Welcome to Danza, An Ancestral Non-Verbal Language (DANVL) blog. My name is Alicia, and I love to dance, create, and teach dance. Dance is a voice that can express the deepest feelings of the human body. The movement takes a dancer to make dance phrases that communicate things that the spoken words cannot. Dance is part of our lives. As humans, we are not sedentary. On the contrary, we move every day, and that is part of our human dance.
My journey in dance began in my childhood in Ecuador, where danza was the essence of every morning in my household. This experience has led me to believe that dance should be an integral part of an individual's education. It not only fosters emotional maturity and social awareness but also significantly contributes to academic achievement. I value and respect the ideas of dancers and dance students, understanding that trusting their insights is crucial to the creative process. I create dances that address social struggles because I believe dance has the power to raise awareness among audiences and can liberate both the mind and body.
Choreograph By Alicia
The idea of making "Los Colores de las Mujeres" came from the essay Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference by Audre Lorde (1984). Another woman who inspired me to create the dance movement of "Los Colores de las Mujeres" was Dolmitila Barrios de Chungara, an activist from Bolivia who fought for the miners' rights in Bolivia. In my choreographer's imagination, I placed Lorde and Domitila together because I wanted them to have a conversation with each other in a dance form. In my mind, Lorde and Domitila assist each other to recognize the differences that they had and make a plan to support each other. In the conversation that I imagine, they acknowledged that they have suffered from racism because one was Black and the other was poor Miner House Wife who happened to have and indigenous features. Both of them knew that society labeled them as an "inferior race" because of their ethnic background, and both activists were conscious of the patriarchy that oppressed them. By imagining this conversation between them, I realized that I also grew up in a society that discriminated against me because of my indigenous ethnicity. The conversation became personal, and I developed the dance movement around my imaginary dialogue between them.
The choreography “Teresa” is an act of solidarity, inspired both by the book Deported and by the story of Mrs. Teresa and Claudia. Their story represents the struggles of many immigrant women that have to pass through detentions centers because they are undocumented. The abstract form of the dance movement interconnects with the incarceration narrative of “Teresa.” I called this interconnection the incarceration form because the form takes place when the dancer simulates as if someone is pulling the dancer down to the floor. This incarceration form is an abstract dance form that is also projected on the choreography “Teresa.”
Choreograph By Alicia
“Tierra” as a follow-up to the questions: Who is Tierra (earth)? What does Tierra want? What is the purpose of Tierra in the universe? These were the questions that were necessary to begin the process of choreographing “Tierra.” The “Tierra” choreography movement comes from Andean cosmovision, Andean Dance, Postmodern dance, and Academic research.“Tierra” is a dance that seeks to communicate how mother earth feels. The choreography “Tierra” becomes the pathway of expressing my Andean indigenous cosmovision with dance movement and a way to tell how humans mistreat mother earth.
Choreograph By Alicia
"Agua" (water) is a necessary element for the survival of life on our beautiful planet earth. The human body is composed of about 63 percent of "Agua." On earth, water has a continuous cycle- precipitation, collection, evaporation, and condensation. "Agua" as choreography has a similar process, which relates to every dance or choreography project because dance circulates as follows: intellect, spirit, body, and movement. With these four cyclical elements, dance becomes an educational resource for diverse audiences.
THE DAY
The day that I walk the day that I dance
The day that I move the day that I breathe
The day that I dance the day that I shine
By AM
As a danzante, I must honor Juan Antonio Flores, who was my Ecuadorian indigenous grandfather and to whom I own my knowledge about Andean dance cosmovision. He was my first dance mentor and instructor. Juan Antonio had a peculiar form of seeing life and dance. For him, the everyday movement of life and dance connects the mind and the body to be happy
By AM
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11g7qsRDIHJv7er7XYBSWOFnWKpvHBmw-/view?usp=sharing