Dhoom Dhamaka! and A Body Parted : New Works by Violeta Luna & Joti Singh

On the anniversary of September 11th, CounterPULSE presents fresh work by two artists who speak directly to the displacement and transformation inherent to the experience of immigration, and the personal cost of the War on Terror. Together, they weave dance, theater, music, and multimedia into a rich personal tapestry with broad political implications.

Dhoom Dhamaka!
By Joti Singh and Duniya Dance Company
Featuring performances by Daisy Rockwell

A collaboration between Joti Singh's Duniya Dance Company, musician/dancer Boynarr Sow, and painter Daisy Rockwell, Dhoom Dhamaka! explores the individual identities of both those in power and those divested of power by the so-called “War on Terror”. The piece is inspired by the story of Boynarr Sow. Sow, born and raised in Senegal, and a U.S. citizen by marriage, was abducted by the Department of Homeland Security, sent to Guantanamo Bay for one week. He was subsequently held in detention in Arizona for a year and a half, where he could not see his young daughter and could not practice dancing and drumming, activities around which his life had up to that point revolved. Although he repeatedly came before a judge who recommended his release because there was no evidence to show that he was a terrorist, he was kept in detention. Now released, Sow returns to the Bay Area, where he will appear live as part of the performance. Rather than harboring feelings of anger and revenge, Sow wishes to live his life in peace away from the omnipresent vision of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Bringing together music from Mali, Jamaica, India, Senegal, and Guinea, and beyond, Dhoom Dhamaka! draws upon a sense of belonging and citizenship in flux, a sense of rootlessness where there once was rootedness, a sense of living in a state of uncertainty and fear. While the piece explores a bleak and devastating moment in the life of an immigrant, this moment exists simultaneously with moments of beauty and hopes for justice. Painter Daisy Rockwell displays a series of paired portraits of individuals that play roles in the struggle, drawing parallels between the weak and the powerful, the ‘good’ and the ‘bad,’ and make us think about the humanity of everyone who is involved in the so-called War on Terror.

Border TRIP(tych) II: A BODY PARTED
(shrapnel of present time / esquirlas de tiempo presente)
by Violeta Luna and Secos & Mojados
Featuring performances/collaboration by Victor Cartagena, David Molina, Roberto Varea & Maria Reyna Sanchez

Performance artist Violeta Luna, known for her work with Guillermo Gomez-Peña, presents part two of Border TRIP(tych), a movement, sound and media-based performance-art piece focused on an immigrant’s journey as she leaves her home in Latin America and arrives in the US searching for work.

Part one, Buried in the Body of Remembrance deals with the past, presenting an archeology of memory, an awakening of awareness in the central character that she is to leave and become an immigrant. A Body Parted: shrapnel of present time / esquirlas de tiempo presente (working title for part two) is her conscience after “the crossing.” Forever marked by the in-between she takes on the task of transforming shards of memory into “dreams” of possibilities in a new landscape.

The migrant body is a working body, defined fundamentally by its ability to perform work. If she is to restore the full dimension of her humanity, in the cracks and the fractures of the new system she has to assemble her new body. Indeed, her present has become a construction site where she has to build a new identity, a new territory that she will negotiate based on her needs, and what is imposed on her by this new geography. She believes that this construction site is her last border to cross.

Sewing machine center stage; a great dress is being built, covering the whole stage, part projection screen, a “net” where to catch image-splinters of past and present: sweatshops, social unrest back home, solidarity, pieces of broken English, deportations. Objects-icons are sewn into the landscape. The audience is invited to take part in this experimental social surgery.