THE PROJECT

I became interested in this topic while studying abroad in Nantes, France, a city which was France's largest slave port during the 18th century. My program offered a history course called France and the Atlantic World in which we explored le commerce triangulaire or the Atlantic Slave Trade. In French it's called le commerce triangulaire because of the triangle created between Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean and/or North America depending on the century. Upon my return to Grinnell, I enrolled in a French literature course entitled Francophone Caribbean World in which we analyzed literature written by Haitian, Guadeloupian, and Martiniquais authors. In another seminar taken the same semester, Anthropology of Disaster, I analyzed Le Monde, a French newspaper, to determine France's level of accountability in the role that the colonization of Haiti (Saint-Domingue) played in creating the high-level of vulnerability that the country exists in in the present day (See "pages" on the right hand side for a copy of the paper).

All my encounters put together led me to want to make something in response to what had happened and its continued effects on today's world. I discovered a love of dance when I came to college and wanted to use performance as a way to react to the subject and share the knowledge I had learned with a larger audience.

As an anthropologist, however; I am very apprehensive about inserting myself where I don't belong. It should be noted that I am not French nor Haitian nor Guadeloupian nor Martiniquais nor African. A key inquiry of this choreographic exploration is how to talk about a subject or a history that is not your own. I do not want to speak for a group of people, acceptance or judgment is not my place. But I do think that subjects such as these need to be brought to light because they continue to affect the world today and I believe knowledge and understanding are the only way to move forward. It's a fine line that I'm trying to find. I haven't found the answer yet and maybe I never will but I'll fill you in on the progress through this blog!

Thursday, September 17, 2015

First Rehearsal

I had my first rehearsal of the semester yesterday! In my mind right now, the section that deals with La Maternité (motherhood) is going to be a solo and since only one of my dancers can show up every Wednesday that worked out nicely. I was really thankful that another of my dancers could make it yesterday because I want these first few rehearsals to generate movement. The three of us have pretty different styles which made for a very interesting collaboration.

Employing the time-honored Celeste exercise, I gave my dancers a list of words from the text I'm using and asked them to create a short phrase. We then taped our individual phrases (to Zoe Keating's Escape Artist and Hold On by SBTRKT), taught them to each other briefly and then did an improv where we were allowed to use our individual phrases, moves we remembered from each others, or create new movement if the moment called for it.

The list was as follows:
  • La volonté - Willpower
  • Le mépris - Contempt, Scorn
  • Stériliser - Sterilize  
  • Le destin - Destiny 
  • L'agression - Aggression 
It feels good to have officially started and be moving on from the concept only phase of things.
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