Booking
Participatory Workshops

Thank you for your interest in booking Great Leap for your next event!

GREAT LEAP, INC

Great Leap creates bridges to a more just world, weaving performing arts, cultural practices, and community engagement to transform our relationships to the Earth and each other.

HISTORY

Founded in 1978 by groundbreaking performing artist Nobuko Miyamoto, Great Leap is rooted in the Asian American community, centered in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities and promotes cross-cultural exchange with local and nationwide audiences and communities. Led by artists and supported by a board of directors, staff, collaborating artists, and volunteers, Great Leap Inc (GL) represents diverse communities in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. Artists and leaders design all GL projects with community partners and wisdom keepers.

Participatory Workshops

FandangObon Workshops

D’Lo - Cry With You - U.N.C.L.E.S Project

INSTALLATION: Cry with You (U.N.C.L.E.S Project)

Grief Crafting

Collective Songwriting Workshop

Facilitator Training & Spaces

Dance Demo by Le Ballet Dembaya

FandangObon
Sampler Workshop

Great Leap offers interactive workshops for elementary through college age students. Artists and educators are able to share the diverse practices of FandangObon to provide students with an interactive experience of discovering the power of diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and belonging through circle, drum, dance, and gathering practices.

Great Leap artists can share a 60 - 90 minute workshop that:

Engage youth in learning 3-4 distinct cultural practices including but not limited to (Japanese American Obon, Mexican Son Jarocho/Fandango; and West African Drum and Dance practices from Guinea, Mali or Nigeria).
Great Leap artists from each practice share up to 25 minutes of dance/movement instruction and then engage the circle in practicing/learning a specific dance.
Culminates in a group activity, Bambutsu No Tsunagari, blending all traditions into one collective experience.
Great Leap can also offer a worksheet that explains the songs, dances and regions where these dances are from so that students can continue to learn with their teachers and peers.

ADDITIONAL DIALOGUE FOR PARENTS, FACULTY & STAFF

Great Leap also engages faculty, staff, and parents in dialogue and conversation-building skills. This single workshop series (90 minutes to 2 hours) or longer-term engagement will be co-designed with the community of adults seeking to spend time together exploring diversity, equity, justice, inclusion, access, and belonging topics, trends, and strategies. These workshops can be tailored to a 101 workshop and/or a dialogue about what kinds of things you want to focus on.

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Cry With You - aka U.N.C.L.E.S Project, Hosted by D’Lo

3 Hour Workshop

The “Cry with You” (U.N.C.L.E.S. Project: U Not Crying Leaves Everyone Suffering) is a busking initiative where masculine cis/trans people of color (MOC) offer to listen to and share in people's grief. My trans masculine friends and I noticed that we cried more before starting testosterone, highlighting both physiological changes and the emotional suppression expected in patriarchy.

Curious about emotional expression, I asked my cis male friends about their last “ugly cry” and if another man ever comforted them. Most said "no," relying on female partners for support. And many (not all) trans masc individuals, often focused on supporting women and trans femmes and challenging patriarchal norms, neglect their own emotional needs due to societal expectations of masculinity. This issue affects cis men, queer and straight, as well.

Influenced by my own gendered experiences, this project aims to provide all folks with a place to cry, and a place to be comforted by MOC. Using an installed living room with plush sofas and soft fabrics, I want to show that masc folks can comfort each other outside their romantic partnerships, and don't need to be ashamed in receiving or providing comfort.

The project addresses the societal lack of mourning spaces for men and explores the links between emotional suppression, cardiovascular disease, high suicide rates, and the desire for deeper male relationships. We aim to foster a space for comfort, healing, and resistance to societal toxicity.

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INSTALLATION:
Cry with You (U.N.C.L.E.S Project)

Welcome to a space where masculinity and emotional vulnerability coexist. Cry with You is a busking initiative where masculine cis and trans people of color (MOC) offer comfort to anyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender and other identities. Our living room installation—plush sofas, soft fabrics—invites all to mourn, be held, and break free from patriarchal suppression. This project addresses the isolation of emotional suppression, its ties to health risks, and the need for deeper connection with other humans we share the planet with. Maybe you've not had the time to grieve over the death of someone you love, a heart break, loss of a job or home, or stressful time - You don’t have to hold it in. We’ll cry with you.

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Collective Songwriting Workshop

To honor ongoing efforts to build, strengthen and nurture community relationships, Great Leap artists can lead Collective Songwriting workshops. This methodology was born out of dialogues between Zapatista communities and Chican@ artivistas that took place in Chiapas Mexico during the late 1990’s. The idea of Convivencia (participation, coexistence, and shared experience) is driving energy behind this method. The Collective Songwriting practice has since been developed and utilized in countless settings, as a way to engage communities in both meaningful dialogue and creative practice.

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Facilitator Training & Spaces

For over 30 years, Alison De La Cruz (DeLa) has been a senior artivist leader, facilitator, cultural organizer, multi-disciplinary theatre artist, and educator. DeLa is a collaborative leader with over twenty years of arts and cultural production, relationship and programmatic development, budgeting, staff and project management experiences and skills. De La Cruz has collaborated with local artists and produced community events of all sizes, developing Los Angeles’ world class cultural ecosystem for over 25 years. De La Cruz helps neighbors, colleagues, and strangers dialogue about bias and how to build stronger diverse teams and communities. DeLa has led sessions with teaching artists, participants, senior leadership and board members.

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Workshops by Le Ballet Dembaya

With over 100 years of combined experience amongst our group members, you're guaranteed to learn something new in our comprehensive dance and drum classes. Our expert artists engage students of all ages and levels in the rich techniques of djembe music and dance. Dance and drum instructors sustain Mande West African drum and dance in the greater Los Angeles area. Workshops offer an opportunity to appreciate common ground between various movement communities, coming together to celebrate and learn from one another.