What Role Can Art Play in Creating Social Change?

Mix'd Ingrdnts is an Oakland-based, all-women dance company that aims to redefine options for women in the street dance genre.

Oakland-based dancers Jenay Anolin and Samara Atkins infuse their love for street dance with a social mission: to challenge what they see as the objectification of women in the genre. They started Mix’d Ingrdnts, an all-female, multi-genre, multi-ethnic dance crew as a way to express themselves and their vision of street dance as a form of empowerment and freedom for women and girls.

"I feel that women have a capability to express themselves through their movement, but it doesn't have to be degrading," says Anolin. Atkins says that she had self-image issues growing up, and eventually found a powerful voice in dance. Now Mix'd Ingdnts performs and gives classes around the Bay Area, hoping to inspire the next generation of young women to find confidence through dance.

What role can the arts can play in changing society and culture? Who are artists who you think have created meaningful change?