Kiribu in "Fall and Recover". Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes.

v. to punish or coerce by inflicting excruciating pain.

(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

The floor to the entrance of La Mama for the “Fall and Recover” dance is different when you exit. There are outlines of bodies stretching across the floor that look like the outlines you see in criminal investigations. The scene comes of as a surprise, but the surprise feels more like finding out another part of a secret you already know. That is because at the conclusion of the dance, every dancer lays down on the stage and creates an outline around his or her own body with thick white powder.

“We have left our past there,” explains Kiribu during the talk-back after the performance, pointing to the traces covering the floor.

The traces are not the only thing that is reminiscent with the past for the dancers. All of them have been victims of torture. They are trying to cure themselves from the past through dance. “Fall and Recover” emerged from John Scott‘s workshops with clients of Center for Care for Survivors of Torture in Dublin, Ireland and many elements of the dance are actually exercises or activities they did at the Center. The loud breathing we encounter at the beginning of the dance, drawing (which is violently ripped up and discarded later), or even gathering together of the dancers and lifting their hands up are examples of that.

“I lift my arms up to the sky, and I don’t feel pain. I’m reunited with my family,” said Kiribu. “Everyone wants to be with their families. But we lost our families,” she adds.

It is apparent that the dance troupe has become a family. And throughout the dance they act like one – the movements are simple, but in perfect sync with each other. Much is said through repetition, through mimicking, or through doing the same thing differently. An interesting instance is when everybody is standing in a line telling his or her own story, loudly, slowly, each in the native tongue, over the sound of other speakers. We do not understand the words, but the sound of the chaos of voices sounds like a single mind about to explode. Much of the dance is also complemented with music which fades in and out, unpredictably, like a dream.

During the talk back Kiribu also describes the difficulty of being a victim of torture in a foreign country: “It’s a new kind of torture – you have to express yourself, but you cannot talk.” Although most of the dancers now speak some English, they found a much better way of communicating, of erasing the difficulties of the past, and of celebrating human spirit and determination through dance.