How dance can be a tool for resistance and healing

Whether in classrooms, on stages, or in the streets, Shamell Bell invites people to move together spiritually, somatically and politically to heal, imagine and build liberated worlds. She is a mother, educator, cultural strategist, dancer/choreographer, documentary filmmaker, Emmy-nominated producer and visionary leader who holds a doctorate in culture and performance from the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance.

As the visionary escalator for the Debt Collective, the nation's first debtor's union co-founded by UCLA faculty member Hannah Appel, Bell designs strategies for social impact and advocates for debt-free higher education. As the founder of Street Dance Activism, and the Global Dance Meditation for Black Liberation, Bell bridges performance, somatics and organizing to uplift global movements for Black liberation.

She has held teaching appointments at Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Berea College, and across the University of California and California State University systems. Her research and artistic practice center Black street dance forms such as krumping and jerkin' as radical tools for resistance, healing and the reclamation of public space. Bell also served as cultural historian and supervising producer for Apple TV+'s "Lessons in Chemistry," shaping the series' Emmy-nominated social justice narrative.

What first drew you to dance, and how has your relationship to it evolved over time?

Dance found me almost as early as I learned to walk. As a toddler, I was drawn to it as my special talent while participating in pageants, but it quickly became much more than performance. My mother is a legend in the urban fashion scene, and alongside her modeling and performing arts troupe, I created my own youth collective, Teens With No Color Lines. The group brought together young people from multiracial, inner-city communities who used the arts to escape societal turmoil. From the beginning, I insisted that education be central to the work.

Read more of Bell's recent interview with the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.