Accessible, vibrant, & homegrown from the cultural landscape of Brooklyn, NY.

Led by and for Black and Disabled women, our philosophy actively rejects colonized notions of what a dancer should be and look like. Instead, we celebrate the complexities of our community, rejecting all forms of tokenism, ableism, racism, and binarism.

Revolutionizing dance, empowering South Brooklyn.

Rachele is a Black woman with her natural curly hair tied back in a structured up-do. She wears a flowy white outfit and stares intensely into the camera, leaning forward into a lunge with arms shaped pressing toward her side.

Bashi Arts implements and develops dance-based programming that advances accessibility, affordability, and experimental approaches to contemporary dancemaking for and with South Brooklyn artists.

We consider contemporary dance a diverse and holistic art form at the intersections of:

Theory

Culture

Civic Engagement

Concert & Commercial Dance Techniques

Photo by Rachel Keane

Bashi Arts serves our community of emerging artists through three pillars of programming:

Peyton and Cate, two white women dancers, sit on the ground leaning into one another. They wear hot pink t-shirts, mis-matched pants, and green socks. They gently place their palms on top of one another with a calm focus.

A Radically Accessible Approach to Dance Pedagogy

Bashi Arts provides professional and pre-professional dance training programs, artistic consulting, and community-based movement offerings for artists of all ages with a specific focus on supporting high-quality training for Black and Disabled women and girls.

Photo by Nir Arieli

Xiaomeng, a Chinese woman dancer stands with gently curved arms and a softly bend hip. She wears a tie-dyed grey monochrome outfit, and looks down at two dancers pressing their palms into the floor.

Photo by Brian Mengini

New Work Development Support for Emerging Artists

Bashi Arts provides resources for emerging, historically underrepresented, artists to develop and produce contemporary dance-based work through our Choreographic Research Incubator for Emerging Artists program.

Bashi Arts is currently home to two transdisciplinary performance dance companies: RACHEL:dancers and Enya Kalia Creations.

Dance students of varying ages, genders, and races wear glittery red textured tops. They stand in a wide second position, with one arm extended overhead and the other out to their side. They lean into their side, extending their hip outwards.

A Performing Arts Hub in South Brooklyn

Bashi Arts is excited to grow into our own state-of-the-art performing arts center to further serve the historically underserved South Brooklyn community with high-quality dance-based programming, professional development, and resources for artists of all ages.

Photo courtesy of Dancewave

A Radically Accessible Approach to Dance Pedagogy

Accessible High-Quality Dance Technique Classes & Choreography

Bashi Arts offers dance training and choreography for students of all ages, from toddlers through adults. Our approach is culturally relevant, accessible, and adaptable to meet the needs of your students and organization. We offer the following dance technique classes to dance studios, schools, and programs:

Dance Composition/Choreographic Development

Contemporary Dance

West African Dance

Afro-Modern

Hip-Hop

Jazz (Broadway and Rooted)

Improvisation (Various Techniques)

Modern (Graham and Horton)

Post-Modern Improvisation

Tap (Rhythm and Broadway)

Creative Movement for Children

… and more!

In addition to dance technique classes, we also offer choreography developed specifically for your students, performed by your students, and aligned with your organizational goals and educational objectives. Choreography may be offered in any of the above techniques, and is only offered in ongoing class sessions of 5 or more.

All of our dance pedagogy offerings are custom tailored for you — no two programs are alike! Most programs may be offered as one-time workshops/masterclasses or as a series of multiple sessions. Rates are flexible depending on your students’ and organization’s needs. Contact us for more information!

Performances for Student Assemblies & Events

Bashi Arts offers traditional concert dance performances and interactive lecture-demonstrations that are aimed to develop cultural and artistic awareness in your community. Some examples of our curated performance events include:

Black History Month Lecture-Demonstrations

Women’s History Month Lecture-Demonstrations

Disability Pride Month Lecture-Demonstrations

Bashi Arts Artists-in-Residence Performances

Dance Around the World Lecture-Demonstrations

… and more!

Curriculum Consulting

As experts in curriculum development and design, Rachel DeForrest Repinz and Enya-Kalia Jordan offer specialized consulting services to other cultural and educational institutions to advise in developing their artistic programming in alignment with cultural relevance and disability justice principles. Examples of advisement include:

Decolonizing Performing Arts Curriculums

Professional Development Workshops

Individualized Teacher Coaching Plans

Curricular Transition Plans and Implementation

… and more!

Guest Lectures: Dance Theory, Philosophy, & Process

Bashi Arts is committed to training the whole dancer: mind, body, and spirit, with an emphasis on the intersection of dance practice and theory. As part of this commitment, we offer guest lectures on a variety of topics catered to your students. Some of these topics include:

Dance Appreciation/Survey of Dance

Dance History: New Perspectives

Dance Pedagogy: Praxis and Theory

Introduction to Ethnographic Dance Research

Service-Learning as a Community Dance Practice

… and more!

Photo by Nir Arieli

Choreographic Research Incubator for Emerging Artists

Bashi Arts develops dance performance programming that supports collaboration between pre-professional and professional emerging artists. The Choreographic Research Incubator for Emerging Artists program provides resources for emerging, historically underrepresented, artists to develop and produce contemporary dance-based work through a research incubator program and/or public application process.

Bashi Arts currently supports two full-time dance companies in residence, in addition to other local Brooklyn and NYC-based artists on a rotating basis:

Tete and Norma, two Black women dancers, kneel on a flood covered in bright red rose petals. They wear matching red tutus and shimmery mesh shirts. They trace the palms over their hands over their chest, running the petals along their bodies.

Photo by Brian Mengini

Enya Kalia Creations

Bringing flava to conceptual art.

Enya Kalia Creations (EKC) is a movement-based artistic collective established in 2016. Directed by Enya-Kalia Jordan, EKC creates and performs untold movement narratives of emerging revolutionaries through dance arts. Working in African Diasporic movement forms, the company reimagines what it means to be unapologetically Black, a woman, and free.

Enya Kalia Creations is the 2023-25 recipient of the BAX & CUNY Dance Initiative Arts & Social Justice Residency at Brooklyn College.

Find out more at enyakaliacreations.org

A group of women dancers wear oversized pink t-shirts with a black long-sleeved top layered underneath. They reach their arms overhead with palms facing forward, curving towards the camera with arched backs and flexed obliques..

Photo by Nir Arieli

RACHEL:dancers

Building multi-sensory Disabled worlds.

RACHEL:dancers (spoken as “Rachel and dancers”) is a multi-sensory performance company making dance about the little things. Directed by Rachel DeForrest Repinz, RACHEL:dancers is committed to advancing a disability aesthetic in contemporary concert and postmodern dance, and exploring ways to cultivate access for visually impaired audiences and artists through an experimental access-based creative process.

Find out more at racheldeforrestrepinz.com