The first time I saw Dara Greenwald, she was on the big screen at The Chicago Underground Film Festival, stripped to her underwear and jumping up and down in her black and white video, Bouncing in the Corner in #36 DDD. I can’t remember exactly which Bruce Nauman, 70’s video art piece her riot grrrl self was critiquing, but I recall her video was unsettling and loaded with humor and rage.

Who knew that the disconcerting video artist bouncing on the screen would one day be a dear friend and activist collaborator? Who knew she’d be gone in a little over a decade after battling cancer, since 2009, amidst the love of an awe-inspiring, radical community, which demonstrated what so many similar communities aspire to provide: real love and support in the worst of times.   

Dara and I first bonded when she worked at the Video Databank. I’d regularly stroll in to survey the institution's epic video art archive. She chatted me up, plied me with juicy gossip and we often laughed until her boss - the VDB’s founder -  would come out of her office, clear her throat and chastise us for being too loud. 

We danced endless hours at countless bars and parties, marched through New York and Chicago, shared dinners, shared classes, bridged the affective chasm between bemusement, horror and inspiration at the musty antics of the partisan left, teased each other about our crushes, critiqued each other’s videos and shared in the joys of experimenting with social action.

I’ll never forget what seemed like hours of kissing Dara under mistletoe at the Holiday Ball at The Butcher Shop, an alternative, DIY space she helped organize. She stole my breath.

Dara organized and danced in the Pink Bloque—an internationally inspirational feminist dance troop that did public interventions on issues spanning sex assault and the Bush-era wars. Armed with pop music, the group livened protest and diffused police violence deftly while disarming spectators and engaging them in dialogue. 

Dara fluidly traversed between the diy/punk community, the art world, the academy and activism and inspired me to do the same.  

I’ll never forget the dinner party where she first broke news about what she thought was both an amazing and slightly ridiculous book: “The Ethical Slut.” She shocked me with the notion of polyamory, a concept that helped me define a way of being in relationships that has worked for me since.

She offered support to my former partner and me as we navigated a turbulent romance and eventually a messy breakup in a tight-knit world of collaboration. Dara modeled how people can offer support during a messy breakup without choosing sides. She knew how to call out bullshit and deliver the message with generosity, humor and grace.

I remember my jaw dropping when I found out that Dara had fallen in love with the curmudgeonly, brilliant anarchist artist Josh MacPhee of Just Seeds, the curator behind the Celebrate People’s History posters that decorate the walls of my living room and infoshops throughout the world.

Josh fell for her, too. She lightened him. She lightened us all.

When police arrested my former partner and me while we were shooting video at the Republican National Convention in Times Square, Dara narrowly escaped and bore witness to the mass arrest from a block away, video camera in hand. When we were released from jail the next day, she stood outside to greet us with her welcoming smile and open arms. We hit the streets again soon after, her laughter the greatest comfort possible. 

I can’t remember if Dara or I left Chicago first—she moved to Troy to earn a Ph.D., and I moved to Denver to work for Free Speech TV.

We saw each other over the years. When Dara was in Denver, we headed to the Soul’d Roots Conference on bikes, but her bike’s breaks weren’t working. We ended up walking—seven miles—all through town. We laughed and reminisced about old friends and lovers. We lounged in the sun. We partied—not the drunk, vomiting, desperate sort, but rather joyful, laughter drenched partying that ended when we fell asleep and resumed festivities bright and early the next morning.

I visited New York shortly after Dara and Josh launched Signs of Change—a chronological exhibition of social movement posters from around the world. She walked us through the gallery, grinning, laughing and detailing the histories of dozens of revolutionary movements.

Dara had a way of making most anything accessible: unfamiliar social struggles, high theory ideas and in these last months, even her own process of dying.

It’s hard to imagine going to a social movement convergence and not seeing Dara. The last time I saw her was at the 2009 U.S. Social Forum. Shortly after that, she was diagnosed with cancer. Months and months passed before I realized the severity of it.

In regular updates she sent to a list of friends and family, she described the community showing up to support her daily needs, the influx of visitors and her own incomprehension of what her friends and family must be going through. She offered words of support to those struggling with the reality of her dying. She described her journey looking for models of dying as a person without religion.

 I’ve lived a rich life in the kind of DIY, punk community that Dara introduced me to more than10 years ago. In my daily life, I constantly try to build the same bridges she so deftly built across theory, art, film, anarchism, DIY community and life.

Dara transformed the world around her into a more critical, contemplative and joyful place. She lived and died in community.