“They are dancing not to please the audience, but to [question], to make them think, make them reflect on things,” Palacios adds.

Originally commissioned by the Mayor’s Office of Medellín to commemorate Colombia’s 159th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery, The City of Others’ Vancouver premiere is presented with the Blackout Art Society, the Vancouver Latin American Culture Centre and Latincouver.

Art as political discourse

Palacios responded to the city of Medellín’s invitation by reflecting on the presence of slavery in contemporary society. For him, slavery’s continued existence in Colombia is evident through the Black community’s limited access to systems ensuring quality of life, including education and health. Drawing from his dancer’s personal experiences of racism, including stereotyping, The City of Others challenges this legacy of colonialism.

“Each of the Sankofa dancers come from all over the Colombian territories,” he explains. “They are able to tell stories about racism that are very much about the Black identity [and] very specific to the territories where they are coming from.”

The choreographer further notes that each Colombian territory has their own form of dance. Through discussions, the performers found a common way – emphasizing the diversity of Colombian Afro culture – to translate these art forms into political activism. Palacios found it important for The City of Others to not only point out racism but propose solutions to it.

“Within the Black community, the arts still have a very strong political value – because Black people still have to fight and convince others that their life matters,” the choreographer explains.

Solutions come in the form of recognizing the humanity of others and the value of their cultures – two strategies that Palacios hopes will end the dehumanization of the Black community.

Dancing against injustice

The City of Others also reflects the choreographer’s complex relationship with his own city. While he was born in Medellín, which as a large Black population, Palacios still encounters locals demanding to know where he is from. Feeling like a stranger in his hometown, dance allows him to connect with culture.

“Dance is a very important legacy of the culture, and [we] hope that this dance can be for people all over the world to finally understand and recognize its importance,” he adds.

By incorporating storytelling, the choreographer also works against the superficial exotification and erotization of African dance. Instead of objects being studied, he desires for his dancers to be recognized as “subjects of knowledge.”

“When they are able to tell stories about life and about oppression through the dance, they also have the capacity to speak [about] social discourse [and] social injustice,” he adds.

Incorporating both traditional and contemporary music, Palacios sees the soundtrack as using music’s universal quality to encourage the audience’s self-reflection. For him, the costumes of dress shirts and ties also challenge hegemonic systems: they emphasize the push and pull between the body’s desire for freedom and the constraint of clothing.

“On stage, there’s this constant dialogue about the relationship between the costume and dance,” he explains. “This dialectic between how people would like to see me versus who I really am.”

The performance also highlights the values of different communities, including rural and Indigenous ones. For him, Indigenous communities in small towns have a different way of engaging with nature – one that is less individualistic. One of the choreographer’s favourite scenes – featuring Black Colombian women fighting against injustice – embodies the performance’s activist quality.

“This work puts [dancers] in a condition of not victims, but rather fighters,” he adds.

Palacios hopes that the respect shown by his audiences to the Black dancers is extended into daily interactions outside of the theatre. All showings are accompanied by a pre-show talk; the Feb. 21 showing is accompanied by a post-show social.

Interview conducted with translation help from Francesca Piscopo.

For more information, see www.dancehouse.ca/event/sankofadanzafro/#1710873887727-e4228924-b5ea