The Gathering

Announcing: NEFA grant award funded project to begin August 2024!

Photo by Derek Fowles

Shakia Barron and Kia the Key & Company have been generously awarded New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice Grant. The Gathering is an immersive outdoor performance including live dance, music, and poetry crafted through Shakia’s experiences as a dance educator, choreographer and performance artist researching American social dance with a direct lineage to the African Diaspora. The Gathering will use these expressive art forms as a means of education, connection, and celebration of the wide-reaching influence of Hip-Hop and House dance and music culture. This 60-minute performance will be both a destination for an intentional audience and will be designed to grab the attention of the average passerby, serving as an opportunity for people of different backgrounds and demographics to meet and engage with each other in community–through music and movement.

The Gathering is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation and the Fund for the Arts at NEFA.

If you’re interested in supporting this furthering of this project, we can gladly accept tax-deductible donations below.