ChildVoice International, Our Partner

Exciting news! ChildVoice International, an organization devoted to building a sustainable village of refuge and care for Uganda's child victims of war, has officially agreed to partner with Tuzina for the duration of its stay in Uganda! We'll be staying at their Lukome Centre, which is located north of Gulu. We'll be collaborating specifically with child mothers and their young children, as well as going into schools and other community establishments to give dance classes. ChildVoice is a beautifully holistic organization, and I really cannot describe how blessed I feel to be able to join them in furthering their goals.

For more information, please visit:

http://childvoiceintl.org/

Art as Advocacy

This weekend I've been in Washington DC along with a couple hundred other students and social activists participating in an action summit sponsored by the organization United to End Genocide. The passion and energy behind the students' activism was tangibly felt as soon as I entered the ballroom in which the main meetings of the conference were held: students sporting Save Darfur and STAND t-shirts, students nodding emphatically in agreement with the speakers' words, students taking advantage of networking opportunities both with each other and with the Sudanese diaspora. It was exhilarating to be a part of the program, to join with young adults in learning from victims themselves about the current situations in Sudan, Libya, Syria, the Congo, and Burma. We learned what we can do not only to raise awareness about these conflicts but also to ensure that the U.S. reacts in a way that is neither acting intrusively nor choosing to remain silent but instead seeks to give the victims the support they need to counteract the atrocities which regimes such as Omar al-Bashir's inflict upon them. It is rare that we recognize atrocities such as these using the term "genocide" when they are occurring--it is only afterward that we recognize genocides for what they are. President Clinton's greatest regret when he left the Oval Office was that he did not do more to prevent the genocide that occurred in Rwanda during his presidency. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today." I was honored to be part of a group that was willing to recognize the situations in these countries as genocidal in their nature and is committed to actively working to end them.

This weekend I had an important realization: that awareness of these issues is imperative not only in the international community but also in the surrounding areas of the conflicts and by those in post-conflict zones. It is not enough for outsiders to understand the depth of the atrocities; the countries and communities nearby but not involved in the conflict ought to understand it as well because this is essential in ensuring that they do not mistakenly aid or abet the perpetrators of the crimes (silence/inaction itself being a form of abetting). One of the aims of Tuzina is to support the victims of genocide, particularly children, by using dance as a tool of solidarity, expression, and remembrance in bringing healing to their communities. Whether the atrocities are committed by corrupt governments, rebel armies, or the invasive thief called poverty, Tuzina believes that the victims of these assaults can utilize dance to tell their stories so that both the international community and their regional communities might sooner recognize the vicious nature of the wrongs against them and respond. As Rachel Steinhardt said this weekend (in words very similar to those used by filmmaker Jen Marlowe the day before), "Words and statistics speak to our minds; art speaks to our souls...It is our responsibility to keep these stories alive." Dance has the possibility of becoming a tradition through which past conflicts are remembered and current ones are brought to broader attention. It can be used by the older members of the community to remind their children of past conflict and warn them against following in the same pattern. It can be used as a conversation-starter so that audiences can confront the issues and discuss how to respond. Tuzina hopes to be a vehicle through which this tradition is begun.

What is Tuzina?

Goal:
To establish a personal connection with a war-affected community of children in Uganda in order to understand their culture, help them to express themselves and work through the trauma which they have experienced, and raise awareness here in the US about the way in which armed conflicts affect their lives.

Description:
Tuzina is a group of five dancers and a filmmaker who plan to travel to Uganda during June 2012 in order to collaborate in dance classes and performances with children who have experienced war-related trauma. During our two and a half week trip, we will teach dance classes daily and will teach the children pieces which they will later perform for the rest of their community. Our dance classes and choreography will be rooted in modern technique, but we will emphasize its use in providing the children with an outlet for the emotions they have experienced, particularly in response to trauma. Creative improvisation dance classes will give children the opportunity to develop their personal style of movement in order to give better expression to these emotions as well. We would like to take East African dance classes from them in return. At the end of each week, Tuzina and the children will give a collaborative performance for the community (two to four performances total). Tuzina will perform pieces which we have choreographed and rehearsed beforehand intermixed with the pieces the children have learned during our time there.

Benefits for the Community:
We hope first and foremost to inspire the children of the community to work through the traumatic events they have experienced and to celebrate their culture. Tuzina believes that each child has an important personal story to tell, and we want to enable them to tell it using the universal language of dance. We also want to raise awareness about the issues that impact these kids’ lives on a day-to-day basis, such as the war against the Lord’s Resistance Army. We will therefore document the work we do with the children and create a student film emphasizing what we learned about these conflicts. When we return to the U.S., we will hold screenings of the film. We will also choreograph and perform works based upon our interaction with the children as well as the issues affecting them.

Long-term Goal:
Tuzina is founded upon the idea that we do not know the best method of dancing. Instead, we hope to learn from the children what kind of dance springs up intuitively into their bodies and reflects their cultural values. Keeping this in mind, we plan to develop a connection with the community in order to establish a lasting arts exchange. This trip will be the first step of a long-term goal of beginning one or more arts schools in East Africa. Over the coming years, Tuzina will periodically return to the community in order to continue the work it has begun there. As soon as resources and artists are available, we will establish an arts school with the intention of empowering children affected by social and political conflicts to express themselves, remember their history, and celebrate their culture.