Newsletter #1: Introducing our projects
Since the start of the lectorate Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts we have been busy, from bonding as a team to starting to engage in numerous projects, from working with the dance and theatre education departments with the Inclusivity Pathway Training to starting a choir with resistance songs. In the articles below from our first this newsletter (May 2023) you will be introduced to some of our activities.
By: Paulina Trejo Mendez
Our research is grounded on two theoretical strands: indigenous knowledges and decolonial theory. The latter has its roots in the thinking-doing of Latin American scholars like Anibal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, María Lugones and Rolando Vázquez. These ideas recognize a global system of power that started with the colonization of the territories colonizers named America, but that had their own names, knowledges and ways of being-doing. That system of power is called “coloniality” and it continued after colonization ended. Coloniality also came with modernity which became the dominant way of knowing-doing-being imposed to everyone and that has its roots in western logics and ways. This is how “European history” became “universal history”, taught in other places whose histories are often marginalized.
Coloniality imposed a hierarchical classification of peoples in terms of race, the legacy of that imposition can still be felt today. This means coloniality is nothing of the past and it has shaped the ways in which we understand ourselves, each-other and the world. We need decoloniality to de-link from the dominant harmful ways that have fragmented our relations and distorted these. Indigenous theories offer possibilities historically denied, moving away from coloniality to a world where our relations, plural knowledges and ways of being can exist outside domination.
By: Gabriela Acosta Camacho
In September '22, we started the Inclusivity Pathway Training at the ATD in the Dance in Education programme. By now, all students in this program have had two trainings and have started working on their own to develop tools that can be added to the training!
For example, you can think of movement exercises based on the idea of whispering games: you stand in a circle and 1 person whispers a movement in someone's ear. This whisper is passed on. When everyone in the circle has received the whispered movement, the initiator counts down - and then it gets exciting: does everyone perform the same movement? In the first round, it mostly caused a lot of arguments "I don't hear it" and "what?" and "you didn't say it clearly!". The movements everyone showed at the end of the circle ranged from a step to the side, a turn and a tap on your own shoulder....
We decided to do another round. Things settled down, there was focus, confidence and a strong sense of group responsibility. The whispers rang through the circle.... reached the initiator - three, two, one... Everyone stepped back at the same time: 'we did it!'
The beauty of this exercise: to reach a common goal we have to allow ourselves that the beginning can be seeking, we may have started with discussion and not hearing each other, but by taking the time, holding each other and yourself accountable, can help ensure that everyone is connected and we take steps together.
Currently we are also working on the IPT at the Theater in Education programme, very curious to see what these students will come up with!
By: Camiël Kesser
How can we hold space together? One of the options is contemplating, discussing and analyzing what actually happens. Another is to actually go somewhere where the space is a constant confrontation. Yet another way is to explore and embrace all the stories that are present in that space together. Aminata Cairo and Camiël Kesser were invited by the Dance education department to join them and contribute to their bi-annual dance learning exchange in Senegal at l’Ecole de Sables in February of this year. Here 35 Dutch and 15 West African students joined to learn together. Whereas in the past the focus had been mostly on the collaborative dance experience, this year the department wanted to add additional focus on the personal stories that students bring to this experience and how it might impact their learning.
For one week Aminata Cairo and Camiël Kesser worked with the students and offered daily sessions in Holding Space for each other's stories. Being brave, acknowledging connection, speaking out, letting go of stories that don’t serve us, conflict, singing the blues, and owning one’s own story, all passed the revue. Adjusting to another culture is quite a challenge. In offering these sessions we hope to have given the students some additional tools to fully enjoy their learning experience in Senegal.
By: David Cham
Within the context of the lectorate, Mina Emerencia and David Cham are doing an empirical research project for our Master of Education in Arts. We are focusing on our old educational experience in the Docent Dans (Dance in Education) programme at the AHK, as junior researchers. Our goal of this research is to investigate students' experiences within the department in terms of social justice and decolonial queer theory. Based on our own experiences with the Docent Dans programme in mind, we aim to gain knowledge that can help improve students’ experiences during their studies, but also in their future practice as educators. Since these future dance educators will be confronted with conflicts based on social justice in their future practice, this empirical research is aiming to see what the Docent Dans programme is doing to prepare their students for these conflicts and how well this preparation is being received by the students during their time in the programme.
By: Layzmina Emerencia
The Wastelands is a week organized for first year students at the ATD. Often, once students start their studies they become quickly and well familiar with each other, but only within their own program. The Wastelands is supposed to bring students together that normally might only pass each other in the hallways. Aminata Cairo was asked to do an opening IPT session where all these first year students (about 150) got to meet and connect with each other. I participated myself in the experience.
To begin, we gathered the students in a circle for a brief warming up exercise. As Aminata Cairo sang, the group reacted to the melody that was given. Even though these students don't see each other very often, I could feel the unity of the group as we stood together. Additionally, it felt like a family reunion. The exercises had moments of togetherness as well as discomfort. During one exercise, two students were required to sit with their backs against each other and share what was going well and what was not. As part of this exercise, I also participated with a Mime student and heard how they were concerned about communication and guidance. The highlight by far were the blues compositions where students got to belt out their frustrations among great support from their fellow students. From the long days and short nights, to the broken elevator, their complaints were heartfelt and hilarious.
By: Tayfun Balçik
Together with Aminata Cairo, I have been involved for several months in a project about "fatherhood", holding conversations about it in barbershops of colour. As a non-father (and bald man) of 38, I immediately felt discomfort in participating in this project. How can I ever position myself on such a sensitive and important issue? In this research project, which deals specifically with the paternal and therefore masculine aspect of parenthood, the focus is on the social function barbers have for men of colour. I have just returned from the United States where I had the opportunity to attend ‘Holding Space’ sessions with men in the barbershop. The words that were uttered straight from the hearts of these men made me tear up multiple times. As men, we walk too much with heavy emotional burdens, too many emotions that don't always find a safe outlet. The owner of the barbershop put it very nicely: ‘You have barber shops where you can get the most beautiful haircuts, but what about inner care?’ We are now about to implement the project further in Turkish and Moroccan barber shops in Amsterdam. I look forward to the follow-up.
By: Rosa te Velde
What are the ways we can build community through singing resistance songs in an amateur choir? How can an amateur choir become the training ground for developing skills for ‘tuning in’ with each other?
These are some of the questions raised by the ‘Tuning in’ project, which is a collaboration between the Lectorate (represented by Rosa and Tayfun), stichting metStem, Aslan Muziekcentrum and Arts of Resistance. In this project we aim to develop knowledge and skills that depart from the body and the idea that “we carry the stories of inequality in our bodies”, as Aminata Cairo describes in the Inclusivity Pathway Training: harm is never done in isolation, but always in interaction, and therefore healing needs to take place in interaction too.
In March/April a small pilot of the choir took place, where we sang famous resistance songs with students, artists, local community members, parents, activists and musicians. Starting out with a wide variety of warming up exercises for voice, body and group dynamics, we sang Bella Ciao and ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ on Ortega’s revolutionary 1973 song ‘El Pueblo Unido’.
The choir will start in September! Follow the project page if you want to sign up.
