Working Progress

I am told I have a “crusader’s” personality. Not in a medieval sense- I am not into conquest and the imposition of my will on others- but in the sense that I am into “causes.“ I want to effect change in the world- to see it made a more just and humane place where each individual is valued and appreciated. I can get very passionate about this. Still I am also kind of a skeptic and this truth has led me away from most mass movements and towards trying to model the changes I believe in on a more intimate scale–on the community level– mostly through my work as an artist and an educator.

In recent days I have been asked to define what I mean by community. In the most basic sense I mean the people with whom I find common cause. MUVs mission statement in its latest iteration reads:

Movement for the Urban Village is a community of women dancers of varied identity and life experience who join together to present original dance works addressing social, political and spiritual themes. At the heart of this concept is the intention that the work function as an instrument of creative expression, a modality for healing and means for liberation on every level for all people.

 The mission has evolved a bit over time but I started this company with a fundamental commitment to the idea that the world works best when people work together. I hope that MUV is a space where the women who create here feel appreciated, challenged, embraced and engaged as we join in the collective enterprise of making art. The final section of our first dance, the eponymous Movement for the Urban Village, is called Come Unity, and from that first work to the most recent, Ascendance, the persistent theme of the dances in our repertory is that we have to work together in order to achieve freedom. Not that we are overly didactic about it, one of the greatest joys of developing work that springs from the traditions of the African Diaspora is that our audiences are welcomed to participate in our performances. They call out to the dancers and sing along as the music and the movement resonate with them and then when we are all done they tell us they wanted to jump up on stage and join us!

 The idea that the microcosm reflects of the macrocosm -“As above so below, as below so above”-guides my effort to create community through art. In MUV I strive to make the concept of fully realized personhood a part of the process we use to create work and to see that work presented in spaces that welcome active dialogue between all present including performer and audience. It pleases me when this is recognized as it was by Sasha Rodriguez when she wrote, “the connection and intimacy between performers clearly extended off the stage and into the crowd…” in the Summer 2007 issue of Attitude: the Dancers’ Magazine. In this way I try to communicate the spirit of embracing and welcoming  community to our audience and I hope that they take this understanding and carry it with them into the wider world.

peaceLOVElight
Shalewa
Up next, creating community in the classroom…