 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Dancing for Peace in Luanda, Angola, Africa
|
Inbound
|
Joy's Dairy
“Will passenger Eleanor Packard, for BA Flight 077 to Luanda, please make her way to Gate 28 immediately.”
F***. What time is it? Dana had told me to avoid displays of conspicuous wealth so I’ve left my watch at home. The clock on my mobile says 6.20.
BA only flies to Luanda once a week. So does Air France. If I miss this I won’t make the start of Dance for Peace. Oh dear… Gate 28 is miles away. I start running. And tallying: two visas (£40 each); one Yellow Fever Certificate (£45); jabs for Typhoid, Hepatitis A & B, Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Polio (free but painful); and Malaria prophylaxis (free but constipating). Not to mention the months of preparation, emotional wear and tear, and a pre-paid child care bill that would cancel the Third World Debt. All to no avail if I don’t get on this flight. Explain that one to Dana. If I miss it, I’m a dead woman.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
Dana's Dairy
I picked Joy up from the airport on the 4:00 a.m. flight. She looked great and confident when she got off the plane, It was still dark when we arrived at the home of my friend where she would be staying (I have two cats and Joy is very allergic. Plus, she’d have her own little apartment at my friends two level flat). After I got Joy settled I went home for a bit, and it was only then that I noticed I was shaking. I had been so worried Joy wouldn’t make it through customs, that they would find some error with her visa that I we hadn’t caught, and that she’d be stuck in the airport with scary guards and officials and not be able to contact me. I hadn’t realized I was that anxious.
Read Full Diary Entry ›› |
|
|
Day One
|
Joy's Dairy
The heat. It was the heat wot did me in! I had been incarcerated in the ex-finance minister’s plush air-conditioned apartment since I arrived. When I alighted from the water-cooled 4x4 outside the school it was as though I’d been run over by a steamroller. And it was only 7.30 in the morning. The school had no air-conditioning. I thought I was going to pass out at lunchtime. I kept drinking bottle after bottle of water between slapping on the anti-mossie chemicals and keeping out of direct sunlight (anti-malaria medication warning.) I was an overheated, bright red, frizzy-haired apparition of Anglo-Saxon loveliness. The kids kept looking at me as though I were an alien.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
Dana's Dairy
On the day of the workshop we got to the workshop site, ICRA (The Catholic Science Institute of Angola) at 7:20. No one was there, not even Gil from Development Workshop, which is sponsoring this project Of course, the gymnasium was not set up as we requested. There were 50 desks still set up in it, so we had to move them all out. The bathrooms and the lunch room were locked. A power cord ran from the end of the gym where the stereo equipment was, through the entire gym, out the entranceway and up the stairs so that it could have a good power connection. It still didn’t work.
Read Full Diary Entry ›› |
|
|
Day Two
|
Joy's Dairy
“Your blood just needs to thin a bit then you’ll be fine.” says Dana encouragingly. I look in the Guide Book, under ‘B’, for BLOOD: Thinning (how to) but can’t find anything. I pull three chairs together, lie down and pour water over my head. Bliss. It’s as hot as Hades and getting hotter.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
Dana's Dairy
We’re pretty clear that the “personal warm-up in movement time” I’ve scheduled for each morning is going to run later than planned, just so all the kids can arrive. Of course, I was very specific the first day about being on time, but I also knew the reality, considering all the places these kids came from, was going to be that I had to be flexible about time issues. We are in Africa on African time, and that has a different flow to it.
Read Full Diary Entry ›› |
|
|
Day Three
|
Joy's Dairy
I’m feeling sombre this morning. Staying with a Chevron family means some heavy duty education about how the oil companies aren’t the Bad Guys. I don’t know any politicians to find out what they think. As I understand it the beef is that the oil companies should be more transparent about resources and so should the government. Where is the money going when it goes from oil company to government because it isn’t trickling down to the people. We have $10,000 from Chevron which went directly to Development Workshop for this peace dance. Seems pretty transparent.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
Dana's Dairy
Day three is the best day yet. Joy leads the group through sound exercises It takes them some time to put power in their voices but once they do, it keeps going, and they even play with a little improv harmonizing and trying different notes. We have them do contour/contrast, sitting back to back and standing up, leaning over each other, leaning over each other in a standing position. These kids are strong and athletic and they’re willing to experiment.
Read Full Diary Entry ›› |
|
|
Day Four
|
Joy's Dairy
Whereas Monday had been hard going full stop, today was hard going but productive and satisfying. We start with a sound warm-up using Jamie’s score followed by mapping out the Earth Run. A couple of practices. They are a little bit desultory. Dana is really good at the art and science of shaping. Aligning the concrete with the spiritual. She’d make a really good theatre director if she ever wants a career change.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
Dana's Dairy
Today we do the Earth Run, and I have the idea that because it is a closed score, it’s going to be easy. Not exactly. This is humorous in retrospect, but at the time when I was trying to direct them in the process and the choreography I wanted to beat my head against the wall.
Read Full Diary Entry ›› |
|
|
Day Five
|
Joy's Dairy
What Dana does well is frame things. She gives a beautiful frame for today and for the journey we’ve made this week. We run through their ending dance. They want to do it three times. OK. Then a run through of the whole thing. This time feels different, more of a ritual quality.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
Dana's Dairy
I thought about contextualizing everything we had done over the week. When the kids came in we had them sit down in a big circle. I told them we’d been on a journey, a process, similar to what the Native Americans of our country called a vision quest. I saw some kids nod their heads, which I imagined to mean they understood and knew about the Native American vision quest. I took them through everything we did that week, and what each day meant in theory. On day one we identified our issues, on day two we built a strong community, got in touch with our warriors to support the monsters that would come out later, and then allowed our monsters, both personal and those of the community and world, to come out.
Read Full Diary Entry ›› |
|
|
Day Six
|
Joy's Dairy
Imagine a cross between Danny DeVitto and Woody Allen.
Dress him in combats, a black beret and green Wellington boots. Imbue him with the kind of movement you see on a catwalk when they stop, turn, and swing out a long coat. Put him at the very epicentre of his universe. Meet Ike the cameraman sent to film Dance for Peace. “I will be able to stop and start them to get the best shots, won’t I?” he says. In my mind I’m holding my head in my hands. Where to begin? I usher him and his tripod off the dance space.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
Dana's Dairy
I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this nervous. I get to the school early, and there are a few youth waiting around and talking. Two have taken it upon themselves to clean the ground-space of the performance area. They’ve hosed it down, and in traditional African/Angolan fashion, one girl is using a parcel of sticks to broom away the dirt, and one boy is using rags to sop up the additional water. It’s actually back-breaking work, but they’ve done it without being asked. I feel like they’re doing a ritual cleansing of the space.
Read Full Diary Entry ›› |
|
|
Outbound
|
Joy's Dairy
After I switch off my mobile, I take another peek at the business card. It reads, Eunice Mangueave Inacio, Coordenadorva de Projecto.
Wow, I’ve worked with someone who was up for the Nobel peace prize. I wasn’t sure what to expect before I met her but as is usually the case she turned out to be normal – normal but doing abnormal things in abnormal circumstances. She joined in our name game exercise at the beginning of the workshop, spoke at the Earth Run and presented the certificates at the end.
Read Full Diary Entry ››
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
