Conference Opening, Day One

Our emcee, the Bay Area’s own beloved leader Sarah Crowell takes the stage to launch Othering & Belonging 2024.

A dancer and choreographer who has taught theater, mindfulness, violence prevention, and dance, Sarah was formerly the Artistic Director and Executive Director for 30 years at the celebrated Destiny Arts Center in Oakland. Sarah is also the Artistic Director of our O&B 2024 conference. 

Joining Sarah is The Belonging Resident Company (BRC), an exciting new dance/theater troupe hosted by the Othering and Belonging Institute, whose purpose is to amplify and celebrate the framework of belonging through movement, poetry, spoken word, and playback theater. Directed by Sarah Crowell with Sangita Kumar and Julia McKeown, this year’s inaugural group is a colorful garden of folks ages 19 - 60. They are UC Berkeley students, dancers, folks who thought they were retired dancers, filmmakers, theater directors, professors, nonprofit leaders, writers, somatic healers, therapists, authors, musicians, and poets. They are youth development workers, diversity, equity and inclusion trainers, dreamers and weavers of belonging in all aspects of their lives. This group of passionate storytellers and changemakers is honored to be making their debut at the Othering and Belonging conference 2024.