Chronicles of a Dancer's Body

On Injury, Recovery, and Longevity

Last Wednesday I woke up and had mysteriously injured my knee overnight. So much so that I had trouble walking and putting weight on it. I had been perfectly fine the day before, and the day before that, had even done my morning yoga practice and gone to dance class and felt great after both experiences. But at some point I must have hyperextended in a pose for too long or done some kind of high impact jump with a weird landing, because the pain was undeniable.

And goddamnit, it was Wednesday.

Wednesday is my favorite day in Johannesburg. On Wednesday mornings, I take an amazing and uber advanced Afro Contemporary company class with the world-renowned Vuyani Dance Theatre, followed by a slow and fluid Hatha yoga class with my favorite yoga teacher in SA, Martiz Steyn, and a fun high-energy Cuban salsa social with Baila Afrika at night. It is like a yummy and delicious bite of my entire dance and movement background in 1 glorious day- the fluid modern dance, the centering spiritual yoga practice, and the rhythmic freestyle of Afro-Latin social dances.

Catch, release, open, sweep, slide, smile #joniandmarinadancedayslay @thatanelo

A photo posted by Marina Magalhães (@marinamagalicious) on

Needless to say, I fucking love Wednesdays in Joburg.

But that day I woke up and my body was denying me all three of these experiences. Telling me to stop moving, slow down, and take care of myself. So, reluctantly, I did.

See, feel, play, respond. Choreographic experiments with @thatanelo #grateful

A photo posted by Marina Magalhães (@marinamagalicious) on

As I did last December, when a reoccurring condition in a reproductive gland flared up again worse than ever and required a last minute surgery and a month of bedrest and recovery. That time, I had to drop out of a series of performances I was doing with Viver Brasil dance company and give up my spot in BodyTraffic’s highly competitive winter dance intensive with world-renowned choreographer Kyle Abraham. I was heartbroken. And deeply afraid.

I was afraid that I was wasting time, at 27 years old and at the prime of my career, wasting time to be reaping the most of my dancing body. Afraid that the instrument I depend on the most, my body, was failing me and how the hell am I supposed to make a living without it. Afraid I was losing professional momentum I had worked so hard to build, and afraid of whatever was going on inside me that was causing such mysterious and extreme physical ailments on the outside.

Having to stop working and slow everything down for a month allowed me (ehem, forced me) to confront all of this head on. After all, I could only binge watch Netflix for so long. So, when I finally felt ready, I sat with all of it and began having some profound breakthroughs, the ripples of which I am still feeling today.

I came to realize the abundance of time, and thus my ability to move more slowly, confidently and patiently through my career. Ironically, I came to realize just how strong and not fragile my body actually was, cultivating a deep gratitude for its resiliency. And I came to understand the cyclical nature of my life as an artist, that it is impossible for me to be dancing full out, rigorously training and generating work, at all times of my career. There will naturally be moments of rest, reflection, recovery, and cerebral work, and though I have a preference for the highly physical, it doesn’t mean that all that other stuff is less valuable or less productive. In fact, all of it is symbiotic and completely necessary.

Today, I still feel tested, trying to cultivate a deep love of and appreciation for my body exactly as it is – whether it is toned and defined, stronger and more fluid, or rounder and softer, slower and more anchored. Because my body is my instrument, the site through which I investigate and generate ideas, it will shift and change as much as my work does.

Love these ladies. #unbridaled 👰🏾💃🏿✊🏾🇿🇦💞😎

A photo posted by Marina Magalhães (@marinamagalicious) on

At the moment, I am trying to soak up as much as I can of my last 10 days in Johannesburg – eating delicious greasy braai barbeque and creamy milk tarts, and wanting to take all of my favorite dance and yoga classes but unable to due to my knee injury, the combination of which is making my body a little rounder and less sprightly than I would like. But hey, it’s just the point I’m at in the cycle. In a few days my knee will heal, and I will be back at the yoga mat and the dance floor in all my sweat and glory.

I once heard Amara Tabor-Smith, a visionary dance artist based in the Bay Area and one of my favorite choreographers, say that people nowadays mistakenly confuse their bodies as theirs, when in reality, our bodies were never really ours to begin with. Reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s “How To Eat” this morning reminded me of that golden piece of wisdom Amara shared, a simple and profound section titled “Your Body Belongs to the Earth”:

“In modern life, people tend to think their bodies belong to them, that they can do anything they want to themselves. But your body is not only yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents, and future generations. It also belongs to society and to all the other living being. The trees, the clouds, the soil, and every living thing brought about the presence of your body. We can eat with care, knowing we are caretakers of our bodies, rather than their owners.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh

To that, I add, we can dance - train, perform, teach, create, work - with care too. 

Breathe, Be Interested, and Don't Give A Fuck

Reflections & Lessons from Sharing (UN)BRIDALED in South Africa

Last week was the culmination of my artist residency with Wits University’s Drama For Life program, my 3-month stay in South Africa. I shared (UN)BRIDALED, a 45-minute dance theatre show, at the Wits Amphitheatre as part of DFL’s Human Rights and Social Justice Season 2016.

And goddamn. It was fantastic.

At its core, (UN)BRIDALED investigates the point of tension between women’s agency and patriarchal violence. Without presuming to have answers, it poses the question, how do women find agency when confronted with patriarchal violence? This violence ranges from daily verbal assaults and well-meaning family pressure, to overt physical harassment and traumatic life-changing abuse.  With the theme of “State of Emergency”, it made perfect sense to include this show in this year’s Human Rights & Social Justice Season – women live in perpetual states of emergency, every moment of every day, in public and private spaces, negotiating how to protect and assert ourselves (walking alone on the street at night, entering an elevator with a strange man, waiting for a bus in a deserted area, the list goes on and on…). I also later learned that there has been great mobilization throughout South Africa around these issues, with campaigns like Red My Lips and #NakedProtests demanding an end to sexual violence and harassment on university campuses.

But when I arrived in South Africa mid-February I didn’t have much of this worked out. I created the first iteration of (UN)BRIDALED in 2014 in LA with an all-Latina cast. The original work was specific to our experience as Latina women in the US, coming from immigrant families and feeling the effects of patriarchy in a distinct way from other US-based women. Similarly, my intention in transporting the show to SA was to create a new work that spoke to the particular plight of women in South Africa, exposing and challenging how patriarchy reared its ugly head into their lives. Pretty ambitious (and possibly pretentious) of me, considering I had never been to South Africa before, or hell, the African continent at all. But hey, I was open to the process, and fairly certain that SA hadn’t somehow magically found a way to keep itself immune from patriarchy (ehem… Apartheid anyone? ‘isms tend to go hand in hand after all), so I thought, “why not give it a shot?”.

At the end of February, I auditioned about 35 people for a show I was tentatively calling (UN)BRIDALED (RE)MIXED, unsure of how much I would keep from the original work and how much I would be able to generate here. I called back 16 performers, and ended up casting 9 incredibly talented and diverse women- 4 current students at Wits School of the Arts, 3 recent graduates, 1 lecturer from the school, and 2 guest artists with no affiliation to Wits, all of varying racial backgrounds (3 whites, 4 blacks, 2 “coloured's” or people of mixed race) and performance training (mostly physical theatre, some musical theatre, and very little formal dance experience). I remember starting rehearsals in early March and wondering all kinds of things - will the group vibe and get along? Will they be familiar with and/or open to feminist theories like Audre Lorde’s “erotic as power”? Will they be strong enough dancers to carry an evening-length dance theater work? Will we have enough time to actually create a whole new show together? (and on my bad days…) Is this a total mistake and will it be a complete disaster???

As hopeful as I was, I could have never predicted just how incredible, transformative and rewarding the process actually ended up being for all of us.

In the span of two months, the 9 cast members bravely shared their stories of what it is like to be a young woman in South Africa, revealing common themes of gender violence, sexual harassment and expectations of a submissive and domestic female role.  Using Liz Lermans’ “Harvesting Intuition” exercises and the Dance Exchange’s toolbox for phrase-making, we interviewed each other and created choreography about moments in our lives when we have had to forcedly say “NO”, when we have excitedly said “YES”, and when we have been fed up beyond belief and proclaimed “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK”.

We called upon the fierce and fearless energy of Iansã (Afro-Brazilian goddess of the winds and storms), tested the limits of our bodies, challenged each other to take up space, to not give a fuck, to sway our hips, hold our heads high and unapologetically express the full sensuality of our bodies. We toiled, sweated, laughed, cried, and transformed together through this deeply intimate and vulnerable dance-making process.  The result was a reflection of this very process- an honest and brave portrait of the complexity of women’s agency, when it is a force to be reckoned with and backed up by the strength of a thousand women in solidarity, and when it is daily chipped away, thwarted, and aggressively attacked by strangers and people we love.

Some of my favorite memories from our process together will always be the performances themselves. Sure, the standing ovations, audience members laughing and crying, the praise, gratitude and congratulations we received at the end of each show were all remarkable and overwhelming to say the least. But perhaps what I enjoyed even more were the conversations we shared before each show, when I asked the cast to share a piece of feedback they got from the night before and a lesson they learned from performing the work.

I will leave you here, with some of my favorite lessons…

  • Breathe. Never underestimate the power of breathing onstage.
  • Be interestED in what you are doing, worry less about appearing interestING to the audience. (this one I need to credit Victoria Marks… thanks Vic)
  • Women who are unapologetically not giving a fuck onstage will make most men uncomfortable… and that is a good thing.
  • Comedy and tragedy are not on opposite ends of the performance spectrum, they are, in fact, neighbors who live side by side. Use the first as a strategy to approach the latter.
  • Audiences are sick of sitting through shows that are too long and too heavy- trick them into engaging with heavy subject matter by making them laugh, and leave them wanting more. 
  • An energetic and responsive audience is something to celebrate and vibe off of.
  • There is no such thing as “messing up” onstage. Live performance is literally being created LIVE, in THAT moment – it will never be the same again, not your body, not the audience, not what happened that day, not anything. So there is no use in attempting to recreate the same experience again. All mistakes are opportunities. Be present, notice, respond. 

"You Dance Good For A White Girl!"

Musings on Race, (De)Colonization and Belonging from a Light-Skinned Latina

We were at the famous Mzoli’s Sunday braai (South African barbeque) in Cape Town. Our friends and hosts offered to take us, insisting we should go with locals from the township, like them, rather than on our own. We agreed, as it aligned with our politics, logistics and wallets ($150 Rand less on an Uber). Inside was a madhouse of clueless and inebriated tourists, hyped up locals, and everything in between. We B-lined to the dance floor, and stayed there the whole time, grooving under the hot South African sun to national pop and house hits that everyone around us seemed to know the words to. 

I love a dance floor. I love following other people on the dance floor- especially when music comes on that I’m not totally familiar with. I love watching how people’s bodies immediately react, how their movements change, the music seeping in and the expression flowing out. The collective “Aaahh!!! That’s my jam!!” feeling that spreads through a crowd when that song comes on, how heads bob with more vigor and lips spew out lyrics with enthusiasm. People start and imitate and trade dance moves, and it’s a beautiful spontaneous non-verbal dialogue that ensues.  

Which was exactly what was happening at Mzoli’s. A beat dropped and I got excited, without thinking my knees and hips responded. Two black South African women next to me, who I didn’t know, were impressed and laughingly said, “Damn! You dance good for a white girl!”. I said, “That’s because I’m not white!”. They said, “Daaaaamn!!!” and laughed. We kept dancing. 

Mandiba's spirit lives on in Joburg...

A photo posted by Marina Magalhães (@marinamagalicious) on

This has happened to me a lot since arriving in South Africa two months ago. Not surprisingly, a country with the decades-long legacy of Apartheid would have such a dichotomous black-or-white racial mentality (people of mixed race, or “coloured’s” as they identify here, exist with a lot of discrimination). But for a light-skinned Latina girl, like myself, I pretty much just read as white in most contexts. Like Trevor Noah said, he had never heard of or seen Latinos until he moved to the US. 

And, the thing is, they’re not entirely wrong. In my home country of Brazil, I am also referred to as branca, white. It’s only when I am in the U.S. that, all of a sudden, I can legitimately claim the term “woman of color”. What a bizarre way to group a plethora of races and ethnicities as diverse as the rainbow- Brazilian, Nigerian, and Chinese women all automatic allies in the eyes of a racist society. And that’s the thing about race, isn’t it? It’s a construct. I am never more present to this reality than when I travel. When I travel, my race becomes as malleable as puddy. Transforming from oppressor to oppressed with one swift cross of a border. I have learned to not anchor my sense of self too much in my racial identity, otherwise I would feel as fragmented and schizophrenic as the world around me. Which does not mean I am unaware of the privileges I hold in my skin color, or that I am not accountable to or in solidarity with darker-skinned people who have little choice in the matter. But obviously, I’m human, and it takes an emotional toll on me to have to navigate such murky waters all the time. 

It also has real implications for the work I do. I am a socially engaged artist whose work investigates issues of gender, race, identity and belonging. For the last month I have been training with the incredible and world-renowned dance company, Vuyani Dance Theatre, whose company members are all dark-skinned black or coloured. I stand out as the only light-skinned person in the room, and with a lot of awareness try to learn the intricate and rhythmic choreography as best I can without looking like “the white girl” in the room. Neither do I want to reinforce an oppressive power dynamic in which they’re supposed to cater to the US “white person” in the room, so I am careful about when and how I speak. 

Class with @vuyanidancer and vuyani dance company 👏🏾💃🏽💪🏾💞🇿🇦

A video posted by Marina Magalhães (@marinamagalicious) on

Lately, I have become really interested in this notion of “decolonization”, a term I was employing in several workshops in the US and have been re-thinking since arriving in South Africa. As a light-skinned third world person living in the US, and who comes from a quintessentially Brazilian family (my mother’s grandparents were European immigrants and my father’s Northeastern Braziliain ancestry is a complete telenovela mystery riddled with theories of speculative Arabic origins and possibly made-up French last names to hide our indigenous roots), what does it mean to decolonize the body? Is it possible to decolonize without reinforcing imperialist practices, without erasing the complex and hybrid nature of my culture? Can decolonization also mean an embracing of exactly who I am, a forward-thinking act rooted in personal and collective memory, a way to reinvent and piece together myself while unearthing and honoring those hidden and persecuted parts of myself?

After spending two months in Southern Africa and getting to witness the innovative and beautiful work of many African artists, I am beginning to think more and more that this idea of decolonization is much more futuristic than it is returning to a forgotten past. Sure, there is a reeducation of our traditions, which have been persecuted and lost to a certain extent, but there is also a contextualizing and reinventing of these things- identifying what their use and relevancy is now and originating new ones inspired by the old. Colonization happened to us, and there is no undoing of the past. But colonization is also constantly still happening, through the reinforcing of patriarchal white supremacist capitalist culture. So naturally, our resistance needs to acknowledge both- a calling back to tradition and a creative response to the now.

I am a light-skinned brown girl, Brazilian at birth and in heart and soul, a newly American citizen, a long-time world traveler, a devout yogi of anti-white-establishment yoga in the West, a daughter of Oxóssi and Oxum, a self proclaimed feminist and lover of Beyonce, a millennial active on Instagram and Facebook, addicted to Netflix and refusing to give in to the apolitical, color-blind, narcissistic, YOLO culture of my generation.

These worlds co-exist for me, and everyday I occupy a slightly different position in them. Sometimes, I feel ridiculously overwhelmed by the question, “where do I belong?”. It feels depressingly oversimplistic and cliché, but undeniably haunting. So far, the answer has been mostly non-verbal. It is visceral, expressive, spontaneous movement. Dancing that stretches through my spine and fingertips, that fearlessly takes up space, that pulses to new and forgotten rhythms. Maybe that’s why I dance good, for a “white girl”.   

 

Marina Magalhães, Dance-maker, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Cart (0)