MALI’E is a “Matao-CHamoru creative research project exploring the creative potential of Kantan Chamurita.” The project engaged collective ancestral teachings of historically and culturally connected communities through several weeks of workshops, culminating in a Community Ritual Activation on Jan 5, 2024. This article is published on the one year anniversary of the event at the House of Awakened Culture. During this in person performance aspect of MALI’E’, the videos “… i dance …” and “Ma Kånnai” were projected on a large screen. This written response contains two parts, a reflection of the first video, and a response to the live interdisciplinary community activation.
FILM: MALI’E-SINANGAN: … i dance…
Two films shown are part of a series called Mali’e’ • Sinangan. According to google, the Chamoru word Sinangan translates to“Statement: speech, recitation, narrative, quotation; passage from some author or speaker; story.” The first video, … i dance …, was directed by Dakota Camacho and co-created with cinematographer, Futsum Tsegai and MALI’E’ artist Alethea Bordallo. The camera welcomes us into an intimate narrative combining dance and spoken word focused on a single movement artist. We first see the dancer from above. A hazy blue-green body of water fills the frame and we watch as they float through the shot on their back. The color of the water highlights their golden brown skin and orange shirt. Their eyes are closed as they drift across the screen in slow motion until their pathway takes them out of frame. The image changes to a spectacular close up of a massive tree’s roots. We watch a network of glowing brown tentacles reaching down into the earth, so close up we see nothing but these roots with just a few dried leaves and spots of black dirt in the foreground.
As we listen to the dancer speak in a rhythmic voiceover, the strong flow of their voice reminds me of water itself. We see a collage of images: bits of a building’s structure, a lush outdoor patio space, various shots of plant life. We watch as the dancer wraps a femme elder in fabric as they sit outside eyes closed. I wonder how it would feel to be wrapped up in this way. This video pulls at my heart reminding me of something I already know but don’t often get the chance to feel the truth and strength of. Home is as much the wild growing world as the architectural structures we reside in. Home is everywhere, in the water, in the roots, in the leaves, in the sunlight streaming through the trees…in the people all around us.
We see the dancer moving on a beach. Their arms cross in a self embrace and then glide apart like wings catching the air as they bend to one side. Their hands reach out towards the viewer. Their palms caress the camera from a distance. Their spine seemingly unfurls from the energy of the water and air in view behind them, extending as their arms rise once again to the sky like they can catch the sun.
The voiceover continues: “ I dance for this land to the heartbeat of my people for infinite horizons, sunsets, calm waters and skies. I am danced by this, this rhythm, this flow, this stillness…this returning to my ancestral womb. In this moment I dance this story of home”
The voiceover becomes a groove, a song as their words begin to repeat, digitally altered, into a percussive overlapping:
“I dance, I dance, I dance, I dance, I dance”
“This this this this”
“Story story story story story”
“Of Home, of home, of home, of home, of home”
The dancer’s arms skillfully tend to the air, as though pulling strings made of light. I follow their tendril-like movements, in awe of their precision and flow. I’m mesmerized by their hands and fingers as they twist, turn and pull through the air. They are at home, home is in their hands, in their skin, in their heart. Home is everywhere, wherever there is love and water, earth and air.
COMMUNITY ACTIVATION: MALI’E’
In the digital invitation I received on social media to their dᶻidᶻəlalič (Seattle) family, facilitating artist Dakota Camacho wrote::
“We praying for world peace, restoration of healthy relations between humans and more-than-human beings, and a global society built on ceremony that unifies us with all Creation. We workshopping fino’ håya/fino’ CHamoru (and our Suquamish family sharing Twulushootseed when we get over to xʷsəq́ʷəb) chant, ancestral worldview, embodied exercises, traditional rope making, printmaking and more. We engaging themes of ancestral wisdom, climate justice, militarization, healthy relationships, and ancestral wisdom. “
After two weeks of time together in process mode at the end of 2023, the artists participating in the in person aspect of Mali’e’ invited their extended community to a ritual activation at the House of Awakened Culture. SeattleDances editor Kaitlin McCarthy and I made the hour and a half journey to the Suquamish tribe’s monumental community space in Kitsap county to witness. Participants connected by their CHamoru roots had traveled to the area to share their cultural practices and art in collaboration with local indigenous artists and community members.
During the words of welcome facilitating artist Dakota Camacho describes the word Mali’e’ and its connection to this sharing. It is a form of poetry and literally translates as ‘to have been seen’. This form is interested in sharing different perspectives, honoring the collective mentality and celebrating everyone’s unique perspective and personal history. To be skilled at this form is to know your history and share it through sound and movement. Like the video I reflected on above, these structural intentions are a blend of poetic and abstract modes of artistic process related to the concept of “Home.” Where we come from and where we are going. Where and who we want to be and where and how we have been forced to live…and die. Cinematic and futuristic vibrations highlight the experience of indigeneity as a holistic artistic practice full of possibilities for connection and healing in the face of a genocidal and dystopian experience. The call to community is powerful: dancing and singing together, creating and sharing art with intentionality is an integral part of how we heal this overwhelmingly violent and disconnected world all of us call home.
A radical sense of “home” and family was shared and explored throughout, beginning with the welcome speech given by Camacho and the opening circle prayer and invocation dance. During the opening chant, the dancers begin circling the space starting in front of a house shaped structure made of hanging cloth suspended from the rafters called “the face of the house”. The difference in scale was extreme–ant-like human to massive tree-like structure. Feeling my place in the scheme of things near and far, I felt immersed in the reality that all homes are shared, that not caring about and not connecting with others’ sense of home is an indicator of sickness. This kind of illness signals a need for connection and care not for judgements and aggression.
The intergenerational ensemble of artists create a welcoming artistic family that invites us all to witness their collaborative chemistry and creative world building. The chants performed by the artists were composed by Jeremy Cepeda and the movements were collaboratively created by the MALI’E’ team. I was particularly intrigued by the way Camacho described chanting practices as ”improvisation, oral history, collective truths, rhythm, rhyme, wordplay, and the space for prophecy to emerge” in the digital invite for the event. Both the sound and movement practices are rooted in ancestral forms, contemporary composition techniques and various modes of improvisation. These all combine to create a fully embodied meditation. These artists are experts in flow; specialists in presence and rhythm. Rhythm of both the emotional and percussive kinds. Inversions and turns weave in and out of the dance with an air-like quality reminding me of the sounds that the musical accompanist provides throughout the evening playing various instruments. “We can resolve conflict through song, we can figure out things with our voices,” Camacho said in the introduction. I hear and see it here as the artists chant and circle the space. Camacho spoke very vulnerably about where these artists were coming from with this sharing: “We are grounded in the belief that our ancestors have a lot of intelligence, particularly about how important it is to recognize the spiritual reality. We as indigenous people are rebuilding our spiritual trade routes around the world…you brought your ancestors with you thank you so much for coming.”
Complex partnering arises out of the artists’ thrilling attention to the present moment and their noticeable attention to the breath as a catalyst for each sound and movement. The dancers move in ways that remind me of the precision and emotionality of an Alvin Ailey dance piece like Revelations. The spoken aspects remind me of performance artist Timothy White Eagle’s work deftly combining text, ritual, and storytelling structures. As I watch the artists move and sound I find myself thinking about the inhales and exhales of the individual and of the collective. I become very conscious of the breath of the performers and in turn my own. I notice my diaphragm contracting and expanding as I sit and listen. I imagine all of our breathing is connected to the wind I felt outside as it moved towards me across the face of the water just a short distance from the gathering space. I feel the ways my breath and actions are connected to those in the room with me and to all those outside of this space.
Group circle structures invite the architecture around us into the dance and sense of home. The gorgeous, warm, wooden community space dances with the wind, rain and the complex waterways of the Puget Sound just beyond these walls. The musician’s hands dance as they activate different instruments. The emotions and perspectives of everyone present dance with the artists. A deep awareness of the medium of dance to connect people with themselves and others and to adapt to the reality of the present moment is apparent in the deep listening and conscious movement of the artists. Dancing is a way to make ourselves at home in our own bodies, to make ourselves tangible to each other in ways language cannot…I see the ways that dance can hold both pain and pleasure. It is a way to celebrate and grieve the homes we create and destroy.
Video projections bring the natural elements in: lush landscapes, trees and dirt, water and wind in the leaves, the exteriors of domestic spaces, outdoor gathering areas, dancers moving in forests and in water. In front of these projections a trio forms, an abstraction of a social circle dance. Arms and legs are always in close relationship although constantly shifting in level and in textural quality. Suddenly they are a single shared body spinning like a whirlpool.
As the performance continues I begin to suspect that every mode of human expression could be called dancing: the dance of the vocal cords choreograph the formation of story; a chant dances with ancestral language and rhythm; the audience’s eyes and hearts dance in their tracking and witnessing of the performance; the dancers minds, muscles and breath move in complex harmony. Sound is not separate from the dance here. The chanting comes and goes along with the motions of joining together in a circle and dispersing into smaller groups. I see in these patterns the improvised and structured choreography of rituals and migrations, global disasters and collective celebrations.
In this world on fire, as fascist structures thrive, as protests and genocides rage right outside of our collective doorstep, we are all called to dance with and speak to everything going on around us. This experience reminded me to breathe, to listen, to celebrate, to grieve, to care for my relationship to others and to myself. It inspired me to listen to all that is seen and unseen, heard and unheard. To remember a prayer is a powerful intention even if it is simply an artistic one. Dance is a form rooted in ritual practices that are necessary for social health. If we are to care for each other and build a better world together we must dance together. These artists did not shy away from the power performance has to create a container for those present to reckon with our personal and collective history. To remember our collective power as members of the Earth’s family. Our home planet is the only one we will ever know in this lifetime. This home is worthy of our attention, our artistry, and our care.
