About Ushindi Niwetu
Artist Statement
Inspired by Katherine Dunham's theory of memory of difference, Ushindi Niwetu uses dance performance, dance-making, and dance education to educate, connect, and empower the African Diaspora. The creation of her work is guided by African culture, and the centrality of dance to it. She utilizes an Afrocentric approach to dance which is centered on polyrhythmic and polycentric movement, the connection to spirituality and nature, Diasporic narratives, and ultimately the African human being.
My Artistic Manifestation
I’m an embodied cultural historian and artist. I’ve traveled throughout the African continent and the African Diaspora studying the dances and now I’m studying the dances of my immediate home, of my Diasporic pinpoint. I’m uncovering Bamboula and embodying home.
Reflections on Re/membering Bamboula. Embodying Home.
I’m thinking about how we as African people/people of the African Diaspora decide what a dance or rhythm will be, what purpose it’ll serve, how it will be danced, etc. Doing this helped me to understand a potential process my ancestors went through in the dance-making process. How similar or different is it from mine/ours of today? Different or another manifestation? What elements were used to contruct the dances? How did they shift depending on how a person understood it based on her/his cultural manifestation? Were certain body parts emphasized over others? Certain practices and techniques?
I’ve been interested in “dancing” in ways that I haven’t typically danced, and with this, I decided to allow my hands to do the dancing by mapping and writing and documenting genealogies. This has allowed me to interpret the texts I’m reading on Afro-Louisiana dances, their ancestors, descendents, and relatives. In order to learn the Bamboula dance for example, I’ve accessed the primary sources that were written about the dance, and literally danced out the descriptions. This openness in the interpretation of dance has allowed me to not be as stifled in understanding what my ancestors were doing. It has also allowed me to imagine new ways in which the Africans, regardless of location, maintained their dances and also learned new ones.
This is important to me so that I can share them out, so I can re/member my (d)ancestors and their movements. Maybe they’re still here. I want to know what they were doing, so that I can understand that process of creating new forms and sharing them and maintaining them. How can I create, share, and maintain as my ancestors must’ve done.
Inspired by Katherine Dunham's theory of memory of difference, Ushindi Niwetu uses dance performance, dance-making, and dance education to educate, connect, and empower the African Diaspora. The creation of her work is guided by African culture, and the centrality of dance to it. She utilizes an Afrocentric approach to dance which is centered on polyrhythmic and polycentric movement, the connection to spirituality and nature, Diasporic narratives, and ultimately the African human being.
My Artistic Manifestation
I’m an embodied cultural historian and artist. I’ve traveled throughout the African continent and the African Diaspora studying the dances and now I’m studying the dances of my immediate home, of my Diasporic pinpoint. I’m uncovering Bamboula and embodying home.
Reflections on Re/membering Bamboula. Embodying Home.
I’m thinking about how we as African people/people of the African Diaspora decide what a dance or rhythm will be, what purpose it’ll serve, how it will be danced, etc. Doing this helped me to understand a potential process my ancestors went through in the dance-making process. How similar or different is it from mine/ours of today? Different or another manifestation? What elements were used to contruct the dances? How did they shift depending on how a person understood it based on her/his cultural manifestation? Were certain body parts emphasized over others? Certain practices and techniques?
I’ve been interested in “dancing” in ways that I haven’t typically danced, and with this, I decided to allow my hands to do the dancing by mapping and writing and documenting genealogies. This has allowed me to interpret the texts I’m reading on Afro-Louisiana dances, their ancestors, descendents, and relatives. In order to learn the Bamboula dance for example, I’ve accessed the primary sources that were written about the dance, and literally danced out the descriptions. This openness in the interpretation of dance has allowed me to not be as stifled in understanding what my ancestors were doing. It has also allowed me to imagine new ways in which the Africans, regardless of location, maintained their dances and also learned new ones.
This is important to me so that I can share them out, so I can re/member my (d)ancestors and their movements. Maybe they’re still here. I want to know what they were doing, so that I can understand that process of creating new forms and sharing them and maintaining them. How can I create, share, and maintain as my ancestors must’ve done.