HaMapah/The Map Dance on-Film (30 min.) chronicles dancer and choreographer Adam W. McKinney’s return to his ancestral homelands—Benin, Poland, Montana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin—to trace the intersections of his African American, Native American, and Jewish heritages. Directed by Daniel Banks and filmed by documentary filmmaker Laura Bustillos Jáquez, the work was created over a four-year period as a way to investigate the possibility of healing transgenerational traumas. HaMapah/The Map Dance-on-Film explores issues of identity, heritage, and ancestry and offers a complex and powerful story about humanity and mixed-heritage identity.

Storycircles

All our events include a community storycircle, organically flowing out of the creative offering. We turn down the lights on the stage and up on the audience and, instead of facilitating questions about the film, we ask participants to relate stories of how their personal narratives intersect with the material of the piece. We first invite sharing among audience members in pairs, then to the room as a whole. The goal of the storycircles is to balance artist and audience voices and create a space for community members to learn more about one another—to breathe and listen together.

Current research shows that audiences’ heartbeats synchronize while simultaneously watching a performance. The artistic offering, therefore, is a catalyst for greater community sharing, inter-/intra-group understanding, and healing. This work has been consistently successful, generating partnerships among audience members as well as inspiring individuals to begin their own research and projects around identity and heritage. The storycircle often lasts longer than the performance or film.

Kolot/Voices is supported by a JCF Nova Grant