WHY IT MATTERS
ARTIST STATEMENT
In all my work, I seek to get to the oldest root within me, the oldest stone, that which remembers dark and manifests in metaphor, sound, silence, movement.
These days, I really just want to dance, sing, write and nurture creativity in fellow story-travelers. And create fierce gentle solo plays woven with dance, story and poetry. To me, it’s all the same journey, excavating what oppresses, what liberates in a felt body sense. More and more, I am understanding the ripple effects of colonization - historical, emotional, cultural - on everything.
Why does it matter to see the impact of colonization? Because everything that is fraught, unstable, breaking down in the world right now - everything that oppresses comes from this unexamined relationship. Rather than despair, I choose to believe that everything is breaking so something new can grow, from a new seed, an old root.
Once, someone asked me why we need art. This play - and I - we are both here to say that the need to express art is reason enough. Art dismantles what stops our stories. It liberates our songs. The act of living in the light of full expression - yours, mine, ours - is a revolution that is long overdue.
Andale, onwards, aagé chalo, let’s go.
for this, I am here
In other words, in case I was wondering, for this, I am here, aquí, idhar.
This play is the truest thing I’ve done. And the need for it is greater than ever.
We live in the world where overt and unexamined oppression uproots us.
The impact, the felt down to the bones, impact of this play, is palpable. It has always been so, from the first performance.
following what calls
decolonizing
More and more, we are not only defined by the place we were born, the place we grew up or the place where we happen to live. Fragmented by colonization, displaced by immigration, we are seeking a different kind of integration. That’s the play’s journey in memoir and metaphor and that journey is especially relevant now – when as societies, as individuals we are seeing – in action and subtext – the wide reaching effects of colonizing and being colonized.
The title poem came to me so organically. Then I looked up and saw that colonization being discussed everywhere. When I say “decolonizing,” I mean getting rid of a foreignness, and I mean foreign as I’ve seen it used medically – a foreign object, something that does not belong to that particular body, something that is not indigenous to my spirit. It has less to do with only culture, because I believe in the fluidity of cultures and communities inspiring each other, and I feel connected to many different places.
I believe that if I go to the necessary depth to tell my resonant story, my hope is that it will inspire others to a resonant depth of listening, creating and connecting.
I feel art heals through metaphor; it creates a safe space for what needs to be seen and borne and transformed.