Every time I see someone tread off a beaten trail, crushing plants in their wake, my heart crumples inside. “They’re just plants,” is the usual response I’m met with, words that cut inside me further. Plants may seem insignificant, partly due to their size and their position below our eye level. Humans are fascinated with animals larger than themselves — ele- phants or killer whales, for example — but aren’t thrilled by a small shrub. But have we forgotten that plants give us life? Plants are the reason we can roam this Earth. Or, in the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer, plants give us “the privilege of breath.” I wonder how often we think of plants and trees in this way, how regularly we view the world as animate and directly responsible for our own lives. How dif- ferent would our world look if we saw the non-animal lives around us as our greatest teachers? In her book “Braid- ing Sweetgrass,” Robin Wall Kimmerer shows us just how beautiful that planet could be. “Braiding Sweetgrass” focuses on the space between indigenous knowledge and scientific thought, where both thrive and complement each other. Kimmerer belongs to the Citizen Potawatomi nation, but is also a distinguished botanist. Lend- ing her voice to both the scientific and indigenous perspective, Kimmerer recon- ciles two worlds drifting apart, and uses her knowledge of both to envision a more sustainable future. When I picked up “Braiding Sweet- grass,” spring was knocking on my door. Lime-green shoots were beginning to peek out of the earth, the endless win- ter finally ceasing. I remember walk- ing through the forest and seeing right through it — the towering trees weren’t yet filled with leaves, but buds were start- ing to sparkle in the dim sunlight. I read as the world was waking from its slumber, and Kimmerer’s words provided the per- fect commentary. Kimmerer’s intricate understanding of the natural world isn’t intimidating, but rather comforting and gentle. You don’t have to be an ecologist to understand her writing and take some- thing from it. Chapters are told as first person narratives, but by the end you’ve inadvertently learned enough about pond eutrophication or the utility of wetland cattails to confidently explain it to some- one else. Early on, Kimmerer challenges our pri- vate, capitalist worldview, and instead urges us to think communally. The world isn’t rich for individual taking, but instead generous with resources that sustain lives and communities. As is the tragedy of the commons, our species often ends up tak- ing more than our share, and as a result we see whole ecosystems — rainforests, wetlands, tundras — disappear. Kim- merer gives a good reason for why we do this: The Western world still fails to rec- ognize the world as animate. Indigenous languages such as Potawatomi are about 70 percent verbs, while English is only 30 percent. The verb “to be” applies to much more than just humans in Potawatomi, and thus many more things are consid- ered alive. 7 This week marked four months since San Francisco Ballet first cancelled a performance due to coronavirus. In early March, the compa- ny was one of the first in the country to feel the effects of stay-at-home orders and their much- hyped run of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” came to a screeching halt. Soon after, SFB cancelled four more productions, locked their rehearsal spaces and spearheaded a series of online programming that, like most other com- panies, established Instagram as a quasi-home base. Over the last four months, SFB’s feed shifted from a uniform presentation of profes- sionally staged photography to a rather endear- ing hodgepodge of at-home studios, amateur lighting and IGTV streams of digital seasons. This collage of imagery was no different two weeks ago on June 19 when the company took part in the #JuneteenthDanceBreak initiative started by Theresa Ruth Howard, founder of the organization Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet. A week and a half prior, Howard had challenged the global dance community to join her in “lift- ing up the legacies, contributions, accomplish- ments, and stories” of Black artists. The task was simple: On June 19, “dedicate your feed to the display of the beautiful diversity of Black- ness” with at least four separate posts through- out the day. Howard’s proposition was one of the many initiatives born of a burgeoning awareness for the Juneteenth holiday. The date commemo- rates the day that the last enslaved people finally received news of their freedom on June 19, 1865. The event took place two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and its history, like many other facets of Black history, remains largely absent from our public awareness. This year, ongoing protests against racial injustice have emboldened arguments for America to recognize the date both as a federal holiday as well as a chance to reflect more generally on the systemic issues of racism that still exist today. Juneteenth thus has multiple angles: It cel- ebrates the freedom of Black Americans while also offering somber perspectives on the prog- ress that we have yet to achieve. Howard dis- tilled these two meanings in her creation of the Juneteenth Dance Break — she wanted to make space for Black people’s “beauty, creativity, ingenuity, elegance, power, and perseverance.” To celebrate, but also to learn. SFB was one of many organizations that partook in Howard’s project. Their June 19 feed started with an Instagram Live stream of dancer Kimberly Marie Olivier and her father- in-law, principal bassoon player Rufus Olivier. The two Black artists took an hour to talk about ballet, bassoons and Black history. The rest of the company’s posts were a mixture of shorter videos and still photos. All in all, SFB shared over an hour and a half of content and multiple paragraphs of information about Black danc- ers, choreographers and musicians who form part of SFB’s past and present. The result was an impressive use of the dance world’s quaran- tined predicament — an insightful yet fully dig- ital combination of education and celebration with the timely and timeless lens of redefining racial perceptions of ballet. The outpouring from other organizations was also impressive: The celebration cut divides of hierarchical status and spanned the distance between institutions like American Ballet The- atre all the way to smalltown dance studios. When the sun rose on June 20, the world sud- denly had access to a wide-reaching archive of information about Black dancers of past and present and their profound effect on our stages today. In an added bonus, the resources were (and still are) easily accessible in one place under the #JuneteenthDanceBreak hashtag on Instagram. Howard quickly took to her own account to thank everyone for their “enthusiastic and cre- ative participation.” Indeed, the celebration had uncovered something rather unprecedented: Dance history, let alone Black dance history, is a dwindling field. The Juneteenth Dance Break gave a voice to marginalized stories within an oft-forgotten domain. “This is history,” Howard said, “this is world history. This is dance histo- ry. This is not just Black history, it’s history. It’s American history, and it’s all of ours. It belongs to all of us.” But Howard was also clear: “It’s just a start. And I hope that this is the beginning.” June of 2020 operated almost as a highlight reel of dance companies dedicating and re- dedicating themselves to racial justice in the performing arts industry. The process started with messages of #TheShowMustBePaused on Blackout Tuesday, moving to initiatives like #BalletRelevesForBlackLives or #NoJus- ticeNoDance and most recently the #June- teenthDanceBreak. These are, of course, only hashtags — they do not replace updated poli- cies and real change, but they do seem to have provided a start for some. The even murkier side of this movement, however, lies in what hasn’t even made it to Instagram at all: the companies that waited until their only Black dancer complained of racist policies to release a solidarity statement, the companies that didn’t acknowledge Juneteenth or the ones that only posted one haphazard photograph to jump on the bandwagon. Actions speak louder than words, even though words are much better than silence. Thursday, July 2, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS SUMMER SERIES SUMMER SERIES TRINA PAL Daily Arts Writer SUMMER SERIES SUMMER SERIES ZOE PHILLIPS Daily Arts Writer Reflective moment for ballet on Juneteenth Read more at michigandaily.com ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’: connect with nature Read more at michigandaily.com