Code Of Conduct

All attendees in any of our spaces, including social dancers, students, instructors, organizers, volunteers, DJs, and guests, are expected to be active participants in the fostering of a safe, welcoming, inclusive, and encouraging environment that is conducive to joy.

Lifts, air steps, and any moves that involve the lead grabbing or sweeping the follow’s leg, or otherwise forcefully displacing the follow’s weight, are not allowed in our spaces.

No amount of sexual harassment or sexual assault will be tolerated. This includes any sexual touching, unwanted touching, sexualized conversation or gestures, sharing of sexual imagery, and other forms of intimacy or attention that disregard the physical or emotional boundaries of another. Please report any such incidences to us that you experience or witness.

• Boundary creeping, whereby a person tests and skirts the edges of your boundaries in an attempt to disarm you, akin to grooming, is considered predatory and abusive behavior.
• A person’s individual boundaries (i.e., boundaries you set for yourself, communicated verbally or non-verbally, to prevent interactions that may be normally acceptable to others) are just as valid as common boundaries (i.e., tacit boundaries that prevent interactions which typically cause discomfort or offense for a substantial proportion of people).

Our classes and events are not to be treated as singles hookup events. Anyone who makes others uncomfortable by acting as such will no longer be welcome in our spaces.

Keep your dance intimacy within the dance floor, and your romantic or sexual intimacy off it. Dancers are in the business of transforming and expressing feelings. Do not confuse the feeling of intimacy that can come from great dances with off-floor feelings.

Do not take advantage of young and/or inexperienced dancers who are overtrusting or have yet to learn to set boundaries. Such behavior will not go unnoticed.

Behavior, including language, that is prejudicial, disparaging, or objectifying to marginalized groups (e.g., women, people of color, LGBTQ community, people with disability) will not be tolerated in our spaces. This includes the reciting of song lyrics containing racist or sexist slurs, especially if you do not belong to the group targeted by the slurs.

General bullying behavior, including but not limited to intimidation, stalking, verbal abuse, body shaming, slut shaming, and threats of abusive behavior will not be tolerated in our spaces.

Consequences for violating the Code Of Conduct include being expelled and banned without warning and without refund. Violent, abusive, predatory, or bigoted behavior, or a history of such behavior, can be cause for a ban even if the behavior occurred outside of our spaces.

If you are unsure whether an incident that has made you uncomfortable constitutes harassment or assault, or whether an incident is significant enough to warrant reporting, report it to us anyway and we will decide with you the best course of action. Even just keeping a record to identify patterns of offending behavior for future reference can be helpful.

This Code Of Conduct was written by Joe for Eclectic Soul Dance.