My thoughts for this dance piece are complex; inspired by my travels to the Dem. Rep. of Congo in August 2009, I want to create a work that speaks to the experiences I was exposed to there. Beyond just observing the immense poverty of the capital city, Kinshasa, I was immersed into the true Congolese life; I learned to cook outside, to fold wear traditional garb, to speak a few words of the native languages, Lingala and Swahili, etc. For 2 weeks, I was an overwhelmed American 19-year old, surrounded by at least 20+ foreign family members at every hour of the day, limited by a language barrier that could only sometimes be overcome by my rusty french capabilities.
The most memorable part of my trip, however, was an evening spent at my aunt's house (more like a hut--even in the capital city) toward the end of my trip. For the entire evening, I simply sat and listened to the incredible stories of the life my family was experiencing. My aunt and cousins spoke very honestly and candidly about specific moments of hardship and triumph they endured. These stories are at the core of the memories I brought back from Africa. I felt that they really captured the true reality--the good and the bad-- that the people of Congo are forced to experience today.
For almost 2 years now, I have been digesting this trip in my mind and have decided to explore it through research and dance. I hope to make sense of my personal relation to these problems and this foreign reality and to discover something new about myself as a dancer, a choreographer, and a person. I have come to realize that though I am most personally affected by these stories because of my personal relation to the people experiencing them, I am also struck by these memories because these stories, these women could be anyone, from any corner of the world. We all experience pain, love, loss, joy... We all must, therefore, be connected universally. In my eyes, this universality is a big part of the solution of the Congolese problem.
My idea for this piece has broadened from specific Congolese stories to slightly vaguer thematic ideas of humanity that I hope my dancers and I will detail individually with our own personal stories during our rehearsals this semester. I want each physical movement and conceptual decision to be relatable to all stories everywhere and I hope to speak to these universal moments of hardship and triumph through this expanded perspective. I hope to realize them in a simpler, absorbable form (through dance) with the help of a guiding support and influence of an amazing cast. Though at this time my cast is not finalized, I am confident that they will all be talented, beautiful, and creative artists that will work hard not only to learn something new about themselves and their own artistry, but also to bring this dance to an unimaginably sophisticated and powerful level.
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