Thank you to Ontario Arts Council for giving me the chance to reconnect with my roots in multiple ways, in both training and being able to touch down and speak with my elders on my trip to Ghana, this was definitely a trip of a lifetime and a trip where I was able to gain information through experience that will have a long lasting imprint on my artistry to come!
A big thank you OAC for being able to support me through my journey. I was apart of a Samba Encontro with master teachers from Brazil in Toronto. I was able to work with Irineu Nogueira in a dance performance piece. It was a short process but was the beginning of future work to come. I was grateful to embody his movement and always see the threads between AfroBrazilian music and movement and how it connects to my Ewe culture. This is why travelling to Ghana was very unexpected but fitting. Before my travels to Ghana I went on a discovery of being able to do work in traditional west African, Guinea style dancing – which took me to Hawaii to train with my master teacher Fara Tolno. One of my students, who trains in street dance accompanied me on the trip who wanted to deepen and understand the root of krump. Thankful for the fact that It gave me the opportunity to be a student and focus on my artistry and just learn and soak in knowledge and info.
Trip to Ghana!
This then lead to me being able to take the opportunity to go to Ghana to spend time with family and ask questions about my history and deepen the work in terms of questions i had around African tribe heritage being woven into parts of the world and what that root. I was spiritually called to go home and be with my parents in Ghana and it was the best decision I made all year. It was the beginning of conversations, discoveries and discussions with my parents and other elders.
Being able to dive into certain things, makes me excited for what’s to come on the other side of everything things. I am excited to continue the work and continue the creative conversations with other artists who are sharing similar point of view of Africa within the diaspora & on the continent. Being able to expand my world view on what it means to be African and what does that mean in a time now when Africa is Vibrant and popular.
It was a very fulfilling trip on multiple levels. I am grateful for that opportunity to be able to experience something that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise. This trip was able to propel into 2020. I am very grateful to the OAC for supporting me in my mission and journey.
Looking forward to all the things that will come from this as I continue the journey and weaving & connecting dots between my culture and other cultures and how everything is rooted.
