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!

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Saturday's Rehearsal --> Objective: Generate Material

Rehearsal went great! We were able to generate a lot of material which I can now go through, re-arrange, put together, and/or build from so I'm happy! I had a great time today because it was the first time I got to see everybody's individual styles. I was really inspired by all of them and I think making their individual styles work cohesively is going to result in great work, yay uniqueness!
The section of the day was History. I had them do two improvs, one of which I also participated in, to generate movement. 


The Name Game:
I had them spell their name. My reasons for doing this were two-fold; one, to see how they moved when they got to choose their movement and when they were essentially embodying themselves, and as a way to insert themselves and their own history into the piece. 
My fist directive was just to spell their names. Whether it was their first, first and last, or a nick name was up to them. We recorded. Then I asked them to add "weight" to it or to make it "heavier." We recorded again and then I asked them to think of puppets and we recorded that. The directives were inspired by certain words/ideas in the text of this section.
One Word at a Time:
Next I gave them one word at a time and asked them to make a movement for each, transitions between movements were included. The words I used were from a sentence that repeats four times in this section. I put it into Google Translate so the words would be in English and then used a word randomizer to create the order. I used Google Translate rather than my own translation because I wanted to get them as far from literally acting out the words as possible. I used the first 12 of the 16 words generated due to time constraints.
Here's what was generated:
  1. Can
  2. Weight
  3. We
  4. The
  5. Color
  6. Desperate
  7. Minimize
  8. Anachronistic 
  9. And
  10. Recognition
  11. Question
  12. Not
Once they finished creating, we recorded it. Something unexpected that came up that I loved was that, because they had trouble remembering the order the words came in, they kept looking over at the board where I had written them with a look of genuine confusion and a need for understanding Not only does this fit well with what I'm trying to evoke in the section, but it sometimes altered their movement itself and created something new.

Overall, it was a great rehearsal and progress is being made!
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