Codes of Conduct
(Motley Hue NYC 2024 Version)
For Monte di Fusion Version, please click here.
By attending a Motley Hue event, I agree that I have read, understand, and will do my best to follow the Codes of Conduct and “best practices” below.
You will be asked to sign your registration form agreeing to these policies.
Our Anonymous Feedback Form
When hard things happen we strive to be as connected and human as we can, and we’d love to include you in that. If you leave your contact information on the form above, we can better achieve the goals of community building. All information is confidential.
Using our Safety and Access Team:
Our Safety & Access team will be available throughout the social dances. During classes you can talk to the instructors, who will point you to other staff members if necessary.
You can reach the team in person or by the reporting form. Depending on your situation, they are available to just listen, offer direction on how to have a conversation, talk with someone on your behalf with your confidentiality needs prioritized, or other interventional actions.
One of our goals is to help you feel empowered to have open and compassionate dialogues, rather than defaulting to a person of authority to do it for you. The Safety and Access Team is here for you when you may not have the capacity, safety, or tools to do so yourself.
Meet: Jaesic Wade
Jaesic Wade (they/it) is so excited to be joining us at Motley Hue as our Safety and Access Lead this year! Jaesic has been a huge movement nerd all their life. With Fusion, they have been a part of the community since 2017 in dancing, DJing, teaching, and organizing. For the past year and a half, however, they have been cultivating knowledge and skill for developing safer dance spaces through Consent Academy classes, their time as a peer support specialist, and through their long term work of being a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice educator, consultant, and coach. For the last 7 months, Jaesic has been working with Fen Lastra (Kennedy) through their joint project Changeling Spaces, a safety and access resource for policy, protocol, consultation, education, and facilitation. Together they are supporting dance scenes across the country to implement policy that fosters new culture for accessibility, inclusion, and safety. As one half of Changeling Spaces, Jaesic will be consulting with Fen throughout our event to ensure we have an as safe and accessible event as possible! If you have any questions or safety/accessibility concerns prior to the event, please comment below or email queerculturecoaching@gmail.com with the subject “Motley Hue Safety Inquiry.”
Creativity & Responsibility
We invite you to be fearlessly creative!
We invite you to go outside your comfort zone and take risks: dance with new people, try a new move, make mistakes and mess up! Engage in physical & verbal conversations that might not be available to you other places.
With great freedom and individuality comes great responsibility.
We are responsible for caring, communicating, and listening to each person on the fusion floor even more than we would on other dance floors. Approach each other with humbleness, listening, and respect. Be proactive about your boundaries and inquire about others’.
Coming together from many different dance backgrounds means both the potential to create new, powerful experiences; and that we cannot make assumptions about the expectations, comfortability, personal boundaries, or training that anyone else has.
Cultivating Curiosity, Courage, & Compassion
Our recipe for peaceful and meaningful connections is through cultivating the 3 C’s: Curiosity, Courage, Compassion.
Curiosity First: By staying curious, we can access the courage and compassion it takes to foster both vulnerability and empathy.
With Courage: we can show up authentically & develop trust in others.
With Compassion: We create a sense of community and belonging.
We all have a role to play, and all of us belong here! Thank you for joining us in creating an inclusive dance environment.
Quick & Dirty Important things:
➡️ No Sexual Contact on the dance floor. Sexy dances are not invitations for sex. If things get hot, use your words first, then if all parties are in agreement, take it outside.
➡️ We allow advanced movement choices such as aerials, kicks, lifts, upper body shaping, or contact improv on the floor, but you are responsible for not doing it where people can get hurt!
➡️ Avoid perfume and loose jewelry, and wash your hands if you interact with allergens such as animals, nuts, or gluten.
➡️ Don’t get too intoxicated on anything. If you feel sick, stay home. No weapons or firearms.
➡️ Respect minors in the space: Obviously, no sexual advancements or intoxicants offered to them.
By joining this event, we expect that you more or less have the inner awareness to know what kind of dance you want and have some basic abilities to communicate that to your partner.
This is not a closed environment of people only in the fusion community, we will be interacting with many people who come from different dance forms with different customs, so you need to be able to speak up.
A more comprehensive list of our expectations:
* We realize that to fully carry out any one of the suggestions below takes a lifetime of inner work. We just ask that if you are joining this event, your intentions are in alignment with the concepts below.
| I Respect Myself | I Respect Others | |
| Diversity | I am a valuable member of this partner dance community, no matter my level of experience, age, sex, gender expression, sexual preferences, body size, ethnicity, or religious beliefs. If I do not feel that I am being treated as a valuable community member, I know that I am welcome to advocate for myself if I choose to, with the support of a friend or the Safety and Access team if I need it. | I recognize that people have different abilities, backgrounds, values and viewpoints than I do, and that they are still valuable members of the community. I will do my best to be sensitive to the way others prefer to be interacted with and addressed, which may include the use of specific pronouns. |
| I Take Responsibility for my Experience | I am Sensitive to Others | |
| Boundaries & Invitations | I am able to check in with myself and have a basic understanding of what kind of dances I would like to participate in, and I’m willing to make invitations and set boundaries in an effort to take responsibility for my experience on the dance floor. | I will do my best to be sensitive to the people around me, listening for both nonverbal and verbal communication of boundaries and invitations. When I am in doubt, I will use verbal communication. When I witness a boundary, I will do my best to respect it. |
| If someone declines my invitation, I will accept their answer knowing that I am still a valuable member of the community, and move on to enjoy dancing with someone else. | I will ask someone to dance with respect, and choose to accept or reject requests with respect. I am free to accept and decline dances for whatever reasons I wish. | |
| Physical Safety | I will inform my dance partner if something they do makes me uncomfortable or physically hurts me. I am doing both them, myself, and the community a service by speaking up. | I will be curious and compassionate about any information that my dancing is causing discomfort to my partner. I will do my best to change my dancing based on this information. |
| Floorcraft | I will be especially careful if I attempt dance moves that could be dangerous, such as aerials, kicks, lifts, upper body shaping, or contact improv on the floor. I will not put my partner in a weight bearing situation without consent. I am responsible for determining what I can and cannot accomplish on the dance floor. | I will do my best not to step on, bump, or trip other dancers; I will be gracious if I accidently do, and still gracious if someone does it to me. I am responsible for inquiring and respecting what my partner can or cannot do in movement. |
| Sexual Contact | I understand that dancing with someone is not an invitation for sexual contact, but about sharing the love of dance. If I want to advance things beyond the dance floor I will verbally ask that person if they are interested, then go outside of the venue to pursue it. | If I personally experience or observe inappropriate actions inside the venues or classrooms, I will bring it to the attention of a staff member so they can be aware of what is happening in the space. |
| I Care for Myself | I Care for the Space | |
| Cleanliness | I will care for my body odor by washing or deodorizing, bring towels or extra clothing if I sweat a lot, make use of hand sanitizer and mints, and always wash my hands after I go to the bathroom. I will avoid products with strong chemical smells, such as perfume, cologne, heavy hairspray, etc. | I understand that I am responsible for the cleanliness of our venue just as much as the staff is. I will keep coats and bags off seats, open containers of liquid off the floor, and throw away my trash. |
| I Can Express Myself | I Honor the Choices of Others | |
| Feedback | I can share the love and give positive feedback to DJs, instructors, and dancers whenever I choose. | I will not offer unsolicited dance advice to my partners on the social floor or in the classroom. |
| I am free to give negative feedback, but will do so either when asked or through the anonymous feedback form. I will express my opinions in a manner that is private, open minded, and respectful of the person receiving it. If I am being hurt or harmed, I will speak up with immediacy, even if it interrupts a dance, class, or conversation. | If I have doubts about something, I am free to ask for feedback or advice from my partners any time during a class or social dance. I will respect that some people do not want to be in a teaching/learning space on the social dance floor. |
“It’s my first time! What can I expect?”
A quick list of customs for our dance floor:
- Who asks who to dance & how?
- All genders & dance roles can ask each other to dance.
- Many people dance both roles, so it is common to have a conversation with your partner about what dance role you would like to participate in.
- You can also specify what kind of dance you would like to have (slow, energetic, or a specific style, etc).
- How many dances in a row?
- It is assumed that we dance one or two songs in a row with a partner, but you are free to re-ask your partner to dance at any point, as dancing multiple songs in a row is a great way to increase connection.
- When is it appropriate to touch someone?
- We try to always use verbal communication before assuming that a person wants to be touched, especially if we do not have a prior relationship with them. This includes when asking people to dance.
- When can I offer advice to my partner?
- We don’t ever offer unsolicited advice to our partners. We can always ask someone else for advice if we have questions about something. If someone is hurting you, please tell them your experience of what is happening.
Covid Policy
We follow local regulations of New York City. Please refrain from coming to the party if you have any flu-like symptoms at all. We reserve the right to ask you questions about your health and/or ask you to leave if we observe signs of sickness that could be linked to Covid. In addition, we encourage anyone to wear a mask who feels more comfortable doing so, and you are welcome to ask anyone to put on a mask to dance with you. Please read the local and national guidelines on vaccination and boosters for your personal demographic.
Image Release
We are taking photos and videos at this event. If you have a strong need not to have your image shared, please communicate this with the Safety & Access team or the photographer himself. We will take down or remove your image from any photo published online if requested to after the event.
Accessibility Statement
➖ We currently do not have information about the number of stairs or elevator access in our venues, but will update this information as it comes. If this information is important for you, please email here.
➖ Decompression areas: If possible we will try to provide a quiet space for those who get overwhelmed in the party environment, but as of right now we cannot guarantee that any of the nights will have this.
➖ Service Animals & Other Needs: If you need to bring a service animal or have other needs that would greatly increase your access to the event, please send us an email and we will do our best to arrange accommodations.
Intervention Policy
✅ We will always start with having conversations with both the person who has been harmed and the person who has done the harming.
We also reserve the right to do any of the following:
✔️ Give guidelines and/or education on how to change behaviour.
✔️ Have our staff monitor a person or situation to help ensure integration and safety.
✔️ Ask someone to leave the dance for the night or weekend.
✔️ Report behaviour to regional scene leaders.
✔️ Report behaviour to public authorities.