Grief takes a toll on the body. Anger, tension, sleeplessness, restlessness, even compromised immune response — all are positively correlated, according to the National Institutes of Health, with the process of mourning.
On Friday and Saturday, March 21 and 22, WashU’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Dance Program in Arts & Sciences will present “¿Te puedo contar algo? (Can I Tell You Something?),” an evening-length concert investigating the nature, power and necessity of grief. Featured on the program will be new and original works by MFA candidates Tess Angelica Losada-Tindall and Lourdes del Mar Santiago Lebrón.
Artistic director Elinor Harrison, a lecturer in dance and a faculty affiliate in philosophy-neuroscience-psychology in Arts & Sciences, noted that one can grieve for many things: a home, a country, a people, a loved one. In their work, Harrison said, Losada-Tindall and Santiago Lebrón “navigate this terrain with care, imbuing each moment with their own nuanced histories and embodied experiences.
“In the worlds they create, the boundaries of home expand and transform,” Harrison added. “Hair is swept from shoulder to shoulder, searchlights cut through the darkness, furniture is upturned, rice simmers on the stove. What emerges are bold and powerful expressions of the bond of two women staking claim to their own artistic visions.”
Losada-Tindall, a Cuban-American dancer, choreographer and scholar, often explores themes of family, history and bicultural straddling. In “el cielo abajo (the sky below),” a work for five dancers, she examines memories of exile — how they shape identity, the traces left in the body, and the deep resonance for children of diaspora, who often grieve the loss of places they’ve never been.
In “arroz y habichuelas (rice and beans),” a series of vignettes featuring six dancers, Santiago Lebrón, a Puerto Rican movement artist, grapples with notions of scarcity and abundance as well as themes of activism, sovereignty and national identity. Notably, later this year, both Santiago Lebrón and Losada-Tindall will conduct research in Puerto Rico, thanks to a WashU Global Futures grant.
“This work questions whether living within nostalgia is simply our destiny, or whether those living in the diaspora should choose assimilation, acculturation or liminality,” Losada-Tindall writes in her thesis statement. “My overarching goal for my works is not to answer these questions, but instead to create an outlet for the experiences that they come from.”
Performance
“¿Te puedo contar algo?” will begin at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 21 and 22, in WashU’s Edison Theatre. Performances are free and open to the public. Edison Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6465 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call 314-935-6543 or visit pad.wustl.edu.
