Origin Story

Gloria Unti [1924-2015] was a dancer, a teacher, an uncompromising visionary and an inspiration to generations of young people in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Since 1956, Unti nurtured and developed the creativity and critical thinking skills of thousands of Bay Area children, classroom teachers, and artists. Trained in the Hanya Holm, Martha Graham, and José Limón techniques, Unti chose to dedicate herself to advancing the arts as a force for education, expression, individual empowerment and social justice.

One day in the mid-1950s, as a young dance teacher was teaching one of her classes of young girls in her Telegraph Hill Studio, a group of teens who hung out at the adjacent pool hall approached her. They asked if she would teach them karate, so they could hone their fighting skills. She told them she didn’t know karate, and offered them yoga instead. They didn’t know what yoga was. After several fits and starts, some weeks later the boys returned, their curiosity persisting. Gloria admitted she wasn’t sure what to do with them. But one day, she tried something different. She put on some kabuki music, instructing the boys to make up a movement of any sport, she would step out and return to guess it. She figured they’d probably take off. What happened instead shifted her entire perception and changed her life’s course.

“They brought me back in the room, and they had the most incredible sequence. Not only was it creative, non-stereotypic, not just dribbling a ball… you know, it was really unbelievable, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I was shocked.”

— Gloria Unti

Today, pivotal moments like these are happening with our teaching artists in every classroom, every day. Our teaching artists keep Gloria’s vision of students in Workshop classes “not only as technicians, but as creative people who have the beauty and the ability to express themselves poetically” alive.

From Roots to the Horizon

Community Story

Anti-Racism and Community Care are core Values of Performing Arts Workshop. We cannot work toward community care without essential anti-racist practices, policies and procedures in place.

We do this work with the understanding that any system we develop has to challenge and often adhere to the racist and capitalist systems we work within.

The question we ask ourselves are what risks are necessary to take when challenging racist systems, and what are the legal considerations we hold to guide our limits?

History of Change

  • Launch intentional anti-racist initiatives - 2016

  • Formed Performing Arts Workshop’s Anti-racism Committee to support with identification of necessary structural changes, and development of proposed solutions - 2018

  • Anti-Racism Committee becomes core decision maker/influencer - 2022

  • Community Care Collective founded by Executive Co-Director - 2022

Anti-Racism Committee Mission Overview

  • Hold Performing Arts Workshop and its Partners, Funders, Board Members, Staff and Teaching Artists accountable to our commitment to anti-racism.

  • Deepen our practice of anti-racism and evolve our thinking as we continue to learn the depths of the impacts of racism. Listen closely and apply solutions and actions suggested by people most affected by racism.

  • Develop various anti-racism frameworks, obtain feedback, create accountability processes, strengthen pathways for artists and staff to ask questions, increase Learning and Growth opportunities and compile collective wisdom on this topic.

  • Provide pathways for Teaching Artists, Staff, Students, Partners, and Community Members to offer input on anti-racism practices at the Workshop.

  • Ensure that people most impacted by the ARC’s decisions have a say in the decision-making process as much as possible.

Community Care Overview

Purpose Statement

Performing Arts Workshop’s Community Care Committee is committed to supporting staff to care for themselves, one another, and the communities they are a part of.

In addition to all the important ways in which staff members collaborate to achieve Performing Arts Workshop’s mission, we aim to facilitate human ways to connect and strengthen our partnerships with colleagues and the art community we live within. We firmly believe that the love and work we place into growing our community bonds sustains us when the work is hardest.

We are not expecting any forced intimacy or relationship building outside of work, but we hope staff can support one another in their work, and how they show up beyond that is up to them. We are planting seeds of community care, and staff decides how they grow, maintain, or create boundaries around those opportunities.

This commitment requires strong anti-racist structures, policies, and procedures to be effective, because we understand that connecting as a community requires that the systems we work within are intentionally equitable and work toward minimizing employment bias.

Essential Goals

  • Assess and Respond to organizational care needs.

  • Provide resources and allot for staff time to check in and support one another in navigating work related or other joys and stressors.

  • Steward civic engagement hours use to ensure staff members have opportunities to care for themselves, one another, and their communities when they most need it.