09/14/2026
๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐จ๐ง ๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐๐ง๐๐ ๐
๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐
What a remarkable third year it has been!
Each year of the festival teaches us something new about the artists we welcome, the community we serve, and the kind of gathering we hope to create. This year, everything felt more connected. The festivalโs many forms - tap, live music, popping, contemporary dance, aerial arts, burlesque, film, workshops, conversations, and community dancing became part of a larger celebration of our shared humanity.
The artists brought extraordinary generosity, courage, and imagination to our community. Through their deeply personal and beautifully distinct practices, they invited us into experiences shaped by immigration, disability, race, sexuality, gender, aging, family, and cultural inheritance. Together, their work affirmed that there is no single way to move through the world and no single story that can contain the fullness of a human life.
That fullness is what made this festival so meaningful!
This year JDF overlapped with Welcoming Week, a Welcoming America initiative hosted for the first time locally by the New Neighbors Coalition. Together, we presented "Talent Has No Borders", a conversation with JDFโs headliner artists and myself about creating, contributing, and finding community in a new country as immigrant artists.
Our collaboration was guided by a simple but meaningful question:
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐จ๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ฆ๐๐๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฐ๐๐ฅ๐๐จ๐ฆ๐ ๐ฌ๐จ๐ฆ๐๐จ๐ง๐?
As an immigrant artist of color creating and producing work with Sukanya Burman Dance in a rural community, I have spent much of the last 6 years thinking about what it means to enter a new place. But during JDF last week, I began to consider more carefully the distance between creating access, being welcomed, and truly belonging.
Accessibility offers a way in. Welcome lets us know that we are wanted. Belonging allows us to be part of the conversation, the decisions, and the future.
We all enter a festival carrying different histories, identities, needs, resources, and relationships to the arts. Those differences do not have to separate us. When met with curiosity and care, they can expand what a community is capable of holding to make room for one another in all our complexity.
๐๐๐ง๐๐ ๐ก๐๐ฅ๐ฉ๐ฌ ๐ฎ๐ฌ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ฌ.
The work presented at JDF was joyful, rigorous, surprising, challenging, and profoundly human. It invited laughter and celebration, but it also asked us to pause, question, and remain open when we encountered something unfamiliar. The artists trusted our audiences with the fullness of their experiences, and our audiences responded with attention, curiosity, and warmth.
๐๐จ ๐๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฒ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฐ๐ก๐จ ๐๐๐ฆ๐, ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ง๐ค ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ.
Thank you for showing up with open minds and generous hearts. Thank you for sitting with discomfort, embracing joy, asking questions, sharing reflections, challenging us, allowing yourselves to be challenged, and cheering so enthusiastically for the artists. You transformed five days of performances, workshops, conversations, and community events into a genuine exchange.
We are especially grateful to the New Neighbors Coalition for its thoughtful partnership and for helping us carry the spirit of Welcoming Week throughout the festival.
Our deepest thanks also go to every artist, funder, supporter, audience member, technician, production crew member, volunteer, staff and board member, community partner, and venues that made our third year possible. A festival is built through countless acts of care, many of which happen quietly and outside the spotlight. Every solved problem, shared resource, extended hand, purchased ticket, audience in the seat, donated hour, and encouraging word became part of JDF 2026.
๐๐ก๐ข๐ฌ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐ฅ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฌ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐จ๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ.
After three years, โ๐๐น๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ช๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ ๐๐ช๐ง๐ง๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ญ๐บโ has grown into more than a description of our programming. It represents our belief that ambitious art can thrive in our region, that artists should be trusted to tell their stories with honesty and specificity, and that audiences are eager to encounter work that is unfamiliar, complex, and alive. It also reminds us that artistic excellence, accessibility, and community care can and must grow together.
We began the week by asking:
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐จ๐๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐๐ฅ๐๐จ๐ฆ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฆ๐๐๐ง?
We ended it carrying an even deeper question:
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐จ๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ฆ๐๐๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐๐ฅ๐จ๐ง๐ ?
We may never have one complete answer. But as we continue nurturing the Jamestown Dance Festival, we will keep working toward a place where artists and audiences can arrive as their full selves, encounter one another with curiosity, and recognize that their presence matters.
One artist, one audience member, one relationship, and one shared experience at a time.
P.S: The pic attached is blurry (as was the whole week) but the joy in the room is still buzzing through me!
With profound gratitude,
Sukanya Burman
Curator and Co-producer
Jamestown Dance Festival
