3 minute read
DIVERSITY OR SKIN COLOUR
With the way we communicate leaping further online, Greta Mendez MBE asks the question: Are we embracing this opportunity to discover and celebrate more diverse international styles?
For the past year, we have lived mostly in a state of lockdown with very little direct human contact. This has meant that most of our art exchanges and consumption have been via the internet, which has afforded us a more international reach. Has this international reach meant that we are exposed to a truly diverse range of art/dance forms? Have we only engaged with dance forms that cater to Western notions of dance, peppered with a few African & Asian aesthetics?
If we examine most of the images used to promote dance, we would note that they, in the main, pander to Western ideals.
Lockdown gave me time to look at videos of young children, mostly in Africa, doing their dances which are not yet exposed to Western notions of dance. The children’s dances were complex and dynamic, with the movements emanating out of their bodies in multifaceted, witty, energetic, joyous, and soulful vocabularies. In fact, they were the dances and the dances were them.
An eleven-year-old boy, Anthony Madu, was filmed doing ballet training in his backyard in the rain in Lagos, Nigeria. Needless to say, he, like so many of the other children, wanted to be a ‘dancer.’ This video was shown on worldwide news and the actress Cynthia Erivo, who is also Nigerian, introduced him to the prestigious American Ballet Theatre where he has earned a scholarship; brilliant. There were no such global clarion calls for the children doing their dances, with all the poetic sensibilities of new and challenging dance.
As we open up to increasingly international engagement, are we in danger of maintaining the inherent hierarchal structures? Or are we willing to embrace other forms of art/dance on their own terms and value?
Greta Mendez’ Ndulgence
© Inder Salim, designed by Alexis Shepherd
Published in 1976, Naseem Khan wrote a report entitled, The Arts Britain Ignores. It drew attention to arts and cultural activities being undertaken by Britain’s Asian and African/Caribbean communities as being integral to British culture. For a while, works which emerged out of these cultures were given mainstream platforms, but more recently they have been pushed to the margins.
Can dance heal the world? Yes, it can, if people are allowed to dance their dance to unearth their inherent unique richness and create works which speak to and about society’s dreams, pain, and hallelujahs. These dances need to be celebrated at the highest level.
Currently, dance in the mainstream is not diverse; skin colour is not a reflection of diversity. For example, let us examine the diverse cultural communities in London. There are over 200 languages spoken in London, including Tigrinya, Vietnamese, Sinhala, Peruvian, and Farsi.
However, where is the evidence of these ethnic groups and the many others’ cultural art forms on the mainstream stages? Where do we see their stories, the rhythms of these people and their dance forms?
Greta Mendez
In this globalised world and despite having an international outreach via Zoom, the language of dance, on the whole in the mainstream, maintains the narrow, colonised structures.
If we are to truly heal the world through dance, we must encourage the young to create and celebrate the dances which emerge out of their identities onto the main stages, so we can all witness and grow.
Ken Saro Wiwa, Nigerian novelist, producer, environmental activist, fought Shell for the rights of the Ogani people. He said:
Ken Saro Wiwa
Greta Mendez MBE
Greta Mendez MBE is a performance artist, carnival producer and dance and drama producer, director and educator. She has performed and created works for the Royal Opera House, National Theatre, and created awardwinning work on stages and screens worldwide.
www.gmendez-owd.co.uk
