(Left) Gema Ascencio tells her migration story, with dancers Rogelio Lopez, Gizeh Muñiz, José Navarrete. (Above). Gema Ascencio and Julita Gomez performing the story of a border crossing.
Debby: I keep getting distracted by my phone because it keeps buzzing because they’re having a conversation right now. I think there’s proba- bly thirty or so women in the group and sponta- neously someone will start a video call and peo- ple will join. Not being in person is really hard. We’re still building trust. Luciana Rodriguez, one of the group’s facilitators, asked folks to send her a photo with a positive statement that will help support all of the community so she could pull those together and make a collage. One woman said to destress she does Zumba in her living room by herself. I said, maybe you should do that while we’re on this video chat and everyone can follow you so we can all do it together. That’s the level that it’s at after two days. Adriana: I’m taking a lot of classes online with MUA and other classes too. It helps me deal with the situation and I try to apply what I’m learning to support other women. If someone needs support, I make myself available to talk with them. I’m also practicing self-care — exercising and trying not to gain too much weight because it makes it more difficult for me to walk in my physical condition. I’ve put a lot of attention in trying to avoid feeling anxious or desperate. I keep myself busy. I want to share my healing process. It’s a long process, but I have seen my own transformation, and I would like to let women know that they can heal themselves. SIMA BELMAR, PH.D., is a Lecturer in the Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley, and the ODC Writer in Resi- dence. To keep up with Sima’s writing please subscribe to tinyletter.com/simabelmar .
a courageous conversation.” These talks are so difficult! You [Monica] often said that you were going to have an unbeliev- ably difficult conversation that will make many people uncom- fortable. Many people aren’t prepared to have those kinds of discussions. I have to thank you for that. I learned a lot from you about these incredibly brave conversations and how they are a path toward healing.
Sima: Other than having to move to an online process, what else has changed? José: The needs of the group are changing, and we are trying to support that. They are extremely vulnerable at this time, not only because of the virus, not only because of losing their jobs, but also the fear of deporta- tion that is still happening. It’s real. Debby: The women who are dealing with domestic violence are being forced to be at home. It’s not a safe place at all. José: So right now we are creating virtual group support. Most of them are connected on Facebook and WhatsApp. But we wanted to create some regular meetings of small groups where they can talk and create activi- ties. We started two days ago. We’re in the process of figuring out what would be the best place for us to have a virtual group support. Everything is about technology and what kind of access the women may have. So far they are being connected.
José: So we went through the process of meeting their friends, talking with the Zumba teacher, and trying to figure out how we’re going to put this together in their story. We spend tons of time to figure out the story together. When we work with professional art- ists, we set a rehearsal schedule. But the time outside of rehearsal — this hanging out has allowed us to have trust and continue working on this physical storytelling. Monica: NAKA helped me uncover my story. I started talking about small things with you both and that made me remember things. The pain was like a thread that began to unravel the past. The truth is that I wasn’t interested in remembering all that. But then you started to say to me, “You’ve experienced so many things. What would you think if we put this story into the performance?” José: One of the most important things I’ve learned from MUA is this phrase, “ Voy a hacer una plática valiente ,”“I’m going to have
were really committed but the stories they told made me question whether we should tell those stories on stage. Sima: Because of the level of trauma or because of the risk to the speaker? Debby: I think both. We talked a lot about the risk to the performer in the rehearsals. The whole organization has been really supportive in terms of personal, one-on-one support when the performance is happening. They had their people there ready to support the women if they needed it. Like with any community col- laboration where you’re dealing with stories like this, it’s always in the hands of the women and the organization as to whether the per- formance will happen or not. At any moment, they can say forget it, and that’s their prerog- ative. In the end, none of the women chose to do that. Their answers were always like, if I do that it’s like silencing myself once again. We
I slept that night! [laughs] My shouting wasn’t just for myself; I was shouting for all those women who weren’t able to shout. Sima: So what is NAKA’s directorial role in this work? José: When a member is describing her story, we take notes and say things like, “This is what you said. Is that ok?”We witness what they have to say and then try to organize it into a text. Then we give it to them for them to decide if this is the story they want to tell. In terms of movement, Monica does Zumba regularly, maybe four times a week. So in her piece she wanted to do Zumba or Banco [Step Aerobics]. So we went with her friends and took classes. We gathered a group of eight women who do Zumba. Debby: If you know the Laundromat on 25th and Mission, you go in the Laundromat and upstairs to this tiny room and there are Zumba classes and spin classes all the time.
all really feel held by the organization. They strongly believe in art as a form of healing. Adriana: [discussing her experience creat- ing and performing her section of Y Basta Ya ] When we started, it felt like opening Pando- ra’s Box. When we were working on the piece, I realized that I still had many things locked away in that box that I didn’t want to open. Through the process, I realized that it wasn’t my mother’s fault, nor my grandmother’s fault. And it wasn’t my fault that this person beat me, abused me. And it’s not even his fault because he didn’t have love, didn’t have a father who paid any attention to him, or a mother to guide him. And he experienced the same kind of violence with his parents. When you start to understand this, you begin to forgive and let go of things that weigh you down. It’s very liber- ating. That’s what this performance did for me. In the performance, I shouted my poem at the top of my lungs. You have no idea how well
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
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