Dear Community,

Thank you again for the enormous gift of time and space! We have made great progress in these past months. In November we showed nearly 30 minutes of original work at an in progress showing and talk back and in January  we were able to share a selection of the work at Adinkra House in Montclair, NJ. Here are links to a taste of how the music and movement are developing.

It has taken me a bit more time to develop a plan for communicating with you all, but about a week into it, I am already surprised to find that  MUV Moods the blog I have started has become not only a space to document this creative process, but also a space to develop it. Please visit, follow and share the page and please also talk back. In the cloister of my imagination and in the intimacy of the studio it is easy to become a little isolated. I will do more on my side to keep connected, please let me know if the message is getting through.
 

peaceLOVElight

Shalewa

Because of all of you we SURPASSED our goal! We thank you for your backing, your kind words and your spreading of the word. We hope to announce our plans for a 2012 season before  the end of November. Watch this space for more details!

peaceLOVElight

Shalewa Mackall

Founding Director, Movement for the Urban Village Dance Company

When I began my push to complete Calling Names  six weeks ago I thought I knew what this work was about. I thought that I knew how things would roll out. Every day I have been surprised by this work. I have been surprised by my colleagues and collaborators.  I have been surprised by my community.  I have delighted in these surprises. These blessings far greater than even my wild imagination could conjure. MUVs mission statement states,” the intention that the work function as an instrument of creative expression, a modality for healing and means for liberation on every level for all people.” I am feeling this healing in my life through the experience of these blessings. I am grateful.

We are exploring identity, lineage and personal transformation in Calling Names. In the past few weeks in particular, I have been reminded time and again of the importance of the actual act calling names and remembering the people whose lives and spirits point the way for us. Names like, Steve Biko, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair, Troy Anthony Davis and Wangari Maathai ring loudly in my ears as I speak them aloud. Their lives and deaths resonate with me and remind me that there is still much work to be done.

I am interested in hearing from you, community, whose names need to be given voice? Why? Please share your names and your stories.

I will start:

Early this year I lost my grandmother, Eva Arriola, or as I knew her, Mamita. I had been her primary caregiver for several years an experience that transformed me at least as much as becoming a mother did. This loss has been too deep a wound for me to fully acknowledge at times. This morning she is sitting with me. I feel her presence. For 42 years she supported me with gentleness, humor, cash, correction, prayer, wonderful meals, receptivity, over the top style, babysitting- as a child and as parent. She was always present for me. When she got what I was doing and when she didn’t she was a witness for love. In the months since she joined the ancestors I have been in the whirlwind. Many changes have come flying in and out of my life. There have been trying moments -moments when I tried and moved forward. There have been so many coincidences and synchronicities that I cannot doubt that things are unfolding anyway other than exactly as they are meant to. I am deeply full in a way that I might have once thought corny, sentimental, superstitious or somehow for other people. I have been pushed to peek into my darkest places and pulled into spaces of ethereal light.

In these explorations I have been buoyed by my sisterfriends:  the Winsor girls who knew me when; the Spelman women with whom I first met the challenges of adulthood; my circle sisters AST and OYA who make magic; the MUVing women who help me to make art; the women who have come into my life through pathways too complicated and serendipitous to be anything but a testament to the power of the Creator to put the right folks on your path and in your life. I have been heard clearly by my brothers who are cool and wise and truth-tellers. I have been supported by my son, my parents, my aunts and uncles and cousins in way small and large.  Thank you to each and every one of you.

peaceLOVElight

Shalewa

Greetings,

Welcome to our second update. I have been back from NACL for four days and I have an excerpt of some of this week's performance footage to share. The work is still developing and the footage is raw but I am very excited by the way things are coming together. Thank you to the gorgeous and powerful performers, Efeya Sampson, dancer and Tilishia Bradley, vocalist.

We have at this writing, 8 days to raise $775 and meet our goal of raising $3500 to support the completion of Calling Names. With the support of our community this goal is well within our reach, please help us to spread the word and if you haven't yet become a backer, please know that every contribution counts and is deeply appreciated. With your help we can close the gap! Thank you.

peaceLOVElight

Shalewa