EU Project - Performing Gender-Dancing In Your Shoes2022/2023 with Festival Boulevard

Since January 2022, I have been collaborating with Festival Boulevard a group of eight participants on the project Performing Gender – Dancing in Your Shoes at our studios in Pand 18. This group shares a deep connection to their heritage from the former Dutch East Indies and the Moluccan Islands, and together we felt a strong need to bring these histories to light, especially after a gathering in 2020 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Japan's capitulation.

Performing Gender – Dancing in Your Shoes became the perfect platform for these stories to be told, allowing the participants to shape how their histories are shared and empowering them in the process.

The project began in January 2022 with a central question guiding our journey: "What stories do we carry within ourselves, and what unites us as a group? How can we use dance to express these stories?" Throughout the spring and early summer, we met weekly to explore these themes through movement.

From the start, I have been involved in guiding the group, helping them channel their personal stories and shared experiences into dance. Together, we explore emotions, questions, and memories, drawing on songs and poems that evoke their cultural roots. From this base, I delve deeper into how movement and narrative intersect.

The group members, spanning various ages, each bring unique perspectives to the physical exercises, which resonate differently for every participant, enriching the creative process.

(c) Elly Welford