…Dreams…Dance…Diversity…Reflections on YIP

The World as a Garden

Things are flying by here at YIP and as I am drawn into the reflection space of the last week of presentations I am finding that the more I try to find out what I am doing the less sure I am. These past few weeks the most present aspects are the up coming sense festival, the end of YIP and the dream of touring with the World as a Garden (http://worldasagarden.withtank.com/).

This past year has been held together by the dancing that I have done with 9 amazing girls for these last months. Dance for me is the unique relationship of a body to music that reflects the environment. It is the creation of the in-betweens.

The constant flow and change, the dancing between concrete ideas and dreams is rightly represented almost metaphorically in the dancing that I have been doing for the past 8 months in the mornings. In many ways the role that dance has had over these months is the main constant and at the same time an expression of this entire year. It has given me confidence and strength, it has taught me to work together with others in situations that require more than one perspective and it has given value to the beauty that we can create with a few simple steps and a desire to reveal a truth that is only tangible for a moment before it vanishes and becomes a thing bound by time and space.

I never imagined that I would be a dancer. I was the shy one, bound to corners and happiest when others were happy. I came to YIP with the intention of finding my future, perhaps initiating a project and educating myself in a free environment. I never dreamed that that I would discover a passion for dance and culture in the setting of a program for social entrepreneurs. To me the dance is so much more than just the accumulation of movements and the final performance. It has been a key part of my year at YIP and through it I have been able to gain self confidence and find a person that I never knew could stand so free.

I experienced so many challenges both physically and mentally. It was so often about coming to terms with the fact that my body could not always cooperate exactly how I thought it would in copying Ediane’s gestures. It was so hard to really be aware of every aspect of my body!

Through dance I have found a means of expressing myself in a way that I never knew I was capable of and also a way of rationalizing thoughts and creating a clear thinking space when all the chaos around me is overwhelming.

Arrival in Cusco

After 26 hours of traveling we arrived in Cusco to discover that our backpacks were still in Lima.  We were not too thrilled to discover this, but hey it began a total adventure…. and we still don´t have our bags!

We are staying in the city in a small compound where our host, Yanet, and her family all live in a series of small rooms feeding onto a court yard! No toilet or shower….  although the promise of a hot kettle of water is not so bad. We were introduced to the nearby market where all sorts of fruit and veggies were being sold in a collage of bright colours and the smell of meat, exposed to the air too long, created a bit of an over powering smell. Jose, our hosts 6 year old nephew ran through the market ahead of us making it almost impossible for us to follow as we dodged fruit stands and tryed to avoid stepping on people dogs and everything else that is below eye level.

to be continued….no more credit

Impressions from an airplane

The Andean Mountains, steep crevaces, a collage of greys and greens going on for miles below. As the pink sun rises the shadows grow more defined and the contrasts between light and dark become accentuated. Ridges, toped with snow, converge into valleys where the snakelike movement betrays the many rivers winding below.

Backpack out!

A pancake breakfast and the comforting morning chaos of Televana, a good cup of coffee…make that two cups and then maybe think about packing! I am not really the planned traveler…or rather I prefer to wait until 4 in the morning before my flight to even think about packing …

Tomorrow I will be flying in the air on my way to Cuzco, Peru via Madrid & Lima where I will hopefully end up in the small town of Huacarpay. We finally have a bit of information about our host including the fact that no one there speaks any English, and our sleeping arrangments will be nice and cozy with the refugees who are staying in the local school. But hey, instant emersion into a language is an awesome opportunity and I am super excited!

It is an odd concept to think that one day we can all be here together in Järna and tomorrow we will be on several continents living seperate adventures, and bringing our unique gifts to people all over the world.

Earth hour in 30 min and we are creating a mass amount of food for 37 excited Yippies! And tomorrow…Finally…I am off!

Dancing in a Garden

The Loud silence of 9 girls sitting behind a stage stretching, wondering how 6 months can really accumulate into one evening performance. 

When I started YIP I never imagined that I would find myself on a stage, in front of an audience, dancing.

It started randomly with a group of us who wanted to do something active in the mornings, keeping in mind that this was when the sun was still rising at 6am and getting up at 6:30 was not so far out. Ediane, a fellow Yippy from Brazil, is a talented dancer and after a bit of convincing she was happy to lead these random morning sessions.

 Except for her none of us had danced before and the first weeks were full of black and blue hips from spinning floor routines, and the promise that soon our colourful bruises would disappear. . . if we continued to the same things that gave them to us in the first place.

Since the beginning Ediane has always called us her flowers, full of diversity and unique gifts.  Her love of dance and the human body, with all its interconnected muscles, bones and ligaments, was evident in all the things that she brought to our morning sessions. She pushed us to achieve things we never though possible and together we created a garden of possibilities.

 

Then sometime in November we decided to create a performance to exhibit a bit of our dance, and the result was ”The World as a Garden”. A collection of dances that incorporated various dance techniques, and bit of culture from around the world.  Lets just say that learning an Afro dance was never in my plans before I came here!!!

 

Afro

Couples

 As a group we got through pitch dark 6:30am mornings, we laughed and cried, we had a broken arm, sprained wrists and aching bodies; we survived a Swedish winter and now  looking into the future I see that all it takes is a dream full of inspiration, lots of hard work, commitment & fun.

 I never started out to become a dancer, I started out to have fun with a group of friends that I love and that alone led to a garden filled with thousands of diverse and amazing promises!

Together we created something that celebrated each one of our individual and unique capacities, and I am so proud of what we have all achieved. I am so grateful for all the things that I have learned from you and I am excited to see where our next steps will lead.