.
Weekly Sessions around 4 Pathways
Somatic Labs - Breath, impulse, sensation, attention and inner listening. Not only how movement looks, but where it begins.
Physical Labs - Training, exploration and physical intelligence across forms and approaches. Not vocabulary and technique for consumption, but movement as investigation.
Lineage / Process Sharing - Artists, histories, methods and questions that transformed dance. Not nostalgia, but living knowledge.
Connect - Young dancers across countries meeting, discussing, experiencing, exchanging and growing through the collective wisdom of Shapers past and present.
Artist-led workshops
Community exchanges between young dancers across the world
Conversations with choreographers, directors, teachers, and performers
Process sharing
Creative laboratories
Exposure to different cultures, practices, and ways of thinking
Founder's Note.
Welcome to DNCE DFRNT.
We are living in a time when difference is increasingly becoming a reason to separate — to judge, defend and retreat into what we already know. Dance has always held the possibility of doing the opposite.
Across generations, certain artists have changed not only how we dance, but how we see. They questioned what existed, crossed boundaries of form, culture and thought, and opened new possibilities for those who came after them.
I believe young dancers and developing artists need access to these change makers — not only their work, but how they thought, what they questioned, the choices they made and what they were responding to.
Because encountering another way of seeing can profoundly change our own. And the change makers of tomorrow are among the young artists of today.
DNCE DFRNT is about creating a space for that possibility — bringing together young ambassadors from countries across the world to encounter different artists, cultures, histories, processes and perspectives, and through them develop a voice of their own.
A voice that can question what exists, challenge the status quo and use difference as a way to connect rather than separate. That matters now more than ever.
Perhaps this is also why the idea is so personal to me. As a young artist, I often felt different and struggled to fit in. It took me years to realise that perhaps I was never meant to.
Sometimes what makes us feel outside is also what allows us to see differently. And perhaps that different way of seeing is exactly where change begins.
Welcome aboard. I’m glad you’re here. Your “different” can, and will, make a difference. Thank you for being part of this journey.
Ashley Lobo
Founder & Visionary | DNCE DFRNT | The Danceworx | Navdhara India Dance Theatre
Address:
XYZ, Morjim, Goa
Phone:
+91 XXX XXX XXXX
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