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June 4, 2023

By Norma Porter

 2019: The year where I had the opportunity to do three things I love consistently: 1) spread the good news of Black Dance Magazine at multiple conferences across the country, 2) perform regularly, and 3) work with young people via the dance summer intensive program I designed for high school students. I also taught as an adjunct professor. After making a career change from full-time newspaper writing to arts administration to immerse myself in dance culture,  I had finally found my mojo. I was moving at such an unmanageable pace that I found it challenging to find balance. My son and I left the house early in the mornings for school and work. We would return home after 9 p.m. most evenings either eating dinner out or the meal I cooked and packed for us to eat between work or school, homework and my rehearsals. The additional conference and performance travel piled on top of my already hectic travel and audition schedule as a full-time college dance recruiter left little time for rest and self-care.

2020 started off with the publication of our January 2020 print issue (Camille Brown was the cover artist for our January 2020 issue, which turned out to be our most stunning cover to-date), which was scheduled to be featured at numerous festivals and conferences in 2020. I was booked and busy with back-to-back trips to dance festivals and conferences with my first stop in NYC. I attended the Association of Performing Arts Professionals’ annual conference on January 10th with my good friend and colleague Francine Sheffield, owner of Sheffield Global Arts Management. The following week I attended the International Association of Blacks in Dance’s conference in Philadelphia as a vendor and presenter. My panel discussion From THE FEET to Black Dance Magazine and Beyond featured information about the first magazine dedicated to Black Dance, THE FEET, and included dancer and founder of THE FEET, Carole Y. Johnson. I was so excited to meet Carole, such a fangirl moment! Weeks after the IABD conference, I performed in a concert with a colleague (Carole was still in town, so she also saw me perform – ahhh) and then prepared to present and perform at the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance Conference in Durham, NC at Duke University in late February. Upon returning from the National High School Dance Festival in Pittsburgh, PA, I heard word spreading about the novel coronavirus, which at the time mainly impacted China and Italy, but had made its way to a nursing home in Washington state and caused multiple deaths, On March 13th, everything in my life came to a screeching halt: my son’s school closed, the university I worked for closed and somehow we really thought that this shutdown would last for two weeks.

I was left to figure out how to safely get groceries, keep my son on track academically (yeah, right) and shift my recruiting efforts from in-person to a virtual platform singlehandedly. Political and racial unrest added to the load I already carried as a single mom, so consequently Black Dance Magazine fell to the waist side at what felt like the beginning of a fruitful season despite my efforts to keep things going.

With the help of a strong group of supporters, I managed to publish two issues between 2020 and 2021. FYI: these are two amazing issues with Debbie Allen and Rennie Harris as our cover artists. Shameless plug - They can be purchased here.

Unfortunately, most Black dance artists had to shift their efforts to online rehearsals and performances or quickly figure out a plan to survive the shifting landscape, so these issues went virtually unnoticed.

During this time, I also started the Black Dance Resource Center to facilitate a home/umbrella organization for my work. Unfortunately, I was unable to take advantage of PPP loans and other funding made available to help existing arts organizations weather the storm.

I’ve learned many lessons from the pandemic:

1.     One man is not an island – this work can’t be done alone.

2.     Pace yourself.

3.     Take care of your body – I am finally/mostly healed from a knee injury.

4.     Find a partnering organization who believes in your mission – I’ve experienced a lot of lip service from folks in the past .

It took three years to get my footing, but I’m still here and so is Black Dance Magazine! We are now in partnership with Headlong Dance Theater, where I serve as Managing Director. I’m really excited about this partnership!

And…I am focused on bringing more resources and programming to the community through the Black Dance Resource Center.

Dancers are more digital than ever before, so I’ve decided to meet the community where it is: online and on social media.

I am focused on creating free, original news content on our website.

We need your support!

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Let’s keep dancing…come what may!

 Norma