Acknowledgement PRACTICES

Acknowledgement Practices are a way to honor where we are and how we got here; who we are and how we engage with space and with others.
We offer three practices and will add more to this page as we learn them!

  • The Mobile Dance Film Festival operates in Lenapehoking on land currently known as New York City, USA.

    We acknowledge the land of the Lenape people past, present, and future.

    Future Support Organization - The Lenape Center.
    HERE.

    From Lenape Talking Dictionary of the Delaware Tribe of Indians - Prayer by Nora Dean:
    òk wèmi weltëk kèku ènta milian, wanìshi
    (and for all good things you have given me, thank you.)
    HERE.

    Learn more about the land you occupy
    HERE.

    Learn more about Land Acknowledgement
    HERE.

  • The Mobile Dance Film Festival acknowledges the forced labor of enslaved peoples who built and developed the land we now call New York City.

    We acknowledge and honor the labor of the enslaved, their lives, and the lives of their descendants past, present, and future.

    We especially acknowledge the placement of our most recent screenings on and near the African Burial Ground National Monument of Manhattan.

    Learn more about the African Burial Ground National Monument
    HERE.

    Future Support Organization - Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
    HERE.

    Learn more about Labor Acknowledgement
    HERE.

  • While we are committed to being as accessible as possible, the Mobile Dance Film Festival acknowledges our deficiencies with offering fully accessible programming.

    Developing our accessibility practices is ongoing and we appreciate any feedback toward this goal of being fully accessible.

    Future Support Organization - City Access New York
    HERE.

    Please connect with us about your access needs and or requests
    HERE.

    MDFA Audio Description Resource
    HERE.

    Learn more about accessibility practices
    HERE.

    Learn more about Disability Justice
    HERE.

As a way of having a more active engagement of our acknowledgement practices within our MDFA community, we give a prompt to
Official Selection Filmmakers of the Mobile Dance Film Festival: what do Land, Labor, and Accessibility Acknowledgements mean to you?

We then ask the Filmmakers to answer the prompt with a Mobile Dance Film or a thought.

Below are their responses!

"I believe that land acknowledgment is a traditional custom that needs to be strengthened in terms of the relationship between human beings and nature. The land provides nourishment for a healthy body and ancestral medicines for the expansion of consciousness."

-Osvaldo Ponce, 2024 MDFF Official Selection Filmmaker and 2025 MDFF Juror

Acknowledgement Prompt response film by 2024 MDFF Official Selection Filmmaker Femi Adebajo.