What a joy it is to now have Healing Voices-Personal Stories’s new film Out of the Shadow: Shining Light on Domestic Violence posted on Vimeo and our website. This project and resulting film were more complicated than our earlier films. The idea for the film was brought to us by HV-PS’s board member Leona Stucky-Abbott and grew into a Day of Action Against Domestic Violence held on October 5, 2019. Check out this website to see where events were held. In this blog I write about the role that movement and dance played in the Day and in the film.
One of the things we recommended for the Day of Action was a Die-In to remember and acknowledge the large number of women who have lost their lives to an intimate partner. As we began to share our idea with people, it became clear we needed to establish some basic guidelines for what we meant as a Die-In. It was not to be a protest but rather a time to remember those women who have lost their lives!! We gave a basic movement outline…. to have those women who were representing the victims enter first and lie down on the ground. Other women (who did not want to lie down) and men then made a protective circle around them. Once everyone was in place, all observed a minute of silence with no movement. After the minute, with the cue of a chime, one woman began to get up, then help another person up, with the two acknowledging each other before moving on to help another woman up. Once everyone was up, they affirmed, with dance and gestures, the celebration of life and the message that the violence has to stop.
We did a demonstration film of our model and provided it to groups so they could get an idea of what to do. We of course also suggested that they come up with their own ideas too. You can watch the demonstration film here. It was exciting to get the videos from the different groups and see what they came up with for October 5th.
We also suggested that each event plan something special to call attention to domestic violence. I was thrilled that we ended up with three specific dances that play an important role in the film. Two of the dance pieces were a part of the New York Day of Action held at St. Mark’s Church. Regina Ress, who organized the NYC event, describes them beautifully in the film and I strongly urge you to watch it. Briefly, one of the dances was performed and choreographed by Sonali Skandan, who has an East Indian dance company. It is about a courtesan who is trapped and longs to be free. The second dance, Ni Una Carmen Mas (“Not One More Carmen”), was performed by Ivanka Figueroa and choreographed by Gabriela Estrada who enthusiastically signed up to be a part of our Day of Action when we first announced it.
and choreographed by Gabriela Estrada from Out of the Shadow
Trapped is the third dance piece featured in our film and its history is very interesting. It is performed by Tiana Lovett with choreography by Lynne Wimmer. Lynne Wimmer is the co-director and editor of Out of the Shadow and a longtime friend. We have collaborated on lots of different projects. I suggested she read Leona Stucky-Abbott’s book The Fog of Faith. Leona is a board member of Healing Voices – Personal Stories, which produced the film. Leona also brought to us the idea of making a film related to how many women have died from domestic violence – nearly double the number of men who died in combat from 2001 – 2012. (6,500 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan while 11,700 women were murdered by intimate partners.)
In a recent email, Lynne Wimmer wrote:
Leona, your brave, blunt autobiography of your terrifying experiences was what directed me to paw through a collection of old (and I mean old – reel to reel 1 inch tapes) videotapes and discover that the first dance I’d ever choreographed had some purpose besides history. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such a talented, willing creature as Tiana. So, working on this project also sent me back into the dance studio as a choreographer for the first time in six years. I don’t know if I’ll ever venture there again, but it was a nice, short return visit to my former life.
Last year I visited Lynne and loved seeing her work with Tiana and how this very first piece she choreographed could have a wonderful place in the Day of Action or on its own. As it turned out, Lynne beautifully staged a Die-In in a church as part of a Day of Action event organized by the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Salt Lake City, and later filmed Trapped.
At some point as Lynne was editing she experimented with seeing how the Grimms’ tale “Old Rink Rank,” which Regina had told in NYC and which we had included (in a shortened version) in the interview we taped at Northern New Mexico College with filmmaker David Lindblom’s students, would work with her dance. When she shared it with me, I thought, “Wow did that work!” and so it became part of the film. Regina and Lynne are now thinking of developing this into a film of its own, and I hope they will do that. It is always very special and fun to see things come together that were not necessarily planned.
To conclude, I honor Lynne Wimmer and the amazing job she did to take a series of photos and video clips from many different groups and edit it into this film. Her artistic sensitivity, film editing skills, understanding of dance and the choreographic process took this film to a higher level than we imagined!! THANK YOU, LYNNE.
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