Input from Nandita Shankardass
(Dance artist, Choreographer, Facilitator and Educator and Founder of Welcome Movement®)
Good afternoon everyone, Buenas tardes a todos
Estoy aqui con mucho gusto y placer.
I have felt so welcome in Mexico since arriving last week first to Guadalajara and now here in Mexico City, by the warmth of the people and the vibrant and energetic culture!
Seria mi primera vez hablando y compartiendo en una reunion como este y es un honour estar aqui con ustedes.
Sigo con mi presentation en Ingles.
I wanted to share with you some of my experiences in the field of arts and culture primarily in dance and what it means to me and some ideas around why we are gathered here today.
My name is Nandita Shankardass, I am a dance artist, choreographer, facilitator and educator. I am the founder of Welcome Movement® a service which offers opportunities to generate wellbeing, encourage freedom of expression and stimulate creativity through movement and dance for any individual, organisation or community. Welcome Movement® and it’s services began in lockdown offering a variety of sessions for organisations and people working from home, facilitated over zoom to bring relief and life to bodies and minds tired from working at their makeshift desks in their living rooms. Offers included meditation sessions and dance classes ranging from ballet to contemporary, yoga and creative improvisational movement exploration. Being able to offer these sessions online allowed me to connect with people across the globe.
Since lockdown and to date, Welcome Movement® has visited a variety of spaces from care homes for the elderly, refugee centres, youth groups and organisations supporting women suffering from all kinds of abuse to restaurant groups, insurance companies and art galleries. Whether online or in person, when I am with a new community group, in a new space, a different space to the theatre or the dance studio, I am always keen to learn, to what I will discover with whoever I share the space with and the energy and vibration we create and can transform in our time together.
What has led me to create Welcome Movement® and my current evolving practice in the arts, has been both my experience as a full time performing artist and as a freelance artist, choreographer and facilitator for over 22 years after 15 years of dance training. I have had the privilege to enjoy a full time performance career in Europe with Zurich ballet in Switzerland and the Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid, Spain, Ballet Black in London, U.K. and Scottish ballet in Glasgow, Scotland, touring and performing across the globe in Europe, Asia. I have been a freelancer and independent artist since the last 5 years, with my first visit to Latin America this past week.
To have been invited and hosted in another country, welcomed by their culture are some of the most unforgettable experiences and moments of my life to date and has been my primary route to learning about other cultures. This has been through cooperation and collaboration across nations and countries across the world to bring dance to their countries. I am grateful to the field of dance, arts and culture that this has been possible. Understanding different perspectives and experiencing other ways of life I feel are some of the greatest pleasures we can experience during our time on earth and share with others.
Sharing culture is to share a large part of our humanity.
To share art in any form is to share and express our thoughts, ideas and emotions, within our human experience and our imagination and visions and harness our creativity.
What I enjoy most about my art form is that movement and dance are languages which can crossover the boundary of a spoken language in how it can communicate and reach others, in deep, meaningful and transformative ways. Where language can be a barrier to understanding, movement and dance create bridges from one soul and mind to another.
I believe that stories, traditions, folklore, our personal and collective experiences from the wealth of cultures present on our earth, are to be preserved, valued and shared in as many ways possible. Through performance, archives and various documentation, we can keep these valuable assets of our cultures alive and vibrant in our own hearts and for future generations and for those who travel to our countries to experience another way of life and different perspectives.
I am excited and encouraged to have seen a rise in how performance art, dance and interactive and participatory experiences are being shared, not only in theatres but in museums, art galleries, outdoor festivals and community spaces and hubs around the world,
In my personal experience as a woman of colour of south asian heritage and 1st generation in the U.K, it is important to me how people of colour in the arts and beyond are supported. Since the pandemic, the event which led to the Black Lives Matter movement was a catalyst for an urgent need to create more opportunities and respect for people of colour, long overdue with still a lot more ground to cover and glass ceilings to breakthrough for artists of colour in a post colonial world.
We have seen some improvement in more diverse artists across cultures and ethnicities and across all art mediums being commissioned and invited to share their work in galleries and cultural and art spaces. There is still work to be done and many more artists to support and celebrate, but we have begun to move in a direction which is broader, encompassing more and more cultures which we can learn from and I do hope this effort and awareness continues to grow in as many directions as possible in the future.
When given the freedom and support, an artist will relish the opportunities to respond and adapt to or challenge a new space, a new scenario, a new brief. It becomes our playground and grounds for creativity, innovation and evolution of our art and the way in which we can approach and translate and transmit and communicate it with others.
I think it is important and vital in this day and age that artists are given more platforms to talk about their work and processes to foster and encourage more scope for collaborations and cooperation. Opportunities for cultural leaders, experts from different sectors and artists to come together to discuss and learn and understand more about their practices and visions.
As an audience member, as an artist as a facilitator I have felt the power of moving art/dance shared and offered in a number of public spaces such at the Tate Modern where I was part of a project which responded to an installation by Cecilia Vicuña a Chilean artist, through dance, music and spoken word, the National Gallery in London to the Festival del Libro just last week in Guadalajara. These opportunities spark reflections, conversations and connections.
Last Friday as part of Festival del Libro, I was performing at Teatro Vivian Blumenthal in “Unearthing”, directed and choreographed by my colleague Gloria Benedikt. It Is an interactive performance focussed on the climate crisis, learning from the past and finding solutions for the future, which integrated its audience and collaborated with local theatre students and actors in Guadalajara
This was a prime example of just how EU and LAC artists and communities can share, discuss and create new solutions and ideas together and cooperate in coming together across cultures and perspectives.
We offered an opportunity in the safe space of the theatre to think about and find solutions together, inspired and moved by the medium of dance in the 1st half of the show, I was so encouraged to see how enthusiastic our audience was to think about and discuss solutions for climate crisis with us in this interactive experience in the theatre last Friday evening. It was truly a joy and step forward to be a part of this experience.
There is an authentic openness I have experienced here in Mexico in how the people love to share their music, their dance and their culture. It is courageous, bold and inspiring. Meeting the local theatre students and actors these last few days, they shared the music they listen to by their favourite mexican artists, took us to see live mariachi music and dance and asked us to share our most favourite and iconic music from our countries in exchange. This is something which can happen naturally and spontaneously when various cultures meet and represents our need to connect, learn and understand each other. In building trust in safe spaces, these encounters and experiences are seeds for more collaborations, conversations, creativity and collaboration to bloom. I appreciate and realise the power of the art of gathering and the fruits of this simple powerful act which can create exciting and lasting connections.
Possibilities for collaboration between sectors across Europe and LAC could be shaped and developed in the following ways;
Cultural Exchange Programs: Implementing extensive cultural exchange programs that involve artists, performers, and intellectuals from both regions, fostering mutual understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures.
Joint Arts Festivals: Organising joint arts and cultural festivals that showcase the richness of both Latin American and European artistic traditions, promoting cross-cultural dialogue and collaboration.
Educational Partnerships: Establishing collaborative educational initiatives between institutions in LAC and the EU to encourage the exchange of students and researchers, facilitating the sharing of knowledge and skills.
Heritage Preservation: Collaborating on projects to preserve and promote cultural heritage, including the restoration of historical sites, museums, and cultural artifacts, ensuring their protection for future generations.
Music and Performing Arts Collaborations: Fostering partnerships between musicians, dancers, and performing artists from LAC and the EU to create innovative and inclusive performances that blend cultural elements.
Cultural Diplomacy Initiatives: Leveraging cultural events and activities as tools for diplomatic relations, strengthening ties between nations through shared cultural experiences.
Tourism and Cultural Experiences: Collaborating on tourism initiatives that highlight the cultural richness of both regions, encouraging travellers to explore diverse landscapes, traditions, and cuisines.
In the realm of arts and wellbeing collaboration between Latin America and the European Union, envisioning scenarios involves fostering cultural exchanges that prioritise mental and emotional health. This could include joint initiatives promoting art therapy, cross-cultural art exhibitions addressing mental health themes, and collaborative projects exploring the intersection of art, culture, and wellbeing. Such endeavours could contribute to a more interconnected and resilient global community.
An impulse to create exchanges, collaboration and really first of all meetings and dialogues, even if they begin online over a screen, to share what is important to us and be spontaneous and open in our interactions, within a safe and secure environment, to express and share our perspectives and experiences. Respect for each culture’s stance and viewpoint is paramount to forging connections and creating and nurturing relationships.
Climate crisis, health and wellbeing, education, freedom, justice are a few of many areas of our lives and this world which will always need attention, support and nourishment to evolve. Sharing resources, ideas, experiences can create deep foundations with varied perspectives to approach these areas with the spectrum of our humanity.
I find that in gathering to experience art and culture, we subconsciously almost enter another dimension where more possibilities can arrive, knock on the door of our hearts and emerge, where we are in a state of curiosity and openness to receive what is being shared and energy is generated which holds a transformative power to grow and discover.
