Art as Activism - A Redesign Elevates Dance Company

Background

Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater seeks to diversify the contemporary dance landscape with untold stories and under-told perspectives of communities of color. Grounded in values from the African Diaspora they use their art as activism.

This non-profit dance company had grown exponentially over eight years. The existing website was dense and unorganized. New programs piled up new pages. The company's ambitious founder created the original site using a free template. Though it functioned well enough for its time, the website no longer represented Rejoice’s aesthetic or professionalism.

Challenge

Rejoice partnered with MGalen to redesign their existing website and build a new Content Management System. One goal was to elevate the aesthetics of the site to better reflect the company's art and mission. Another goal was to drive more visitors to signup for newsletters and get involved.

Results

The new website put a huge smile on the founder's face! It reflects high production dance theater and professionalism. It inspires visitors to get involved. They can discover the next show, donate, and sign up for news. We distilled content and clarified navigation. We also reorganized the site map to create a more intuitive experience. The dark color palette accents blackness as well as the black box theater.  Engagement spiked shortly after launch, creating a social media buzz.

Strategy

We began with a content audit of the existing site. The team organized all copy for editing and rewriting. The new copy is focused and clear. Before building a site map, we researched and analyzed reference websites. We aimed to organize the new website around visitor and company goals.

Design

A dark UI theme compliments the company's connection to the BIPOC community. The dark theme also reflects the black box setting of high production dance theater. This intentionality elevates the credibility and authority of Rejoice. A full-width show reel on the homepage hero showcases their performance work in a way photos can’t.

Development

Device responsiveness was crucial. This website is often viewed on mobile devices, so we developed the site to adjust well for small screens. We created a favicon from R!’s logo icon to help brand the website in browser tabs. A donation and email sign-up section was created. It permeates the site as a consistent call to action. The custom domain was transferred from their old site to the new one. We handled the domain name transfer so R! admin didn't have to.