Our bodies – instruments of creativity and healing

Dara E Healy -
Dara E Healy -

Culture Matters

Dancers are not just performing artists; their bodies are also the instruments through which the art is created.

– Judith R Mackrell, art critic

DO YOU dance in your bedroom? You probably should, especially since that might be the best option available to you for a long, long time to come.

This week, the world celebrated International Dance Day. For me, it was a relief to be able to focus, even for a little while, on an artform that has been important to me since childhood.

In TT, movement and dance fuel much of what we do. It is present in the way we walk, and in our Carnival arts from dame Lorraine to midnight robber and the skilful wining. It is rooted in the ancient arts of Africans, Indians, indigenous and other peoples who make up our nation. And it is key to how we celebrate the ebb and flow of life – from births, to marriages and even death – we dance. Yet, apart from the period when Julia, Astor, Auntie Beryl, Molly and others dominated, dance in our country no longer seems to move with the same power.

As I thought about the significance of dance in my life, I again lamented that it is a pity we have not harnessed the ability of our dances to foster patriotism or a better understanding of how we fit into this space. We have yet to incorporate movement and understanding the body as meaningful solutions for the healing of trauma. In 2021, International Dance Day interrogates the purpose of dance. As we seek ways to make sense of this world, it is clear to me that we cannot move forward without truly making a space for the creative world of dance.

I have shared some of our experiences with dance and pain in marginalised communities. Such programmes do work, but they must be implemented consistently, with adequate funding and the necessary support from the community and those in authority. Years later, our minds are still blown by the instinctive response of some young people to the bongo, an ancient African dance that honours the dead. The drumming, singing and chanting not only opened the door for us to do our work, it allowed the children a brief moment of normalcy. It allowed them a taste of childhood.

During our vacation camp for vulnerable children they spend much of the day moving and dancing. They have no clue that they are learning about respect for personal space, posture, co-ordination, teamwork and other key life lessons. As far as the children are concerned, they are just dancing. As far as the parents know, we have some special kind of children obeah that they do not understand. “What allyuh does do this chile?” bewildered parents ask when their normally restless children fall asleep before bedtime. “Don’t worry, just keep bringing them back,” we smile and wink at them.

Normalcy. What should that look like? How will we reach those children now? I think about the young people who have depended on us over the years and feel that familiar sense of helplessness. How can dance provide solutions for the whirlwind of mental health issues that is coming? How may we engage vulnerable communities in the digital space in a way that makes sense for them? Further, how can we separate ourselves from western, colonial notions of what is an acceptable way to move our bodies. Centuries of conditioning have caused us to almost criminalise movement that even hints at a degree of sensuality. Yet, in our work, we dance for the deity Osun and celebrate her feminine power, in both its sensual and warrior forms.

As we put more resources into policing, we should not forget that other types of intervention must also be implemented. As such, the creative space that is being planned for Ariapita Avenue is certainly an excellent initiative. And naturally, dancers will lobby for a permanent space for our craft. But it is not enough. Our communities need literal and figurative avenues for self-expression. As we plan our future, creativity and the arts must be as important as the swimming pool or the basketball court.

I changed my mind. Do not be satisfied with just dancing in your bedroom. The more locked away we become, the more we need to see our bodies as instruments of change. Me? I will continue to dance, because it makes me happy. But also because when I dance, I move to change the world.

Dara E Healy is a performance artist and founder of the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN

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"Our bodies – instruments of creativity and healing"

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