Barrie high school student raises concerns over ‘cultural appropriation’ in dance routine

A high school student raised concerns after she says a school dance performance crossed the line into cultural appropriation.

On April 26, Bear Creek Secondary School in Barrie held a dance competition, where an attending school, Eastview Secondary School, featured a performance attempting to showcase the evolution of black dance.

Bear Creek student Rhiannon Hoover, who attended the dance competition as a spectator, says the dance “completely missed the mark,” and waded into the territory of cultural appropriation.

Hoover filmed the dance before posting it online later that evening. “My first thought was that I needed to capture this on film so that they could not get away with this.”

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The routine, titled “Black Dance Evolution,” consisted of four parts, each an effort to represent a different time period. It featured several costume changes, including slave and slave master outfits, clown wigs, and brightly coloured robes. It varied in style from lyrical, to tribal, to hip hop dance.

Hoover says she doesn’t understand how the various staff and students involved didn’t see a problem with the performance. “I consider this to be cultural appropriation because it was an inaccurate and distasteful misrepresentation of black culture,” she says.

Hoover takes issue with every segment of the dance, especially the costume choices. She says the students should never have dressed up as slaves, and called the use of clown wigs “disgusting,” and “completely unnecessary.”

Overall, she says the choreography did a very poor job expressing the intended message. “The timeline was both inaccurate and uninformative, and many valuable aspects of black culture were taken and used without knowing the importance behind them. Even if they have wanted to express how influential black culture has been in society, there are ways to show this without physically dressing up and pretending to be black people.”

The Simcoe County District School Board (SCDSB) issued a short statement regarding the dance via Facebook the following day.

Hoover says while she appreciates the board’s plan to provide coaching to those involved, she doesn’t think it should stop there. She says their solution should include offering staff and students the opportunity to experience different cultures.

Manager of Communications for SCDSB, Sarah Kekewich, says the board acknowledges that some people found the dance to be offensive, but that the intention of the dance was not to be offensive or disrespectful.

Kekwich says it is important to understand context, and explains the students responsible for the dance had been learning about different types of dance over the course of the semester, and as a part of that curriculum had studied oppression.

According to Kekwich, SCDSB commits to equity, diversity and inclusion as a strategic priority. She says while a lot of work has been done, it is ongoing.  She stressed that continuing this work remains a key priority for the board.

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As for those responsible for the dance, Kekewich says a board member was sent to Eastview Secondary School to speak with them about equity, diversity and inclusion on Monday.

According to Kekwich, the board has also reached out to Hoover to discuss the issue.

Ultimately, Hoover wanted to use this incident as an opportunity to open a wider conversation on social media about cultural appropriation, and her video and accompanying tweets may have done just that. The video has now been retweeted more than 700 times.

Hoover says one of the dancers involved in the performance has reached out to her to offer an apology, a gesture she says she appreciates.