CENTERING AFRICA

An 8-week transformational course exploring the intersection of somatic healing and sacred activism.

FEBRUARY 2 - MARCH 23, 2025

Every Sunday on Zoom

1-4PM EST / 10AM-1PM PST

Led by movement facilitators, healers, artists & activists from around the world, in service to collective liberation.

Registration is not open yet. Sign up to our mailing list for announcements once we launch.

Welcome to Off The Dance Floor.

We are a community of artists, healers, educators, and activists dedicated to extending the freedom we experience in movement spaces into meaningful, collective action.

Our first course, Moving Toward Liberation, explored the genocide in Gaza and the intersection of somatic healing and sacred activism, with sessions led by Palestinian, Black, Indigenous, and Jewish facilitators. Through themes of grief, collective liberation, and political embodiment, participants connected with deeper principles of interdependence and justice.

Building on this foundation, our upcoming course will examine how the same systemic oppressions that have perpetuated genocide in Palestine and Indigenous communities worldwide intersects with anti-Blackness - fueling the current genocides in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tigray. We will also examine how anti-Blackness plays a unique role in the erasure and silencing of these oppressions, and is a core strategy used to enable white complicity with the destruction of entire peoples and the earth.

About The Course: Centering Africa

Through somatic practices, participants will bring awareness to where anti-Blackness shows up within themselves and learn tools to dismantle these patterns from the inside out—bringing equity within their relationships, organizations, and communities.

We'll examine the core lie at the roots of anti-Blackness, that black people's lives are expendable, for the sake of greed. We'll examine all of the harms that flow from this core lie.  We'll also explore the healing that becomes possible for Black people, all oppressed people, and all of humanity, when we open to the truth that everyone's life is sacred.

In addition to addressing systemic injustices, Centering Africa will celebrate the diversity and brilliance of African culture. Through ritual and performance, facilitators will guide participants in reconnecting with music, dance, and spiritual practices that have long served as tools of resistance, healing, and renewal—helping us reclaim joy and strength amid adversity.

Key Focus Areas:

  • Bring awareness to and dismantle anti-Blackness through somatic practices.

  • Examine genocides and conflicts in Sudan, Tigray, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, often overlooked by global media.

  • Build solidarity across cultural and national lines, fostering collective freedom and justice.

  • Celebrate African cultural resilience through rituals, music, and performance.

  • All participants will be asked to support fundraising efforts for at least one of the regions discussed in the trainings.

Participants Will Learn:

  • Tools for creating equity within communities and supporting racial justice.

  • Practical steps for ethical decision-making and systemic change.

Each Session Includes:

  • Grounding through meditation, movement, and music.

  • Embodied practices for awareness and healing.

  • Rituals for spiritual guidance, strength, and renewal.

  • Education on abolition, decolonization, and liberation theories.

  • Reflection and connection in heart-centered breakout spaces.

Facilitators & Teachers

  • Valerie Chafograck

    Valerie Chafograck

    Black/Mixed Heritage Conscious Dance Facilitator. Healing Justice Activist.

  • India Harville

    African American, femme queer, disabled, performance artist and Disability Justice activist

  • Mazin Jamal

    Sudanese Artist, Entrepreneur, Speaker, Coach & Consultant.

  • JJ Omelagah

    Transgender sound artist, Access Doula, trained Reiki practitioner, IFA initiate, Disability Justice and LGBTQIA+ activist.

  • Ekua Adisa

    Grief guide, Death care worker, Ritualist, Liberationist.

  • Tysir Saleh

    Sudani Refugee Turned Radical. Founder of the Red Ma'at Collective and Red Ma'at Healing Centre.

Registration

FEBRUARY 2 - MARCH 23, 2025

Sessions will take place every Sunday from 1-4PM EST/10AM-1PM PST on Zoom.

*A commitment to participate in at least 6 out of the 8 sessions is mandatory in order to enroll.

SLIDING SCALE TUITION

Rebalancing: $888

For those with more than enough financial resources and a desire to support access for others.

Fair Access: $555

For those with sufficient financial resources and who can pay fair value for their experience.

Supported: $333

For those currently with limited financial resources who will benefit from access supplemented by the community.

(thanks to Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams for this economic model)

100% of the net proceeds will be donated to urgent relief efforts in DRC, Sudan and Tigray.

Registration is not open yet. Sign up to our mailing list for announcements once we launch.

“Self-care can be sacred, but we won’t survive by it. Collective care is our calling.”

- Cole Arthur Riley

By doing this work together, we believe our communities could become more courageous & united in an increasingly divisive world.  Our healing & dance spaces would become safer and more inclusive for all bodies. Our self-care would expand into collective-care. Our culture of wellbeing can become more rooted in the interdependence of our shared humanity.

We invite participants to confront difficult truths with courage, engage with systems of power, and participate in building a world where all can thrive. Through cross-cultural solidarity, we will explore how liberation for one is liberation for all—bringing the lessons from this course into our everyday lives, both on and off the dance floor. All participants will be asked to support fundraising efforts for at least one of the regions discussed in the trainings.

Who this course is meant for:

  • This course is for change makers, those feeling stirred by what's going on in the world.  It is appropriate for both people who want to get involved and feel overwhelmed/unsure how to proceed AND for those who are already involved in change work who might be experiencing burnout and exhaustion from facing the hardships and trauma repeatedly. The kind of offering, change and healing we are after at Moving Towards Liberation is cellular as well as institutional. They are personal. They are intimate. They are also collective and cultural.

This course is NOT meant for you if:

  • you are unwilling to sit with discomfort & refuse to have your ideas about identity & privilege challenged in a healthy way

  • you believe that spirituality is devoid of a duty to act against injustice

  • you prefer to speak and center yourself over listening to others

  • you consciously hold racist, prejudiced beliefs towards anyone

The goal of this course is to support the people who are courageous enough to face the complex uncertainties of this time, and who want to make a difference to choose life, justice, liberation, authenticity, connection and joy. This course will offer skills to navigate trauma, and will be a guide to show how we can become people who live with more feelings, more care, more power to orient us in the direction of solutions that support Blackness everywhere, and specifically in the centering and focus in the genocides in Sudan, Congo and Tigray, but not excluding others.

At the core and center of this course and all its teaching is Love. Love that nourishes and expands belonging and safety. Remembering that our bodies hold our stories and it is through the body that we have to heal.

Highlights from our last course

Want to connect? If so, we would love to hear from you.