Gift Listening

To say we’ve worked hard feels almost an understatement… Rehearsing from morning until night most days, spending time together, visiting the guys’ families, eating together and sharing living space, drawing together the full embodiment, performance and dialogue, of ‘The Champions Tale’.

The intention of this performance is to blur the lines between performers and audience that real cross-cultural connection can happen, and I’ve experienced some significant shifts during this time in my own experience of connecting across cultures, race, and privilege.

Over my next few posts I’d like to share of the learning i’ve had around these topics, as well as the steps I’ve taken to create the restorative dialogue space, and the array of opportunities we’ve come up with that you can experience what we’ve created and take part wherever you may be in the world.

Right now I need to get to bed as we fly home tomorrow, and I will leave you with a few pictures of our wee family here.

Ngiyabonga, Thank you, South Africa, for this incredible journey!

In the spirit of Ubuntu…

In the spirit of Ubuntu, a troupe is born, as a holding space for clear seeing is formedWe’ll be heading into the township for the next week and i’m not sure i’ll have internet to post again in that time. I’m really excited to be a part of a ‘troupe’, and here the work begins. A whole week at least to be with The Champions, connecting, rehearsing and creating our container; to work together, and…

In the spirit of Ubuntu, a troupe is born, as a holding space for clear seeing is formed

We’ll be heading into the township for the next week and i’m not sure i’ll have internet to post again in that time. I’m really excited to be a part of a ‘troupe’, and here the work begins. A whole week at least to be with The Champions, connecting, rehearsing and creating our container; to work together, and in which we will hold the performances. I’m working particularly on creating the space…

We landed in Durban yesterday morning. I’m feeling pretty frazzled, and want to capture some of my initial impressions and senses so i’ve a true sense of what develops, for me and the project over the next couple of weeks. 

Of what i’ve experienced so far, SA is very alive. Real. We travelled through several townships where BEunited are involved in supporting a whole host of projects - a grandmother (Gogo) who runs an orphanage caring for 29 children on her pension and donations which BEunited collect, and a guy collecting and doing up bikes for the kids, who needs more tools and wants to create a safe place for them to cycle.

I’m very aware of my non awareness of what’s truly happening here. How the segregation truly lives in people...We’re currently staying at Emma’s cousin’s place, an estate of mainly white people where as far as i’ve seen, the black people are working in the homes and on the grounds... There’s a great sense of community though... like, yeah there’s segregation, and it’s not hidden in any way. Like, It’s palpable in the air and is ‘lived with’...

Later we are going to Richmond Farm, a township where the dancers, The Champions, we’re working with live. I hope to learn more about how the history and present of this land lives in them...

Me and Emma have been reflecting on how cultural difference and disconnection happens when there isn’t a shared reality - i.e. it is easier for me to feel empathy (experiencing how someone else’s experience may be for them) for something happening to someone within my own culture as I have a clear sense of how their lives will be effected. Within other cultures, where I maybe don’t have a sense of how people live, what’s important to them, what their joys and challenges are, how the fabric of their lives is woven, it becomes harder to extend their experience to myself. 

My practice of Nonviolent Communication gives me a basis of practice that brings clarity to the shared reality between all people, regardless of culture. That all human beings share the same basic needs, and that all actions are an attempt to meet needs. 

The work that we are doing with this project, bringing artists across to the UK to perform within a frame of restorative dialogue, is to create bridges between the differences of ‘how we live’, and the shared reality of our humanness. 

Currently in preparation for heading out to Durban, South Africa, tomorrow. I’m going with an open heart, open mind and excited to meet new people, learn new things and see what arises... 

The combining of Music, Dance and Restorative Dialogue is an important meeting point for me, bringing together the passions of my younger self for expression and connecting through performative arts, and my focus over the past years on Nonviolent Communication - restorative communication practices that support connection and co-creation at the level of our shared humanity. In my experience music and dance naturally connects and takes us to this place of our shared humanness... 

The curiosity I carry with me to Durban is, in what ways does life manifest in daily rhythms that may be similar, and different, to how this manifests where I am from...? What are people’s unique joys and challenges? How can we create a space where dialogue can emerge that honors and experientially shares the fullness of life as experienced in both places...?

I’m deeply grateful for the support I have received so far in actualising my participation in this project in a way that meets my value of co-creation. This has come in forms of offers of support in maintaining self-connection and clarity throughout the project, financial support, and the soul nurturing companionship of shared excitement :)

More information on the project can be found on my funding page at: https://www.youcaring.com/beunited-843391 and watch this space for what emerges to be shared from Durban!