Three and half years ago, half way through my professional training at Laban, I fell ill with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I could have given up my profession and passion there and then but I did not. I am a person that does not give up easily, for better and for worse, and decided to find my way.

The body I had once known wasn’t there any more, at least that’s how it felt. Simple daily things like holding a pen, a fork, taking a shower proved very difficult, dancing and performing sometimes impossible. I’m a fighter, but little did I know the fights I was going to face. Not only did my own body attack itself and I was fighting what was also part of me, but various bureaucratic systems did not make it easy for me to stay within the profession or within training.

Rheumatoid Arthritis is a fluctuating condition and most of the time not visible to other people. The unpredictability of my body complicated the way I had to negotiate to be able to fulfil my training and attend auditions as I would not know from day to day what I was working with.

I tried very hard to find a way that would work, how I could adapt to meet goals and criteria. Thankfully during this time I got in touch with Candoco and started to dance for their Youth company, which was a massive support and very very helpful.

There came a time after I finished my training, and had started my career as a professional, when I realised the correlation between my body and the way I was working and living was not viable. The realisation of it not being sustainable enough brought me to one the most difficult decisions of my life; moving back to Sweden, my home country.

The decision was difficult not only because I would have to leave, but also having to face that I was accepting the disease itself and being ill.

Nine months after moving back my body feels better than I could ever had hoped for. The doctors I met in the UK were wonderful and wanted to help me to get well, but they simply did not have the time or the money to do it fully.

You cannot treat someone with a chronic condition just by giving them medication. For me, one has to see the whole person. Thereby you will also be able to perform the tests needed and evaluate if the treatment the person gets is the one that will bring back optimal function and decrease pain.

In Sweden I was met with confidence and calmness. They had the time and the staff to perform the different parts of my treatment and it was all collected in the same building, in the same corridor with specialist care. In the UK I was running around in two, sometimes three, different buildings, seeing different people; and no one knew what was in my file as communication was lost. In Sweden the practitioners in the Rheumatology clinic working in physio and occupational therapy are specialists within Rheumatology, as are nurses and doctors. In the UK I was sent around the health centres, sat for an hour and a half in the general clinic just to get my blood tests done. I’m sure the differences across the country and hospitals are massive, but these were my experiences. I do understand that it is not the people I’ve met that are to blame, but maybe the system.

I had to move country to make things viable, and I’m asking myself why? Now I’ve been able to keep hold of my own faith and belief that there is a way to live with a rheumatic disease and have a career within the world of dance. I do not believe that I am costing the state much more than I did living in the UK. Parts of my medication has been decreased as it has been swapped and the effects has been supported by carefully done physiotherapy, occupational therapy and hydrotherapy. It may seem like many parts to perform a treatment, but that is also what makes it possible for me to work to a fuller degree and contribute to the society.

Recently, Zoe Williams of The Guardian spoke about the importance of the Independent Living Fund for people with disabilities so as they feel and are considered a part of society, as well as them then being able to contribute to society by working. To do this I also believe that we need sufficient, sustainable medical care that can see things in a long term perspective, instead of taking what seems to be the cheapest way out. I know this is what I need to remember every day to make my body last.

It has been a struggle and a tough journey these initial years with Rheumatoid Arthritis filled with grief, pride and joy. I still have a long way to go to get as well as I want to be, but I am in a very good place and I am definitely on the right track. I might never do some of the things I thought I would do, but without what I have been through I would never have got to do the incredible things that is part of my life.

About Anna Bergström:

Dancer, dance artist and teacher educated at Gotlands Dansutbildningar and TrinityLaban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Anna is currently based in Gothenburg and have previously worked with Candoco Dance Company, The People Pile Arts Collective, Frauke Requardt, Alex Julyan, Gill Clarke amongst others. 

She is currently a resident artist at Atalante, Stage for Contemporary Arts (where she premiered I mellanrum in March 2013), as well as working with Spinn Dance Company, Berith Stenabb (textile/visual artist), Sonia Boyce/Gothenburg Arts Biennal and her own company Subtle Kraft Co. (co-choreographer with Kimberley Harvey). Anna and Kimberley initially met through Cando2 (Candoco Dance Company’s youth dance company) and after working and performing together in a variety of contexts they realised they didn’t want to stop and so, Subtle Kraft Co, was born. 

Anna is teaching for Spinn Dance Company, Kannebäcksskolan, Balettakademien, Studieförbundet Bilda, Gothenburg’s National Dance Agency and giving workshops in Sweden and abroad.

Within her creative practice Anna’s focus and heart lies in collaborative and inclusive practice where different art forms and people meet. She has previously created works such as Body Interrupted, This is how I become mute and Cravings of Intimacy & Solitude. 

The diverse characteristics of these countries, their geography and politics, the space and audience of a venue as well as the energy and people we meet in a specific place influence our performance and leave their trace on stage. Beyond the location, it is what we think about, care about, worry about, the ideas we play with, follow or discard, the books we read and exhibitions we see, the dreams we had at night and long for in the future, that all become part of our very personal landscape which again informs as as artists. I believe this connection between the personal and the artistic is the artist’s great privilege as it enables us to understand our art as a way to research, translate and transform personal experience, to make sense of ourselves and of this world.

Performing Studies for C over a long period of time in various venues gives us the opportunity to carry the experience of all those different places with us and let it seep into the work together with what is present at the very moment. The character of the Madrecita that I play in the duet has developed and evolved, and the deeper I dive, the more I find out about her and about myself.

Whilst touring to Holland last week, Sylvia Plath’s book The Bell Jar travelled with me and I read it in one go. The book triggered many thoughts and emotions that for me correlate with topics we touch on in Studies for C, which is why for this blog, I would like to share some extracts and thoughts that continue my research into the duet.

I started adding up all the things I couldn’t do. (..) My list grew longer. (..) I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn’t thought about it. (..) I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked . (..) I wanted each and every one oft them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.  (Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, 1963, p.71-73)

‘Neurotic, ha!’, I let out a scornful laugh. ‘If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.’ (p.89-90)

And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault after fault, (..)The same thing happened over and over. (p. 79)

That first excerpt touches a fear that is as old as are humans. This fear, deep down, of being inadequate. I know this feeling. I reckon most people do. In Plath’s book, it almost drives the main character Esther into committing suicide. She turns her fear against herself, toying with her own life. For me, it is the same numbing sense of inadequacy that paralyses Madrecita. Her fear prevents her from finding the courage to leave a relationship that has reached a dead end. And so her frustration turns outward against Sancho Panza, who in turn makes himself dependant on her. Madrecita cannot be with Sancho Panza. Yet she cannot be without him. Breaking free would mean losing all she knows. How many couples do we know that play this game, year in year out?

I guess many of us also know this secret fig-tree that we find ourselves sitting under more or less often. Wondering and longing and wanting it all, at once, right now. Even though we perfectly know that certain things we want are mutually exclusive. As life carries on, for Madrecita the figs no longer seem green. They lie crumpled on the ground next to her shattered dreams. A stained carpet instead of marble halls. A faded picture instead of an adorned mirror. Daily quarrels instead of quiet understanding. She wanted it all and feels left with nothing. It is her inability to choose that leaves her stranded.

Sancho Panza has once been every girl’s desire. The cool dude, the leader, the hottie. Madrecita was the one who won the lottery. Yet 25 years down the line ordinariness has replaced passion and romance. Is it just wanting what you cannot have and losing interest as soon as it is yours? Is it time dictating that after a while a partner’s faults will inevitably overshadow what you once found endearing? I believe that in the duet, it is not that the couple’s love just vanished because of time. They still love each other. Yet maybe they were longing for love and unity so badly they lost themselves along the way.

When Madrecita and Sancho Panza move together at certain points in the piece, they move exactly the same way. Two bodies that have adapted each other’s idiosyncrasies over the years. This reminds me of a press conference we got invited to in Georgia. Dan spoke about the reversal of roles in Studies for C. The ‘able-bodied’ dancer adapting her movement to the ‘disabled’ dancer and how it can challenge stereotypes. Yes, I agree. However, this is only the reversal of the coin, instead of the Yin we might be looking at the Yang, very much still part of a dualistic view, made up of categories and labels that we hold on to because we think it helps us understand how the world goes round. I believe in that duet we touch on something much bigger than any single side of the coin. For me, it shows much more an archetypal desire to overcome duality and become One. To recognize yourself in the other. And how we can be with somebody that is precisely not like oneself. How we struggle with that otherness, how we fall and fail and get up and try again.

Studies for C and a new sequel duet currently being created by Javier de Frutos will be performed  at outdoor festivals throughout the UK this summer, including Greenwich and Docklands International Festival in London (29 June), Hatfair in Winchester (5 & 6 July), Mintfest in Kendal (31 Aug & 1 Sept) and the Liberty Festival in London (7 Sept).

We asked Unity Festival’s Director, Ben Petit-Wade to tell us a bit more about how the festival started and what’s in store for this year:

When (and how) did the Unity Festival start?

Our first festival was in 2007, and since then we have held them annually – each year we have grown and this year we are hoping to reach over 10000 people.

Hijinx Theatre started the festival because we felt that an event was needed which would help to change the perception of the work we–and other companies like us–were doing in including actors with learning disability in our work. There was a feeling that inclusive performance was seen as of a lower quality or not worthy or for a niche audience. Unity set out to dispel this myth by hooking up with Wales Millennium Centre, where our office is based.  We immediately had the mainstream platform that such a venture needed in bringing our work to mainstream audiences. We then started talking to companies with a similar ethos to our own such as Touch Trust, Spare Tyre Theatre Company, Disability Arts Cymru and Community Music Wales and suddenly we had a full week of activity planned on pretty much a shoe string.

We are also now delighted to have Sherman Cymru as one of our partner venues. The theatre recently went through a refurbishment, which meant that not only are all the seats sparkly and clean, but also more importantly all their back stage areas are now fully accessible. This has enabled us to work with them and we are delighted that Candoco Dance Company will be the first every performance we will have programmed into their main house space!

What are the Unity Festival’s aims?

To be honest there are a few and they keep changing as we grow and develop! When we started the aim was to offer a mainstream platform to inclusive arts and disability arts companies or companies with a similar ethos of inclusion as our own, helping to raise the profile of our work collectively.

Now we have become more established we hope to increase our influence as we grow and in some small way continue the legacy of the Paralympics, but instead of sporting feats we present fantastic performances which feature disabled and non-disabled artists working together, and in so doing change perceptions of disability in society as a whole.

Predominately our aim is to help the inclusive arts and disability arts sector to grow, to reach more and diverse audiences and also to increase the skills for practitioners and artists in working inclusively – an important element of the festival is our participation and community programmes. Most of the companies that perform also provide workshops for local practitioners to attend for free, increasing the skills and knowledge in our local area. Each year we host a two week residency leading to performances at the festival which is generally led by a company who would not normally be associated with producing inclusive performance – this year’s is with Frantic Assembly. The residency gives a company such as Frantic Assembly the experience of working with an inclusive group of up to 20 performers in collaboration with Hijinx Theatre – in the long term we hope that such residency will start to encourage companies to think about casting inclusively for their own future productions – increasing opportunity for artists we and companies like us work with.

I guess the final aim is to reach a point where there is no need for terms such as inclusive arts, inclusive theatre, or inclusive dance because the practice of working inclusively is so wide spread it is simply considered as normal. In other words to reach a point where a concept such as the Unity Festival is defunct!

Is it unique to have this type of event in Cardiff?

Cardiff is adept at hosting large scale events, and it is one of the advantages of being based here that the council events team have such a vast experience. But our focus on inclusive arts is unique in Cardiff, Wales and we believe in the UK. We are very aware and keen supporters of events such as Liberty and Dada Fest in England, but we believe we have a slightly different focus in promoting a predominantly inclusive arts event and programming work that at its heart needs to be able to appeal
to all audiences and simply be appreciated as fantastic entertainment – we are about bringing the work to the mainstream. We also have a strong international remit which sets us apart from other festivals – bringing in companies such as Back to Back Theatre (AU), Danza Mobile (ES), Dancando Com a Diferenca (PT), Zim Zam (FR), Theatr Maatwerk (NL) and Cirque Inextremiste (FR)

How many events/companies are programmed over how many venues?

Phew…..there will be 54 performances, delivered by 27 different companies or artists, over 21 days of free workshops, a 2 week residency leading to performance and all this will take place in and around our two partner venues Wales Millennium Centre and Sherman Cymru. This year’s programme includes contributors from the UK, France, Spain and Denmark.

What are some highlights for this year?

Of course Candoco Dance Company, who will open our festival on the 12th June – I saw this performance back in November last year and was blown away, I can’t wait to see the reaction of our audience here in Wales. We have a big family weekend which will feature Graeae’s The Iron Man, a stunning show with an Iron Man puppet taller than a double decker bus! It’s an outdoor show so I’m just praying the sun will shine for us!

Cirque Inextremiste with Extremiste – I saw this show while at a festival in Marseille and it’s amazing – three performers including one wheelchair user perform a precarious balancing act using propane gas bottles and planks – it really is hold your breath stuff that needs to be seen to be believed!

Cia Jose Galan – En Mis Cabales – I first made friends with Jose and Danza Mobile (whose learning disabled dancers appear in this show) while on a sabbatical in Seville, they have been regular contributors to the festival and never fail to impress.

And of course our own Hijinx show The Adventures of Sancho Panza!

What are the challenges in programming the Unity Festival?

The main challenge is finding time to take any time off! By the end of Unity 2013 I’m pretty much straight into planning for the next year’s event. We have to get the application to ACW in by September which covers the bulk of the cost of the festival and in this I like to include as much of the programme as possible, therefore I spend much of the summer either completing reports for the 2013 festival or contacting companies about 2014/2015!

One of the challenges as we grow and become more ambitious is that we also need the companies out there to do the same, the festival can only be as good or as ambitious as the work that is being produced – the sector has had a big boost through the Unlimited Commissions and the Paralympics, but now we need to continue that legacy so that we can all continue to grow, as producers and programmers, in Unity.

The other challenge to programming/organising the festival is not to allow the bureaucracy, red tape, endless meetings and hours spent tapping away at a computer let you forget why you do it. We do it because we love it, we believe in the work, we believe in arts power to transform an individual, an audience and ultimately a society. And most of all because when the event actually arrives it is bloody good fun!

MORE DETAILS

Hijinx Theatre’s Unity Festival
12 – 22 June 2013
Full listings and Festival Guide at the Unity Festival website

Candoco’s Three Acts of Play
12th June, 7:30pm
Sherman Theatre
Book Tickets

Zap the Gap
13th June, 10am – 5pm
Wales Millennium Centre

Zap the Gap is a creative seminar dedicated to facilitating the emerging talent and the progression of young disabled dance artists in Wales. More information about how to apply is available at the Unity Festival website

Candoco’s Inclusive Dance Workshop
14th June 10am – 4pm
Sherman Theatre, Basement Room

This workshop is free via application.

On the 2^nd June, Candoco will be performing Studies for C as part of an event called “Platform33 Moves” at Kings Place. The line-up also includes a live artist, DJs, Hackney Colliery Band and an array of classical musicians performing works by the acclaimed composer Charlotte Bray.

As you can tell, Platform33 isn’t a standard event. I founded it back in January 2012 and since then we have had 11 events showcasing everything from freestyle football to opera to capoeira to graffiti across 8 different venues.

The idea is to put the most diverse and disparate art forms side by side. This enables people to experience something they would never usually see and we get a wonderful cross-pollination of audiences. Artists are invited to talk as well as perform – to introduce themselves and their art form, and convey their passion. I often use the tag line “get inside the arts”.  Because hopefully it does just that.

Platform33 has a very informal and friendly atmosphere — achieved with drinks and people being able to stand or sit. They usually take place in “cool” bars and clubs – so Kings Place presents a big step up.

I am absolutely delighted to be presenting Candoco. They have been on my wish list since I first came up with the idea. In fact I met Nadja from marketing before the first night had even happened.

Please join us on the 2^nd…..with open ears and eyes! It promises to be a lot of fun.

To find out more about Platform33 please visit www.platform33.co.uk or follow us @WeArePlatform33 www.facebook.com/WeArePlatform33

What you may not know is that Candoco’s core dancers will be coming too. This will be a unique opportunity to work alongside our dancers as they themselves, as well as teaching, will be fine-tuning their improvisational skills in preparation for their first week with Swiss choreographer, Thomas Hauert.

Something else you may not know is that every morning session will be led by another incredible Swiss artist, Anouk Llaurens.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Anouk and her work, Anouk is a choreographer, a dance teacher and a performer based in London. She has been dancing for 26 years, studying numerous techniques from ballet to contact-improvisation. Her investigation of dance and composition is currently supported by her meetings with Lisa Nelson, Deborah Hay and Kirstie Simson as well by a Zen meditation practice. Anouk is now travelling throughout the lands of improvisation, contact improvisation, choreography and visual arts. She performs her own solo work with Sarah Gray, improvising with Kirstie Simson’s Group, dancing for Henrietta Hale and Tony Thatcher in London. She improvises with musicians and visual artist in Belgium in Lost & Found a QO2 production with Julia Eckhardt and Els van Riel and with Sofia Clist in Stretch a Crying Out Loud production in the UK. She is teaching Real Time Composition, contact improvisation and Release Technique at the London Metropolitan University, the Jerwood Space, the Laban Centre, Moving East, Candoco and the Siobhan Davis Dance Company as well as in various places in Europe. Candoco Co-Artistic Director Stine Nilsen says:

Anouk is sensitive and challenging in equal measures, going with what she sees in the room but with an instinctual way of getting you out of your habits and onto the exploration path. She has a wealth of experience of working with a variety of people, and is open and interested in finding out what makes you tick, what makes you get what you need. With her background in both technical training as well as movement improvisation, performance exploration and play with text and sound, she can offer a range of approaches to improvisation and tailor it to the particular group she will meet at Candoco’s LAB. Most of all, she has the most joyful and infectious curiosity about moving!

This promises to be a summer lab like no other – a lab designed by dancers, for dancers. Come and be a part of it – you know you want to!

CREATING IN THE MOMENT runs between Sunday 4 August – Saturday 10 August 2013.

Cost: £395 residential

£250 non-residential

Applications close Friday 24 May 2013.

APPLY NOW! 

Dancers Annie and Vicky are the only ones left from the original cast who worked with Emanuel. But Emanuel’s process for creating the piece was open to being re-staged, translated again by the new dancers, to create a new lease of life for the piece. Emanuel’s approach to choreography is that it is the art of discovering and uncovering what the dancers can bring, so we set out on a mini journey of discovery.

Following in the footprints of the original version, we used a set of positions taken from the original phrases, then each dancer made their own new ‘roadmap’ of traveling movements in between the positions, creating new constellations in space and shifting the space according to their new movement.

I am sharing with you below an intimate view of one of the early rehearsals, where the dancers are improvising using their road map sequences.

Following the strucure of the original piece, we brought in Michael Lohr, Emanuel’s assistant, to work with us for a few days.  His physical understanding of what makes Emanuel’s choreography read, both from the inside and from the outside, was invaluable. 20% attention on the movement and 80% attention on each other as a group — this was Michael’s guideline for the importance of seeing each other, dancing together with each other, teasing, challenging and playing with each other to shift in space, to move through the movement to keep the energy rolling regardless of whether all dancers are moving or only one.

We could get philosophical and academic about the choices, the decisions and the results. But this is not the main focus with Emanuel Gat’s work; it stays physical, creates emotion through the action of dancing for and with each other, and remains as clear and calm as he is.

I remember Emanuel saying that he didn’t understand why audiences always think they have to understand the meaning of what they see. Can we enjoy what it makes us feel, without knowing why? You might have to come to Utrecht with us to find out for yourself, or keep checking our dates to see if we come to a theatre near you!  In the meantime, here is a look at us in rehearsal just last week, recreating Emanuel’s work for the current company.

Candoco Artist Welly O’Brien gives an inspiring account of how she found dance after losing her leg in a train accident when she was just 18 years old on today’s Outlook programme on BBC World Service.  Welly was invited to give advice to Boston bombing victim Adrianne Haslet-Davis, a ballroom dancer who lost her foot in the tragedy.

As a former dancer with Candoco and a current associate artist, Welly embodies our mission to challenge perceptions of dance and disability, proving that dance is beautiful and powerful not in spite of, but because of diverse physicalities.

Listen to the full interview here: Boston Bomb, the dancer who lost a leg

 
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the Arts Marketing Association’s Culture Hive.  With it’s home at www.culturehive.co.uk, the website is a invaluable resource for promoters of the UK’s cultural events, detailing examples and case studies of best practice that are submitted by the practitioners themselves.  It’s a forum for arts marketing professionals to share, research and receive feedback. The searchable database encompasses all art forms from dance to theatre to museums to music.

And the best part is, it’s free.

In keeping with the Culture Hive’s aim to make their resources available to all, the powers that be held 16 simultaneous launch events across the country, with the London launch livestreamed online.  Attendees were encouraged to flex their social media muscles by tweeting, Facebooking and otherwise shouting about what they’ve learned.

Perhaps the most insightful part of the event, however, was a keynote speech from Arts Marketing guru Russell Willis Taylor.  Former head of the English National Opera, Willis Taylor has returned to her native America and now heads up National Arts Strategies in Washington, DC.  She takes an very business oriented approach to arts marketing and treated us to various graphs and models that left many of us arty types slightly bewildered (well, left me bewildered anyway!) but her speech urged us to re-examine what we are doing and why we are doing it.  One comment in particular was met with a collective sharp intake of breath from the audience when she said we should “stop focusing on excellence, but instead focus on fostering relationships between people and art.” Not focus on excellence?  How could we possibly??  But perhaps it’s worth considering, after all, is art still excellent if no one is there to see it…!

Anyway, I suggest you do check out the Culture Hive website, you could spend hours delving into the resources – as Anne Torreggiani of the Audience Agency said at the launch “You can get lost in the Culture Hive, though you shouldn’t really, as it’s such an effective search tool.”

Arriving in Ramallah and on our way to Rocky Hotel it was impossible to not see how this country is very closely connected with religion. Minarets, domes, crescent symbols are everywhere introducing us to a different vibe. We were told that any public display of affection is prohibited and we tried our best to behave on this trip with a few exceptions of unrestrained joy coming now and then. It’s hard to see that people are obliged to have social barriers to their emotions.

Concrete walls and checkpoints are defining the borders of Palestine which really makes you feel intimidated every time you cross them. We were just visitors and that made things easier but still we had to accept that the scale of things there was different and we tried to be discreet. Seeing written on a wall the phrase “we are anemous” suddenly had a big impact. We are wind and wind has the freedom to blow at any direction.  The valuable good of freedom that everyone deserves. On a film night in Ramallah Andrew and I watched “5 Broken Cameras”, a documentary about the resistance to the action of the Israeli army by Palestinians. Very emotional to watch how people react to the extreme when there is no hope around. Many questions were on the table after the film and the Palestinian volunteers and participants were there to answer with disarming honesty.

Our performances for this trip had an additional piece of fabric for our lovely girls. Skin colored unitards had to be worn underneath the costumes to make their bodies less exposed. Noticeable or not, the audiences had a very positive response and seem to enjoy it. First show at the Palestinian National Theater was in a small box stage with little wing space for us which meant a lot of swinging and folding on the spot for Trisha’s piece. On the other hand, the small space made Rachid’s piece gathered and condensed. A great moment on our second performance at Ramallah Cultural Palace was to see all the hard work that Sarah and Kimberley, our Candoco youth teachers, had done to put together an inspiring youth piece for us to watch. As a conclusion in Jordan at Al-Hussein Cultural Centre we had royal guests among the audience and we exchanged formal handshakes with the Prince prior the show.

Because of additional rehearsals, we had only one day to explore Palestine and that day everyone was champing with impatience to sluice out to the markets and to the holy grounds of Jerusalem to grasp spirituality and pleasure. Susanna, Vicky, Annie and myself took the coach to Jerusalem to see the Wailing Wall, the Jewish Quarter and the Church of Holy Sepulcher. Seeing religious crowds from all over the world paying their respect to their faith in so many different ways, while, on the other hand, tourists were trying to please their curiosity, made me stand there and watch more as an observer. Although old memories from my childhood were roused in me, I wasn’t sure if I was feeling awe of the place or distraction from the mass reaction. Since I found it hard to reconnect with my Christianity I wandered around with the girls in the side streets and enjoyed smoking shisha with an expertly made arabic coffee and some sweet delights.

We were half way through our tour and still many surprises to come from Middle East. Our next destination was Jordan. Palms and olive trees are surrounding north Amman and that’s where their futuristic airport is located. Our bus driver assured us that of course we could see the other side of Amman that is covered in fine sand and rocky stones. That’s exactly what we had in mind.

Four hours drive from Amman and we were straight at the door of one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s kind, Petra.  A day in Petra was probably not enough to discover the influences that this place had for centuries from other cultures but it is definitely enough to spend it on a camel ride as Annie, Vicky and myself did or a donkey ride like Rick and Jamie. After Vicky’s strong negotiation with our camel guide about the price, we hopped on our camels and had a bumpy ride around the ruins of Nabataean culture. Definitely a highlight of this tour.

Before the day was finished, me and Annie had a climb up on the High Place of Sacrifice. The walk was a bit rough but we didn’t want to give up. Reaching the top was very satisfying. The view of Petra was spectacular and rewarding. For me this moment felt more spiritual and more meditational than anything else before. I laid on a heated rock; near me a small lizard had made his appearance. I was looking around and taking in the beautiful landscape and all the small details that were revealing themselves to me.

Last day and although we had a flight to catch some of us still wanted to have a brief swim in the Dead Sea. Only an hour away we enjoyed the quietness of the place almost as if we had booked it private. Floating vertically and horizontally without any effort was enough to cheer us up. And then came the transformation into weird creatures as we covered ourselves with black mud from the Dead Sea. I think at this point we could easily put on a little show. Too bad no one was around. Trisha Brown’s phrases came instinctively in our bodies and we started moving. I wonder why.

Overall this trip was definitely a rich cultural experience more than anything and of course another chance for more bonding with our group. From crossing restricted checkpoints to the vast desert, I would still be happy to dive in and do this all over again. There is so much more of Middle East I want to explore but I am saving it for a future visit. For now, as I am finishing this blog, I try to collect all the memories like puzzle pieces and allow them to sit in and be part of my own history. Then I can accurately convey them to future.

So, I am back in London town after an amazing few weeks out in Ramallah, Palestine with fellow Candoco Artist Sarah Blanc and Candoco Executive Director Rebecca Dawson.

Sarah and I went out there to work with disabled and non-disabled young people to create a piece that they would perform at the Ramallah Cultural Palace on the same bill as the wonderful Candoco dancers as part of the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival. We both felt beforehand that this was going to be a pretty unique and special opportunity and we were definitely proved right.

Palestine is a place rich in history, steeped in politics and full of intense emotion. But what struck me the most was the sheer humanity of people. In Palestine, contemporary is a relatively new style of dance, but our participants couldn’t have been more open; their willingness and hunger to learn was incredible and their drive to perform to the best of their ability left us very proud.

It is this drive and hope amongst the dancers in Palestine that will enable the continuation of an inclusive contemporary dance culture to emerge.

Steep ramps, mini strolls and the Dead Sea were all part of the trip (and yes, you do actually float! But a word of warning, the salt makes your skin sting BIG TIME!!)
I even managed to pick up some Arabic sign language!

For so many reasons, an unforgettable trip as a Candocan!
…And now back to reality as I need to go and get myself on the Jubilee Line…

Salem!