Or - Call and response, an inherited social choreography.
As a Zimbabwean choreographer living in Norway, my tradition and culture is only imagined and materialised as a collective speculation of all People of Color, a reality that groups us. It is in that imagination, the characterization, and expectations of my being as a People of Color, are forged by the dominant society including my lived and inherited experiences. I am then expected to uphold whiteness, also strangely longing to possess that reality, a reality that wounds and negates, at the same time endorsing it as the only standard of progress embedded within my own psychology.
Success defined by proximity to whiteness
Growing up in Harare, success was defined by my proximity to whiteness. The reality is still the same as what Augusto Boal states in Theater of the Oppressed; “a propagation of ideas is presented through a seductive repressive manner and the marginalized eventually loses their sense of identity out of admiration” (Boal, 1995).
My Song, an inherited social choreography
It’s really an interesting process to work on the solo production, My SONG, which explores altered continuation and relational identity formations of the marginalized. Through call and response as a quality of being different together, the performance resists the shared modernity of colonialism that maintains dominance of one over the other. The performance moves past normative ways of sensing, and revives the absent references that borne identities, circling from the unknown into a spirit known only in form of a song sung into existence.
My Song is set to premier on the 29th of September 2023 at IN2IT International Dance Festival. It will also be presented at CODA Oslo international Dance Festival. Stay tuned for more updates.
