Time for Part 2 on our incredible Colombian experience! If you haven’t caught up on WHY we went to Colombia or WHAT we did on a day-by-day basis, check out Part 1 of this blog series!

Now to give you the full details of our collaboration project while on the trip! If you have not heard of our Choreographic Diplomacy program, check it out on the website. Our Artistic and Executive Director, Kia S. Smith, created this program to fully immerse our company with different cultures and prove that the language of dance supersedes any verbal language barrier.

This was proved day one of our trip. After our long travel to Colombia, the three companies on the trip met up for rehearsal at 10am in a beautiful space with wide open windows to the city and wonderful natural light. Choomna Dance Company of South Korea, Casa Tumac of Colombia, and SCDT of the United States were ready for a collaboration!

As with any rehearsal day, we started with a warm-up. This one hour warm-up was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We split the hour into three chunks and each Artistic Director taught 20 minutes of the warm-up. It was like getting a plate of each culture’s best dishes for dinner. We started with Joseph, director of Choomna Dance. His approach to dance is so calming and connected. We focused on pure connection to the floor and the earth. He moved us across the floor with different rolling, sliding, and turning techniques. It was beautiful to feel so connected and not rushed into anything. We then proceeded with Kia’s portion of the warm-up. Us 9 dancers were quite familiar with this, but Kia’s structured modern warm-up with counts and distinct phrasing seemed to be quite different for all others involved. Finally, we wrapped up the warm-up with Francisco of Casa Tumac leading an Afro-Caribbean portion. It was amazing – we traveled on the diagonal and followed along. There was no spoken words, just call-and-response via movement. It was full bodied, energy-provoking, and very spiritual. I left that warm-up feeling, well, WARM, but also fulfilled spiritually. It was the most beautiful thing to watch three cultures collide. I started the day excited for the process we were about to embark on.

For the next five hours, with periodic breaks included, the three Artistic Directors wove their choreography in and out of each other. Some parts of the piece were improvisation based, some were set choreography by Joseph, Francisco, or Kia. We worked with our stellar translator, Luisa, who we couldn’t have done this whole trip without. As for how the piece came together, I would say that each choreographer had a section and then transitions were then overlapped and intermixed. Though each choreographer had a section, they did not only use their dancers. Kia was working with both Choomna dancers as well as Casa Tumac dancers. It’s wonderful to experience the power of movement and how it transcends speaking. As dancers, we are always adaptable, but in this case we had to be ultra-attentive to detail and focused so that we looked the same as our counterparts.

Whether you can believe it or not, after those five hours of rehearsal, we had a whole entire 15-minute long piece. Crazy, I know!

The piece was presented the following day in Bogota and also four day later in Medellin.

I’m so thankful for an incredible collaboration of dance, but to have also be a part of this beautiful work of art. It’s a performance I will never, ever forget!