Danielle Diniz. Courtesy photograph.
I’m a dancer, and I’m the granddaughter of two immigrants, my grandmother from Mexico and my grandfather from Portugal.
I’ve been dancing since I used to be younger, and early in my profession, I heard a quote that has by no means left me: “When you can no longer speak, you sing. When you can no longer sing, you dance.”
That message has by no means felt extra pressing than proper now.
Throughout this nation, folks not in contrast to my grandparents reside in concern, afraid that every thing they’ve constructed, every thing they’ve sacrificed for, may very well be taken away in an on the spot, not due to something they’ve performed, however due to who they’re and the place they arrive from. Individuals are hiding of their houses. Dad and mom are being torn from their youngsters. Communities which have spent many years placing down roots are holding their breath.
And but. In the midst of all of this, one thing else is occurring. Individuals are popping out into the streets to guard their neighbors. Demonstrators are elevating consciousness and demanding change. Observers are documenting every thing, making certain that what is occurring can’t be hidden or denied. There may be even a outstanding group of New Yorkers who traveled to Minnesota to assist households pressured into hiding care for his or her pets, small acts of grace in an awesome second.
I’m responding with dance.
I do know that may sound just like the least pressing response of all. However I’ve at all times believed that dance can say issues that phrases merely can’t attain. Each step is a phrase. Each sequence of steps is a sentence. And when a dancer is actually inside a narrative and never simply shifting by means of it, one thing occurs within the room that no headline, no speech, no protest signal can replicate. You are feeling it earlier than you may have determined what to consider it.
Historical past has proven us this, from Alvin Ailey, who confirmed the world what the Black expertise seems to be and appears like by means of dance, to Unhealthy Bunny, whose Tremendous Bowl efficiency was a masterclass in what our bodies in movement can say, delivering a message of affection that transcended language.
No artist has formed my understanding of that energy greater than Jerome Robbins. “West Side Story” isn’t just an awesome piece of theater. It’s the story of any group attempting to make a brand new place their dwelling, the challenges and the alternatives, the longing and the hope, advised by means of motion in a method the entire world understood. I named my very own piece “A Place for Us” as a play on that custom. However the place that track carries eager for a spot that won’t exist, my title is a declaration. I’ve seen that place. My grandparents lived in it. When Accent Dance NYC, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing precisely these sorts of tales to the stage, commissioned me to make this work, I knew what I needed to say. I simply didn’t know the way urgently the world would wish to listen to it.
My grandmother got here to the USA by means of the Pasajeros Program, crossing seasonally to select fruit together with her household till she earned authorized entry. What I do know is that she was extraordinary, as had been so many individuals who took these sorts of journeys and labored so onerous to construct one thing new. She settled in Lodi, California, the place she met my grandfather, a Portuguese orphan who had come by means of Ellis Island with nothing, alone. They each ended up in the identical fruit fields. That’s the place they discovered one another.
They didn’t need to stand out. They had been unassuming, decided to construct a life quietly, with out drawing consideration. They didn’t even educate my father to talk Spanish, so centered had been they on making a house on this new place with out being seen, with out being focused, with out giving anybody a cause to query whether or not they belonged. They needed, greater than something, to easily be. To construct a household. To present their youngsters one thing they by no means had.
Once I take into consideration my grandmother, about how she seemed and the way she spoke, I do know she wouldn’t have been secure at the moment. That thought doesn’t go away me.
The piece ends with a metropolis scene. Vibrant. Inclusive. Everybody discovering their place. When it’s carried out on stage this weekend in New York Metropolis, I need audiences to see the world my grandparents discovered. It’s the world I need to consider we are able to return to. And I do know that scene seems to be completely different now than it did after I first made this piece. I do know that the welcome it portrays is just not the truth so many households reside with at the moment. However I nonetheless finish with that scene. As a result of I consider in hope. As a result of I see it on daily basis in the way in which neighbors and communities are displaying up for one another, within the streets, of their group chats, on their doorsteps. And since I believe we have to be reminded, as usually as potential, of the world we’re able to being.
My grandparents got here right here with virtually nothing and constructed a life. That life made mine potential. I made this piece for them. However I additionally made it for everybody who deserves the identical probability they’d, and for everybody who believes they need to have it. There are moments when phrases usually are not sufficient. When the physique has to talk. That is a type of moments. I select to reply it the one method I understand how. I dance.
Danielle Diniz is a New York-based choreographer whose work has been commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow, Efficiency Santa Fe, and Ballet Hartford.
