Episode 8 | Reclaim This Space and Place

In this episode we talk with Alex Bailey, co-founder of San Antonio-based Black Outside, and Aven, a youth participant in Black Outside’s Bloom Project. They discuss how simply stepping outside and tasting the outdoors has been an exercise in courage, love, and intergenerational exchange. We also hear stories of learning with Abenaki elders Sherry Gould, Madeleine Wright, and Rob Wright of the Abenaki Trails Project in N’dakinna, what is now called New Hampshire. Poet Jennifer Huang leaves us with their poem “Departure,” which begins in the most exquisite way. Erin and monét reflect together about what the outside means to them as humans and educators, thinking about opportunities for coalition building, and drawing from their wells of memories in the Northeastern and Southern parts of the U.S. Finally, we offer you our lingering questions: How do we learn from the outside? How can educators take their cues from Black and Indigenous placemakers, elders, ancestors, and youth in undoing our consumptive relationship with the outside? Send us your responses to dancingondesks@gmail.com or slide in our DMs on IG @dancingondesks. Let’s get free, y’all!

Intellectual Inheritance

• “Every Swamp is a Castle”: Navigating Native Spaces in the Connecticut River Valley, Winter 1675-1677 and 2005-2015, Lisa Brooks, Northeastern Naturalist, March 2017
• Historic Indian Trails of New Hampshire, Chester Price, The New Hampshire Archaeologist, 1967

Music

• Free, IG: prod.mxrio
• Summer Walker x Bryson Tiller | R&B, Sejji Bonz
• Dust, Mokart Beats
• Riding Downtown, Alchemy Beats
• Tobacco, Beatowski
• Abenaki Greeting Song, Marge Bruchac and her husband Justin perform at Focus the Nation at Mount Holyoke College. Marge sings traditional and contemporary Abenaki greeting songs, friendship songs, dance tunes and original ballads, accompanied by drum and rattle, both solo and with her husband, Justin Kennick. As a storyteller, she brings the northeastern Native past to life with trickster tales, lesson stories, and historical anecdotes to intrigue, teach, and entertain listeners of all ages. She also performs with both the Dawnland Singers and W'Abenaki Dancers. Contact: maligeet@earthlink.net
• Dancing on Desks Theme Music is produced by Mara Johnson, Elliott Wilkes, and monét cooper