The Power of Expression: A Journey of Trauma, Pain and Transformation

Jorge Luis Morejon performed as guest faculty in the pre-show, of program B of The Art of Dance Festival hosted by MDC Jubilation Dance Ensemble, directed and produced by Michelle Grant-Murray. The piece The Power of Expression: A Journey of Trauma, Pain and Transformation was presented at the McCarthy Hall Theater on November 9, 2016. The piece narrates the transitions in the life of an immigrant and the intersections of his multiple life experiences: childhood in his country of origin, migration to a new country and adaptation to a different system.

A I R Dance Conference

Artistry in Rhythm (AIR) Dance Conference. Living Tradition: Antiquity and Beyond. Dance Program. Music, Theater and Dance Department. Miami Dade College, Kendall Campus. 11011 SW 104th St., Miami, Florida, 33176, Miami, Florida. April 14 - 16, 2016

Creative Ritual-Making: Areito Restoration Project

 Abstract: Many Indigenous cultures have been dissolved through historical processes of decimation and erasure. Despite this, many traits of indigenous cultures, have survived through modes of expression such as dance and movement. The Areito Restoration Project is part of a practice-as-research approach, within the scope of Performance Studies, which involves identifying cultural traits that have been retained in order to inform artistic creative processes. The work aims at re-building embodied cultural memory as a medium to heal individuals and communities that have experienced social injustice. The specific characteristics of the areito, a song-dance derived from the arguably extinct Taíno culture, in terms of intent, choreography, storytelling, music and chants, constitute a viable frame to create new work. Thus, this paper tries to highlight the importance of using regenerative performance memory as a methodology for the restoration of indigenous performance and religious practices in the subjunctive. The current research piece with the Jubilation Dance Ensemble at Miami Dade College, Kendall Campus, is a work-in-progress that uses reactive, regenerative and associative mechanisms to produce ancestral performance memory. The reactive phase invites students to recreate a ritual or ceremonial scenario using their own creative associations. The regenerative phase gives them cues that allow them to generate movement that is specific to the Taíno culture. The various archetypes of the pantheon, their characteristics and manifestations inform their movement choices. The associative phase integrates the material students experience during rehearsals, the archival and performative information already collected, shared and discussed and the personal and collective life experiences of the group. The creative ritual-making process provides students with an experiential understanding of the science of survival, a clearer view of how to embody indigenous consciousness and at the same time, the opportunity to further their aesthetic responses through their own song-dance, in this case the piece Matininó: No Men Island. The long term goal of the work is to bring the attention of contemporary audiences, communities and curricula to creative ritual-making as a way to connect with ancestral knowledge, re-embody a sense of identity and at the same time continue healing in the face of conflicting realities.

http://www.mdc.edu/kendall/academic-departments/mtd/artistry-in-rhythm.aspx

International Conference - “What is Postcolonial Thought?

International Conference - “What is Postcolonial Thought? Panel: Mémoires et Historicité. 

 University of the Antilles Schoelcher Campus, Martinique from November 23-25, 2015. 

 Caribbean Historic Memory: The Restoration of Indigenous Performance Practices

Abstract: A direct result of colonialism has been the erasure of the colonial subject's historic memory. The most evident form of physical erasure has been the myth of decimation of the Caribbean indigenous subject, but also the known historic practice of making the indigenous invisible to the area, the respective countries, their inhabitants and the indigenous subject him/herself. This is why in the last few decades; communities of indigenous descendants in the Caribbean have been involved in a process of memory restoration in the subjunctive, meaning how indigenous performance practices could have been, as opposed to how they really were. This process has been activated, mainly, through the re-enactment of performance practices believed to be extinct until they became visibly active. However, the erasure and invisibility has been true only because the indigenous voices have been systematically silenced by dominant exogenous ideologies. This paper looks at the gaps between what has been said and what has been embodied, between what has been published and what has remained part of the repertoire of Caribbean indigenous performance practices. This study proposes new ways to engage Caribbean writers, artists and cultural workers with restoring cultural and historic memory in order to clear a colonial past that remains an obstacle in building new indigenous historicities. The process, documented in the paper: the areito, the lace dance, the dance restoration and its performance, reclaims new spaces for indigenous communities to demand cultural reparations, historic memory and embodied spirituality.

Crospollination: Indigeneity Across Borders

 

Workgroup: Sylvia Richardson, Sarah Campbell, Brandon Fischer, Jorge Luis Morejon.

 Indigeneity Across Borders

THE CO-CREATION & RECUPERATION OF INDIGENOUS IDENTITIES AND BELONGING IN THE SHADOW OF VIOLENCE

Objectification - Vulnerability - Policing - Surveillance - Appropriation - Struggle

Co-creation - Generativity - Resilience - Reciprocity - Making - Tending - Remaining

El proceso: Amazando ideas y incuerporando caminos

Spoken and Slide: We would like to pay respect to the indigenous land on which we stand, that of the Tonkawa, the Comanche, and the Lipan Apaches.

The following will be a ritual intervention connecting the past, the present, and the future of indigeneities across borders.

Slide: We’re all indigenous to some land, somewhere, but there are different ways that indigeneity is understood, is practiced, is politicized, and refuted.

Each of the participants on stage embody and live different forms of identification with indigeneity.

Slide: We are constantly crossing borders of being indigenous, of not being indigenous, of being undocumented, infantilized, unmodern, but yet worthy, present, and ever changing.

Slide: The labels we call those we do not recognize: illegal, vagrant, loser, mojado, they dismember our humanity. They also disfigure our humanity. In this land of marginality, what is to marginalize? Who is marginalized? Where are at the margins of visibility?

Slide: We do not reside in a post-colonial period. There is no “post.” We endure ongoing processes of coloniality that are deeply historical.

Slide: When we talk about borders, we are talking about the borders as they are currently established. These borders are artificial.

Slide: What are the borders we are talking about? What enforces their legitimacy?

Slide: We know the effects of financial liberalization, neoliberalism, colonization, and the treaty of the white man.

Slide: We know the role of the nation-state, global and local systems of control, surveillance, and appropriation.

Slide: Why do people migrate?

Slide: How do people migrate?

When our bodies become forms of currency, we have already been revoked of our indigeneity.

Moving through the power - knowledge relationship; power as the object that we hold, knowledge

Slide: Indigeneity is defined by the stories we tell. Within

 

Sarau de Performances

Jorge Luis Morejon (center). 4th Hemi GDI Convergence. Collectivities in Migration: Animating Bodies Across Borders. 

The University of Texas at Austin. November 19 - 22, 2015. Photo: Maydelaine Rodriguez Castillo

Hemi GSI Convergence 2015 - Performance

Jorge Luis Morejon in The Healing Power of Expression. 

 University of Texas, Austin.Photo. Maydelaine Rodriguez Castillo 

The Healing Power of Expression: A Journey of Trauma, Pain and Transformation 

Abstract: The concept of “Collectivities in TransMigration” is seldomly addressed within the scope of an

immigrant’s personal experience. Yet, the sum of all personal migration experiences is also part of the collective history of transmigration. The Healing Power of Expression: A Journey of Trauma, Pain and Transformation narrates the transitions in the life of an immigrant and the intersections of his multiple life experiences: childhood in his country of origin, migration to a new country and adaptation to another system. A traumatic life experience at home makes him go to a boarding school. Socio-political unrest makes him and his family the subject of official and public repudiation. The arrival to a new country faces him with new and seemingly insurmountable challenges: a new identity, a new language, a new reality and the trauma caused by all of these circumstances. The journey is presented in movement, song and spoken word with

very low production cost. Four chairs and four pieces of cardboard is all what is needed for this 5 minutes long piece. Thus, Jorge Luis Morejón has created a piece that has been carefully designed to be performed for various audiences and to be adaptable to different performance, spaces. The intensity of the piece speaks to those who in the face of unbearable circumstances are forced to leave to another country as immigrants with no option to return. The uncertainties of having to start a new life, the challenges and adaptations needed to fit in and the otherness implicit in being an immigrant may cause physical, psychological and emotional pain, a reality with which many audience members may identify. However the piece does not dwell in the

difficulties of such experience, quite the opposite; it underlines the transformative power human beings have, specifically immigrants, to overcome all kinds of adversities. Despite the intensity of the piece, pain and trauma are presented as rites of passage into a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The transformation makes him stronger, more powerful and capable. Despite the narrated experiences, the immigrant wins in the end when he realizes he is closer than ever to achieving his full potential as a human being.

Growing the Arts: Breaking Boundaries. Rex Nettleford Arts Conference

Dance and Movement as Therapy: Formulating a Comprehensive Rational for Embodied Healing Practices.

Abstract: Formulating a comprehensive rational for Dance Movement Therapy, DMT, in terms of dance and movement as therapy allows the understanding of its aesthetic, physiological, and psychological impact. Articulating a comprehensive approach permits DMT practice to overcome the conceptual disparities of the world’s diverse health systems. Most progressive health systems, still in the process of accepting and/or reassembling alternative ways of doing psychotherapies, benefit from dance as creative, but also therapeutic processes. This paper discusses the integration of DMT’s theory and practice as a way to explain its effect on the well being of individuals and communities. 

LINK:  http://www.emcartsconference.org/