Audience Testimonials

FROM PERFORMANCES IN SANTA FE, NJ, HONOLULU,
AMERICAN SAMOA, NYC & SPAIN

"Thank you for transporting me tonight,
for moving all of us who were lucky to have witnessed you, and who were treated to being escorted so thoroughly, into the dimension of story and dance and healing. It was a profound performance that will stay with me for a long time to come...
​From the beautiful way that you included us all in the dipping our toes ritual to the teatime with Fear, the whole encompassing experience was so nourishing and fulfilling."
- Emily
. . .

​​​"​Intensely personal, intensely universal.
​ Shebana's performance is a razor wire journey about staying human."
​- Marc
​. . .

​​"​Tu performance estuvo fantástica, densa y profunda.
​Tenía tanto que quisiera verla otra vez para ver qué se me pasó. "
​ - Maria Cristina
​. . .

​​"​Last night I was treated to a stunning performance of such power and true realness.
​Profound beauty, truth telling and gorgeous writing, dance and presence.
​Thank you for your generosity and the mastery you have manifested and now share."
​- Judy
​. . .

​​"​Creative talent beyond compare. A stalwart performance…"
​- Nasario
​. . .

​​​"Your performance...was sublime. You are an exquisite, poetic storyteller & dancer. I was moved & informed on multiple levels, & so honored to be able to follow your soulful, artistic movement on the planet... ​huge congratulations on a prodigious artistic statement! "
​​- Anne
​. . .

​"​What a beautiful piece. I loved how you mixed and melded culture and colonization and your passion for dance with humor and pathos and storytelling. ​A gorgeous work that needs to be seen by many."
​- Cecile
​. . .​

​"​In your face, such intense calm and pathos..." (A)

"A harmonic juxtaposition of fierce strength and joy...a performance in the body, from the body." - Donna Blanchard, Managing Director, Kumu Kahua Theatre, Honolulu, Hawaii


Your ebb and flow is really incredible and we were ALL touched by you and your performance! Truly!! It's not often that we get to experience a masterpiece but yesterday it was so quiet in the auditorium--you had us all enthralled!. So here is my testimonial: Shebana's performance was so touching that it felt like I was with her in every moment. She has an amazing way of telling a poetic story through gestures postures and movements that makes the audience feel every word, practically taste every word, anticipating what is to come next. Brilliantly crafted, suitable for any age, and mesmerizing to be sure."
- Regina Meredith Fitiao, MFA Local Artist, Amerika Samoa


I felt the way Shebana used all three mediums to get her story across was fantastic. Her very personal depiction of the struggles of culture and colonization was very profound. I especially like the way you helped us understand fear, and in your own way, confront it.
- Ben Koenig, Princeton, NJ

Thank you for blessing us with your beautiful talent. My children and myself were captivated by your performance. It was a perfect blend of monologue, song, and dance with a powerful and true message that... we must be okay to just be in this short life we live. I also took away the message that we cannot live in fear and must welcome enemies into our lives and use them to better who we are. ..what a unique, interactive and interpretive history and lesson

-Ciara Krause

I absolutely enjoyed your performance! While I’m not schooled in the performing arts, there was something so striking and emoting for me. I am intrigued by different cultures and social justice so you piqued my in your interpretive dance. ...just know that your performance reached someone (me) not normally exposed to your art form and I loved it.
-Robin

History..either good or bad..lends itself well to interpretations and yours was so beautifully done! Sharp barbs softened by the grace of the mind and body and hands like fluttering birds moving through the fire of flamenco was a perfection!
-Les Graifman (NYC)

The entire piece (starting with your wonderful title) was provocative without being combative.  Unapologetically fierce, and yet inviting at the same time.…It was especially remarkable to me that while the story was uniquely yours, intimately yours, your voice — and your lived experience is so very different from mine — but still, I felt a surprisingly accessible kinship and relatedness.  Someone mentioned “primal soup” in the talkback after the performance — maybe this is what she meant?  Or maybe it’s what you were describing when you talked about the importance of metaphor in your work.  In any case, you certainly touched something universal, or at least something shared by the middle-aged gay anglo guy that I am.  Something deeply human, I guess.

• AG, Albuquerque

“The performance was unique, how Shebana told the story, the movements, and the interaction with the audience. I could not imagine how beautiful it would be to combine music and dance from two cultures so far apart.

— ANA MARIA CRESPO GOMEZ

Asociación Española de Estudios Interdisciplinarios sobre India

Veo las mentiras de los colonizadores, huelo las especias y los inciensos que se llevaron, escucho las voces que callaron con sus lenguas, me sabe a verdades que fueron oprimidas, y puedo sentir las espadas con las que lo hicieron.

— J. TOSSO, student

Being from a country which throughout its history has always been at the edge of being occupied and destroyed, I could feel each and every word she was expressing.

H. AVAGYAN, student

I am Andalusian, we are the south of the north and north of the south. We are part of a colonizing empire and part of a colonized territory. I felt a line on the floor beneath my feet that connected Andalusia to India, cracking...

• Sandra B, Student

”A dialogue with defiance to create something new”

Rocío Cobo-Piñero, Associate Professor, Department of English and North American Literature, University of Seville

I was looking at the reaction of some of the Spanish students and they were going “my God, I'm used to looking at the world from this lens where Europe is the center of the globe. ...they started realizing ...other cultural connections outside of their sphere. Something changed in the way that they thought about the world.”

— Dr. MAURICE O'CONNOR

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Cádiz