Create A Space NOW

What practices nourish me rather than drain me?
What moments feel like connection, and what moments feel like performance?

This is where Kwanzaa offers something grounding and necessary. Not a spectacle, but a practice. A seven-day reflection on how we live, build, and care for one another:

Day 1, Umoja (Unity): Commitment to togetherness in family, community, and people.
Day 2, Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): Defining ourselves, naming ourselves, and speaking our truth.
Day 3, Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): Building and solving together, no one left behind.
Day 4, Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): Supporting and circulating resources within our communities.
Day 5, Nia (Purpose): Aligning our work with the greater good of our people.
Day 6, Kuumba (Creativity): Leaving the world more beautiful and just than we found it.
Day 7, Imani (Faith): Belief in ourselves, our people, and our future.

Most holidays in the United States were never static moments in history. They were shaped, reshaped, and sometimes entirely reinvented to fit cultural needs, political agendas, and market forces. Even the idea of a singular holiday spirit was crafted to encourage people to buy more, travel more, and perform a version of joy that photographs well.

None of this makes the season meaningless. It just opens the door to ask better questions.
May this season invite you to choose presence over production, intention over performance, and traditions rooted in purpose, creativity, and collective care.

Wishing you a meaningful and reflective Happy Kwanzaa and Happy New Year.

THE FREEDOM DANCE SERIES

Community Dance Classes 2026 by Create A Space NOW

A celebration of MLK and Black History Month.

Come dance.
Come breathe.
Come build power in a room that belongs to all of us.

They’re trying to erase our days of remembrance.
They’re trying to shrink our history into silence.
When the government moved to cut MLK Day and Black History Month, it was not an accident. It was a strategy. A quiet rewriting of the story that shaped us, the story our elders marched for, the story our children deserve to inherit whole.

Moments like this remind us why we move.
Because movement is memory.
Because our bodies hold truth no one can erase.
But movement is also the future as it ignites energy forward and grounds our present existence.

Starting January 17th, 2026, we return as a community ready to rise again. We are bringing seven weeks of dance rooted in the African diaspora, from West African, Caribbean and Hip-Hop.
Each class is a reminder that we are still here.
Each beat is a lesson in liberation.
Each Saturday is a gathering of people who refuse to sit still while history is rewritten around us.

The Freedom Dance Series begins January 17.
7 weeks, every Saturday, until February 28.
We hold the line together.
Join us.
Click the link in our bio to register.

THE FREEDOM DANCE SERIES

Community Dance Classes 2026 by Create A Space NOW

A celebration of MLK and Black History Month.

Come dance.
Come breathe.
Come build power in a room that belongs to all of us.

They’re trying to erase our days of remembrance.
They’re trying to shrink our history into silence.
When the government moved to cut MLK Day and Black History Month, it was not an accident. It was a strategy. A quiet rewriting of the story that shaped us, the story our elders marched for, the story our children deserve to inherit whole.

Moments like this remind us why we move.
Because movement is memory.
Because our bodies hold truth no one can erase.
But movement is also the future as it ignites energy forward and grounds our present existence.

Starting January 17th, 2026, we return as a community ready to rise again. We are bringing six weeks of dance rooted in the African diaspora, from West African, Caribbean and Hip-Hop.
Each class is a reminder that we are still here.
Each beat is a lesson in liberation.
Each Saturday is a gathering of people who refuse to sit still while history is rewritten around us.

The Freedom Dance Series begins January 17.
7 weeks, every Saturday, until February 28.
We hold the line together.
Join us.
Visit the link below to register.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/freedom-dance-7-week-series-african-caribbean-and-hip-hop-dance-classes-tickets-1977769346355

Dear Community,
On this Giving Tuesday, I invite you to stand with Create A Space NOW, a platform built on the belief that art is a catalyst for healing, dialogue, and social change. For more than a decade, CASN has used dance, theater, film, and interdisciplinary storytelling to uplift communities, confront systemic oppression, and create spaces where people can learn, breathe, question, and transform.
Your support allows us to continue this work with integrity, access, and purpose.

𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗔𝗥𝗧𝘀 + 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗩𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: 𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗦

The deadline is coming up fast, Create A Space NOW is proud to partner with this incredible event. Submit your proposals!

The University of Rochester Institute for the Performing Arts is seeking artists, educators, community members, and organizations to lead workshops, discussions, presentations, and performances exploring the power of art to activate change. All presenters are paid an honorarium and attendance is free!

𝘼𝙋𝙋𝙇𝙔 𝙃𝙀𝙍𝙀! ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/ARTs2026

Key Dates:
— Proposal Deadline: 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟲, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱
— Accepted applicants notified by: January 7, 2026 (includes a modest honorarium)
— ARTs + Change Virtual Conference: February 19–22, 2026

Questions? Contact [email protected]

Artwork featured: Comfort Blanket (2025) by Ella Smith
Handmade cinder blocks (cement, pearlite), mohair yarn, snap buttons | 58” x 44”

Weighted blankets calm the body’s fight or flight response by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and in turn reducing levels of anxiety. This Comfort Blanket is for those with the most crippling anxiety, those who need the heaviest option and those who long for a sense of relief.

Thank you to In Our Own Voices for opening a space where truth could move, breathe, and be witnessed. Hettie Barnhill of Create A Space NOW is grateful to have been a part of the Unity Through Diversity event where the community met her with heart and intention.

Moments like this remind us why we create. Why we gather. Why we keep choosing each other.

Thank you for holding a space where art and justice can stand side by side.
See what we build next, together.

Special thank you to Andrew Elder, , for these beautiful photos.

The Caribbean is hurting.
Islands that have carried song, rhythm, and resistance for generations now carry silence, homes washed away, histories uprooted overnight.

Hurricane Melissa did not just tear through coastlines. It tore through memory, through the places where families gather, where artists dream, where children learn to dance in the rain.

But even now, amid the wreckage, we know this: the people of the Caribbean have always rebuilt from ashes, always found harmony after chaos. Their resilience is rhythm itself.

At Create A Space NOW, we move with them. We bear witness. We honor the artists, organizers, and neighbors on the ground turning pain into power.

Because art is not a luxury when survival is at stake. It’s a light, a call to remember what’s worth saving.

Join us in holding space for the Caribbean.

In giving, in listening, in lifting.

In creating the kind of world where recovery means renewal.

This Sunday, Hettie Barnhill of Create A Space Now will be facilitating a special closing workshop at the Unspoken Word Poetry Festival called “Poetry in Motion: Moving with the Words of June Jordan.”

Through guided improvisation, movement, and reflective writing, we’ll embody the words of June Jordan, exploring how her poetry on race, gender, justice, and love can live not only on the page but within the body.

This session is an invitation to move, to feel, and to connect art and activism as acts of healing and radical imagination. .studios

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast cancer affects women across all backgrounds, but Black women are dying from it 40% more often than white women. They’re also more likely to be diagnosed before age 40 and at a later stage, when treatment is harder and outcomes are worse.

This isn’t about biology, it’s about bias.

Black women are less likely to receive guideline-consistent care and more likely to have their symptoms or pain dismissed. The result is preventable deaths caused by a system that still doesn’t treat every body equally.

Awareness matters, but accountability saves lives.

We need earlier screenings, culturally competent care, and an end to the racism embedded in our healthcare system.

We’re proud to present the Barnhill Movement Collective, powered by Create A Space NOW.

Thank you to all the artists who came to the audition, and for creating space where movement lives.

We are so excited for the journey ahead.

Afro-Contemporary Community Dance with Hettie Barnhill
4 Weeks to Move for Change

First class is happening tomorrow October 11th!!! Register today at the link below.

Saturdays: October 11, 18, 25 and November 1
4:00 PM – 5:15 PM
CK Dance at The Barn
700 Columbia Turnpike, East Greenbush, NY 12061

Come move, sweat, and create community. These public classes are about more than dance—they’re about connection, expression, and building power together.

Cost: $15 per class
Ages 16+ | All levels welcome

🔗 Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1751816082059?aff=oddtdtcreator

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