The Oasis Dance Journal brings you stories about dance you want to read —offering fresh takes on familiar topics, bold perspectives, and provocations that challenge the field to confront itself.
Our goal is to create critique and commentary that reflect the evolution and advancement of the art form through culturally competent and equitable coverage. The Oasis Dance Journal (ODJ) recognizes that words function as currency in this industry—they can make, break, or stall careers. With that power comes responsibility.
That responsibility includes writing through a lens capable of recognizing systemic power structures and hierarchies—patriarchy, racism, genderism, ableism—and the inequities they produce. It also means honoring the multiplicity of the field and embracing the full spectrum of diversity, from genre to culture. We must strive to be as expansive in our capacity to receive and reflect on work as artists are in creating it.
Above all, The Oasis Dance Journal is in service to the ecosystem of dance. Our writing is not meant to diminish, but to nurture; not to tear down, but to interrogate with integrity.
As part of this mission, we are developing a living set of standards for Conscious Critique and Ethical Commentary. At its core is a simple yet vital rule: do no harm. As writers, we must be able to tell difficult truths without diminishing the humanity or effort of those we critique. As the saying goes: “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.”
We believe that dance writing—like dance itself—can be a force for transformation, connection, and collective growth.
