Executive Summary

Mission Statement

The Center for the Integration of Dance and Martial Arts

conducts research projects, offers lectures and classes, and produces multi-

media presentations and performances for the purpose of educating the general

public and furthering knowledge about historic and contemporary Dances, Martial

Arts and other related arts and institutions. 501(c)(3).

Impact (Open-Ended Positive Potential Outcomes) 

To make people aware of the profound beauty of the historical and cultural unity of dance and martial arts, and to promote this awareness as the greatest way to produce a society of optimistic, positive people.

Implementation

We aim to produce cultural histories, ethnologies, artworks, and learning experiences informed by direct somatic immersion in the arts. The scope of our projects is world-wide, and is collaborative across disciplines and conceptual boundaries.

Project Outlines

The following projects represent the most immediate, exciting and impactful direction for the Center for the Integration of Dance and Martial Arts in the coming years, and our dreams about the future. Detailed budgets and funding opportunities are available upon request.

Project Timelines

• 2025

• 2026-2027

• 2028 Grants

• 2028 and beyond, long term vision

2025

Nezha & Baguazhang Documentary Video Essay

Cost $50,000 [CURRENTLY FUNDED AT $25,000 AND IN PRODUCTION. Please donate if you can.]

“Nezha and Baguazhang” is a video project conceived to illustrate “Dance of an angry baby-god” the second section of the book _Tai Chi, Baugazhang, and the Golden Elixir (2016) by Scott Park Phillips.

Using a whole body storytelling style which combines the Indian dance Kathak and Chinese martial art Baguazhang 八卦掌 to depict a story from the fictional epic Canonization of the the Gods, Fengshen Yanyi, the video will explore the historically provocative  idea that the art of baguazhang developed to portray the rebellious child-god Nezha 哪吒 as the leader of the Thunder Gods 雷神 in ritual-theater staged for the invocation of invisible armies of shadow soldiers. 

Baguazhang re-immerged in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion to hide the humiliation which the Nezha territorial-cults experienced in failing to protect Beijing from foreign occupation.

Investigating baguazhang’s thematic narratives, unique weapons, improvisational practice, mud-stepping, and signature dragon-twisting movement; the video will creates a unifying cosmology that explains all the unique characteristics of baguazhang.

Impact: Right now there is excitement about the Nezha animated block-buster films coming out of China. Controversies arising about the role Nezha played historically in Chinese society could drive this video to viral status. Curiosity about Baguazhang, now reconnected to the inspiring culture of the God Nezha, might even lead to it becoming the “new ballet,” a powerful art for transmitting independence, self-expression, and self discipline to future generations. Sharing this movement-story now, will give new importance to the idea that martial arts are performing arts and personalized dance rituals. It will promote the potential benefits that integrations of dance and martial arts have for societies around the world.

Summer & Winter Yearly Intensives 

Costs (Start up & Deposits ~$20k)

Dance & Martial Arts in Summer:

Intensive curriculum focussed on, 

1) Using dance to teach martial arts, 

2) Exploring martial arts as a source of inspiration for traditional dance forms.

Meditation and Movement in the Winter: [Funding Committed! Currently Working out Scheduling and location for 2026. Please contact us if you are interested in helping or in attending]

Daoist meditation is equally about movement and stillness. This workshop focusses in depth on the ways traditional Chinese movement practices are integral to meditation.

• Facilities

• Teaching stipends 

• Outreach/marketing 

• Scholarships

Impact: These ongoing yearly intensives would be the first of their kind in the United States, and would facilitate the creation of a new generation of dance, meditation, and martial arts integration teachers.

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The Tai Chi Pervert Projects

For adult audiences only! 

Interest in Tai Chi rises and falls but it continues to have an important place in the imagination of dancers and martial artists world wide. Tai Chi embodies mythic, dreamlike movement. A common controversy about Tai Chi is that it was invented by an immortal magical martial artists named Zhang Sanfeng. This original mythology has been downplayed and subjected to ahistorical “debunking” because Tai Chi has a political dimension as a carrier of many important narratives about what is historically real, what is useful, and what constitutes martial prowess. But behind these controversies is a deeper controversy, the Immortal Zhang Sanfeng was a Sexual Trickster. 

This taboo project seeks to research and assemble the vast sexual content implied in the art of Tai Chi, bring to light its true religious context and historical controversy. This comic project will then lead to a literary fictional project in the voice of Zhang Sanfeng himself, which will explore the full potential of his revelations for the practice and experience of martial arts and martial prowess. 

Impact: This story is the missing link that will make Tai Chi more accessible than it ever has been. It will disrupt normal pathways of transmission, opening new avenues for learning and experimenting with the art. Its sensual dance elements will be a tool for loosening the limiting grip puritanism has held on Chinese martial arts since the YMCA first started to promote them as “virtuous movement” after the Boxer Uprising.  

Book Research & Writing Stipend

$10,000

• Animated video Essay Collaboration

• Video Game Collaboration

• Original Musical Composition for video-collaborations 

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Director of Center for the Integration or Dance and Martial Arts: 

The role of the director is to facilitate, discover and manage projects funded by the CIDMA, including maintaining a website, and continuous outreach for funding, publishing, and collaborations. Projects will be funded up to two years in advance.

• Director’s fees will be project-based.

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2026-2027

New Tai Chi Documentary Video Essay

$50,000

Produce a higher quality version of “A Cultural History of Tai Chi” (2016), incorporating new research, interviews, & animations. The original video has been viewed thirty-one thousand times and has played a pivotal and positive role in transforming how Tai Chi is understood by practitioners of the art. 

New evidence substantially strengthens the idea that Tai Chi is a form of mine. Other new evidence, explained in an interview with Chinese religions scholar Mark Meulenbeld, posits a probable explanation of exactly how Tai Chi was used to organize militias.
The world needs a top quality, visually gripping, documentary about Tai Chi’s Cultural Origins.

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Video Interviews :  Public Video Platforms; Youtube etc…

$5000

New Research on the Theatrical and Religious origins of Martial Arts

12 interviews conducted by Scott Park Phillips with key authors and researchers

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Outreach Planning & Implimentation

$19,000 [No funding secured yet, but in talks with Boulder Ballet for a ballet focused Tai Chi class]

Planning Costs

$2000

Marketing

$2000

Workshops/Presentations offered on the theme of Missing Somatic Histories.

These workshops focus on the interchangeability of dance and martial arts. They explore a wide range of arts and expertise. They can be expanded or condensed depending on presentation context. They are all participatory, experiential, mind-expanding, and fun. 

• Dance Centers (Tai Chi and Ballet) (Dance as Self-Defense) (Shaolin as a performing art) (Stage Combat & Dance)

$5000

• Martial Arts Schools (Dance as a tool for better learning outcomes) (History & Mythology as Key sources of inspiration) (Religious Concepts as the basis for the integration of Theater and martial arts) (Chinese Opera as a source) (African Dance as a Fighting art)

$5000

• Dance Martial Arts Collaborative Education Projects in K-5 Schools 

$5000

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Origins & Dispersion of Daoyin: Research Project

$32,000

Daoyin 導引 meaning: “fine tuning and opening up spaces of potentiality” is a Daoist Body Art a kin to Hatha Yoga but substantially more wild, martial, & theatrical.
This Project explores the contemporary diversity of the art and its expression and diffusion around the world. Researchers will study the art in situ and document the history and local context of its transmission through teachers and community. 

• 3+ Researchers  ($10,000 each)

• Circus, Chinese Opera, Yoga, Europe, Martial Arts, Dance. Possibly working out of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, India, Japan, Europe, PRC, Taiwan, Singapore—to be defined by individual researchers.

• $30,000

• Publication/Presentation Planning

• $2000

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2028

Grants

• General Fund for Videos about Dance and Martial Arts. Grants ranging from 2k to 100k

• Fund Independent Scholars Ethnographic Research. Grants cover costs of learning and documenting arts which have dance and a martial arts components. $10,000 each

• Historical Research of Dance and or Martial Arts. Research and publishing grants  $10,000 each

• Live Performance Projects  $5000 stipends for participants. 

• Teaching Grants for innovations in the integration of dance and martial arts, cover cost of studio rental & a stipend course offered.   $10,000 each

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Long Term Vision 2028 and Beyond

• Put on a Conference of Scholars and Practitioners 200k

• Martial arts & Dance film festival 1 Million

• Fund a University Chair of Martial Arts and Dance 10 million