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!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Two steps forward and one step back

Grinnell just had their Fall  so we got one week off to recharge and catch up. I stayed here and took advantage of the studio time. I had been getting a little anxious before break because it felt like, while I've been doing a lot of work for the MAP, the majority of it hasn't been on the actual choreography part. I've been working with several faculty members to bring Erick Noel, a French scholar, to campus to present on the history of the slave trade in conjunction with my performance, and with emailing the authors whose texts I used to inform them of the impact their work has had on me. It's been really exciting and I'm continually surprised with the wide-spread support this project is garnering but I was starting to freak out that I was doing all this work to bring people but I have nothing to show them. But over break I finished the first draft of another section, have a movement outline for another that I just need to teach to my dancers, and have the movement base for another section. I feel like I'm back on track, choreography-wise but I've had another collaboration set back. I emailed the student who had agreed to compose the sound for my show to check in as he's had a couple of weeks with my sound outline to get started and he informed me that he had decided he no longer wanted to invest his time in my project. I'm trying to look at the bright side because nobody knows what I want better than I do, so if I do it myself at least I won't do anything I can't stand. Also, I think I'm not freaking out too much because as I've been choreographing with just the voices so far so I know that they can stand on their own. I'm thinking simplicity might be the answer. Overall, I feel that the break was really productive and I'm happy with where I'm at.
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