Dancing Towards Justice: How tUrn Week Unites Art, Climate and Community

Photo by Sophia Taylor.

For 12 years, tUrn climate crisis awareness & action week has occurred at Santa Clara University—a project striving for diversity, equity and inclusion on campus. Through many sessions of climate justice-based events, tUrn highlights the voices of minority groups such as indigenous people, immigrants, women and people of color. The project strives to educate those who attend the events to then go help the community.

For one week of each academic year, Kristin Kusanovich, the director of tUrn and teaching professor in the department of theater and dance, and her hardworking team gather knowledgeable speakers and leaders to help educate members of the Santa Clara University community about climate justice. 

By bringing awareness of climate justice to the greater University community and combining her passion for the arts, Kusanovich created a project for all of campus to enjoy. “If we did not have arts in our lives, things would be pretty barren, so putting the arts into tUrn is a way of enriching the week, enriching our lives, stirring our souls, raising our spirits,” said Kusanovich.

After 21 educational events throughout the week, tUrn came to a close with the “Barnless Barn Dance.” Unfortunately, due to the unexpected rain, the event was relocated from the Forge Garden to the Louis B. Mayer Theatre at the last moment. However, students and faculty were still able to unite for an evening of fun, music and dancing.

Musical guests Kelsey Hartman, Ben Jackson and Will Wheeler from the group “Forgery” performed as dance caller, fiddler and guitarist, respectively. Students came together to release their energy and participate in a form of folk dance called contra dancing. Typically, this style of dance involves long lines of partners moving to live music and instructions from a caller. This was the group’s fourth year coming to Santa Clara University, and their bright energy lifted participants’ spirits.

As the caller, Hartman’s job was to yell out the various dance steps for the group to follow. This type of dancing heavily incorporates partner work and communication with the whole crowd. The majority of the movement includes footwork and rotating around your partner or neighbor. Hartman used commonly known vocabulary, such as do-si-do, and made sure to indicate whether dancers should move with the right or left side of their body.

Many participants seemed somewhat uncomfortable or confused at first, but with the help of an encouraging leader and welcoming peers, they began to open up and move freely. A lot of the students who were participating had never met each other before, but this lively community-building event allowed them to feel comfortable in a new environment and celebrate the end of tUrn week. Some of the students also assisted or attended other tUrn events, so the “Barnless Barn Dance” allowed them to reflect with one another on all of their hard work and the lessons that they learned. 

“My favorite part was the grease and glue dance because it was one of the last dances that we did that brought everyone together. You rotated through all of the partnerships, but you stayed with your one partner the whole time,” says Sienna Pearson ’27. This movement was the final homestretch for this year’s “Barnless Barn Dance”. 

tUrn will return for its 13th session in the 2025-26 academic year.