dance Immersion’s work is centred in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

We GIVE THANKS for the many blessings that have enabled us to gather here.

We GIVE THANKS to the ancestors for the path they have paved and for the protection and guidance they continue to offer as we journey forward.

We GIVE THANKS to one another knowing that we can only do what we do by working together respectfully and peacefully.

We acknowledge that the land we gather on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. This includes the many peoples, named and unnamed, who have stewarded this land before our arrival.

The territory is the subject of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably care for and share the resources around the Great Lakes.

We are Treaty Peoples, including those of us who came here as settlers – either in this generation or in generations past – and those of us who came here involuntarily, particularly as a result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

We are grateful to be able to share this space with so many knowledge-keepers, including the courageous artists with whom dance Immersion collaborates every day.

Àṣẹ, Aché, Axé