EWA: Finding My Beauty
Sharing the story of a young woman finding her beauty in the crossroads of rhythm, movement and presence, Heather draws from knowledge in academic literature, sacred and social dances from Brazil, Cuba and Guinea and her own experience to create and share an interpretation of beauty that goes beyond mind and appearances and into one that honours divine energy and considers beauty a creative process of balance and union. A powerful and moving dance work that will inspire women to seek their mana wahine, inner feminine power.
This work was created and presented as a performance piece at the Aotearoa Cuban Festival in March 2016 and developed into a community dance workshop, which has been offered in Auckland, Hamilton, and Dunedin.
Many thanks to my Cuban Dance teacher Greydis Montero Liranza for overseeing the development of this work, providing insight and correction, and for the creation of the platform of its performance (Aotearoa Cuban Festival); my former West African Dance teacher and research mentor, Ojeya Cruz Banks, for her instruction in the dance of Sorsornet, and for introducing me to the scholarship of Thomas DeFrantz, Brenda Dixon Gottschild and Robert Farris Thompson that inspired this exploration and negotiation of beauty and spirit within an Africanist dance framework.
I would like to thank Eugene Skeef for his donation of his creativity and udu musical recording encompassing a fusion of the rhythmic elements of Rumba Yambu and Ochun, which was used in the middle section of the audio. I would also like to credit Grupo Abbilona for "Ochun Endulza La Vida," which was used as the opening salutation to Ochun, Yoruba deity of fresh water, beauty, and love; and Cantos del Baobab for "Sorsornet" (Album: Nimba), which was used in the third and final section of the audio.
I would also like to recognize David Rowe for his donation of photographic images both in studio and during a later, smaller, performance of this piece.
Finally, I would like to thank the Igbo women, the creators of the UDU, the vessel that carries water, sound and percussive beats to where they are needed; the Yoruba people of Osogbo, the ancestral origins of Ochun (Cuba); the awa (river) at my father's former home in Awakere (between Rotorua and Whakatāne), Te Rotorua, and their kaitiaki - the Arawa people; and Te Awa o Waikato, and its kaitiaki, Tainui; for the insights these "water vessels" gave me for this dance.
