women displaced, women trafficked…

Last week I stumbled across a weekly discussion forum called University of the Streets Café. With an attempt to draw people from diverse backgrounds and realities, the initiative aims to enable continued learning through public conversation. Community building in an ‘old fashioned’, face-to-face kinda style… And isn’t this something that is rapidly disappearing amongst the roar of cyber chatting, text talk and passive, mindless entertainment… Of course, this blog is a dead giveaway of my cyber advocacy, but I’ve come to realise nothing can completely replace the warm sense of connection found in a good ‘real life’ conversation.

The first conversation for the fall program was called Women Displaced, Women Trafficked: If art is political can it also be poetic?, and it stemmed from a public rehearsal of Columbian-born choreographer Carmen Ruiz’s multimedia performance À la limite.

Using inspiration from Columbian folklore, Ruiz’s performance wove a striking story of the emotional upheaval, despair and invisibility felt by the millions of women displaced by war and political conflict.

I found the opening, in particular, extremely powerful due to its play with ambiguity of form. As my eyes adjusted from the darkness of the start, I noticed a moving object silhouetted far stage left. It took me a while to realise it was actually the dancer. With her hands and feet close to each other on the ground and backside twisting and contorting in the air, the dancer had created an unidentifiable shape that seemed to be directly symbolic of women’s disempowerment and objectification.

For the first few sections of the work, the dancer didn’t show her face. And when she finally did – making direct eye contact with the audience – it was a strong moment… As though by crashing down the fourth wall of the stage, she was boldly regaining the power lost from women and reinstating their rightful place….

Drawing elements of both Columbian and contemporary dance, Ruiz shifted between different emotional states as the work progressed gradually moving into a more upright position. Heavy breathing, gunshots, news report samples and music juxtaposed the dancer’s movements, while images – silhouettes of women, wind swept grass, abstract shapes – intersected and enabled smooth transitions between each section.

As Ruiz mentioned in the subsequent conversation, she is interested in exploring the bridges between folklore and contemporary life. The Afro-columbian influence ‘gives it a context, a root into history, a certain reality, she said. ‘A part of me cannot create art away from this context actually’, she said. This history, it seems, is firmly a part of her identity.

The conversation moved on to explore the intersection and collsion between political and poetic elements of performance. As a group we pondered the way performance can be used to transform difficult, challenging and harsh themes to create poetic works of art.

The idea that dance can transcend language was one of myriad discussion points. This seemed particularly relevant in the context of a trilingual audience! Yet while we might be able to construct a dialogue with dance due to its abstract nature, the question arose as to whether a political work like Ruiz’s should be imposing a particular point of view or allowing the audience to make their own conclusions. Opinions were mixed. Ruiz mentioned that she doesn’t want to impose anything on the observer, but simply wants to communicate in a new way.

One speaker, however, pointed out that the news report samples provided a strong objective message and therefore her work did impose a particular message on the audience. Another speaker encouraged Ruiz to be more overt because dance allows us to communicate deeply about issues that are harsh realities in our everyday lives. Another pointed out that the role of dance – particularly in Africa – has traditionally been used to express violence present in society. ‘Don’t be afraid to sweat’, he said. Given this historical context, perhaps Ruiz might push the boundaries even further.

In true Montreal style, the bilingual conversation ebbed and flowed naturally between French and English with a dash of Spanish (the dancers native language). For monolingual audience members such as myself, whispered translations were established to ensure all our linguistic needs were met.

Rather than interview-style, the conversation was a two-way stream where the performer was invited to ask questions along with the audience… It was an interesting dialogue and along with learning more about the displacement of women, I left feeling inspired by the knowledge that art is creating social change and that initiatives like this are bringing people together to build connections and discuss important topics…

Carmen’s final work will be presented at the Montreal Art Interculurels in March 2010…