Narration:
Idaho and Utah have often been referred to as places of
little diversity. I was raised mostly in
Preston Idaho where the most diverse person you would find is Uncle Rico. I would get a firm scolding if I ever wanted
to play rap music in the weight room and I could count the number of African
Americans at my high school on less than one finger. We were nervous about that which was
different.
In church, we were reminded of our eternal identity as
brothers, sisters, and children of God yet it was hard to connect as a brother
or sister with someone who we only saw on TV.
With my travellings outside of my small valley, I have had to adapt
quickly to differences. I was a missionary
in Italy seeing people from around the world and having no idea how to connect
with them.
The gospel brought us together but before that we had to
meet each other in a pleasant manner. I
soon found that “morning to ya.” Would not suffice as a proper morning
salutation. I had to figure out how to
connect with all these people in some other way.
At night, I would awkward dance with my companions as part
of our nightly wind-down ritual. No
matter which companion I had and no matter his background, they always knew
what dancing was and that people often do it to express joy. I had found my connecting point; joy.
No matter where the person was from, what color they were,
what religion they professed, or whether or not they brushed their teeth,
didn’t matter because they were all still human and man are that they might
have joy.
When I saw this movie by Matt Harding dancing with people
around the world, I was reminded of the time I learned a Quechua tribal dance
from my Ecuadorian companion and the baptism dance my companion from Las Vegas
and I choreographed to express our joy of Rossella Musolino acknowledging her
identity as a daughter of God.
Dance has been the turning point for me to connect with that
which is different. But, moreso, it has
been the impetus of my growing recollection and belief that we are all
brothers, sisters, and children of almighty God.
ARTIST STATEMENT
From the first day that I heard about the fireside chat, I
was excited for it to arrive. I felt
that it was a prime moment to be able to culminate all our experiences in art
and life into a message that could benefit those we labor amongst. I was excited because, like K. Newell Dayley says, “..,the arts
enable us to communicate important realities that can be shared in no other
way.”
I knew right away that I would want to involve an artistic
talent of mine, dance, in some way and I thought of a few life lessons that I thought
would be particularly poignant to our artistic film audience (ie: put
relationships before busy work, or be conscious of the label on your back and
be an example at all times). I have
never tried to choreograph a dance that tells a story other than love and
flirting (ballroom) so I was treading in uncommon territory.
Still in uncertainty of how I would pull it all together, I
found inspiration from the wonderful NPR
program, “This I Believe” which was linked for inspiration on the class blog. I saw one that said dance in the title so I went
right to it and started listening to the podcast. Then I saw links to some of the man’s YouTube
videos of dancing so I watched them while listening to his podcast essay. It was a sudden inspiration of the power of
narration during a video and I decided I would do the same for my presentation. Furthermore, I was inspired by his words on
the unity of dance and it remind me of personal experiences where I felt the same
way (as is mentioned in the narration above) and I decided to use one of his
videos as an example to help the audience visually see what I saw in other when
I realized the shared characteristic of joy through dance that all humans have.
I concluded that I would also need
to show my dancing abilities to show how I am part of the human family too and
that dancing brings me joy. It was a way
of me adding my witness to my acknowledgement as a son of God and of my belief
that we are all his sons and daughters at the end of it all. Dance is the way we let that identity shine
through.
