When I started at Wesleyan as a transfer student, I struggled for two reasons: first, it was my first time leaving my family, and second, there are cultural differences between Connecticut and Georgia. Even though I was in the same country, the educational system in Georgia is very different from the one in Connecticut.
However, when I started my second semester, I decided to take a dance class, Improvisation: Diasporic Modalities, which was a movement-based course where the students were expected to deepen the inquiry of the Africanist aesthetic in dance through an improvisatory experiential framework. After the first day I felt an immediate connection not only with the dance but also with the people and the space. This class was a gift for me because I started to connect with dance again, since I danced when I was a child in Venezuela. Throughout the semester, I have been reminded of what is important: connecting with my roots and improvising.
When we started to dance Bomba, which is a dance style originally from Puerto Rico, I felt like I was in my home country, because we have a dance style called tambor, which is very similar to Bomba. The dance reconnected me to my roots.
I had never considered the fact that this dance was a form of resistance until I took this Africanist aesthetics class. The most exquisite kind of protest of which I have ever heard is dancing because you are oppressed. This particular style taught me that credit must be given to the person playing the drums, who is referred to as the “bombero.”
There has been a before and after for me with Bomba, and I am happy to say that I am staying with the after. Dance has been a place that I can express myself without words, and I cannot imagine myself now if I would not take this class because there is an Adriana before and after, and I am carrying out the after now. Dance gives me joy and hope when things are not going well; dance is the escape where I can go and leave my problems.
Reference:
Los Hermanos Ayala – Topic. “Maria Luisa.” YouTube, 6 Oct. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkPHSUiZ-48.
