DACA 1
DACA really has nothing to do with dance photography, but it is an important issue in our city and our region. We felt that because we had an audience we had to try, we couldn’t just stand by without saying anything. Our goal was to raise awareness of the DACA issue by using our voice as photographers to spread awareness.
In November 2017 we collaborated with Canela Photography, Paulina Ortiz, a friend with DACA status and 20 dancers to do a DACA awareness event. The event was at the border wall, both in the U.S. and in Mexico. We went to Mexico, Canela Photography was in the U.S.
This image symbolizes the experience and sacrifices of immigrants.
It also represents the duality of the U.S. experience with Latinos, both needing immigrants, allowing immigrants into their homes and among their family, allowing them to prepare their meals, breaking bread with them, and yet fearing them. Both trying to do the right thing with DACA, but also looking away from the slaughter of innocents.
The wall itself is a duality for people near to it. A savior and a devil. Giver of peace and a deliverer of death. The image is set against the wall, the wall is such a unique location at a unique time, a boundary for the aspirations, hopes and dreams of millions. The physical wall looks and feels completely different when viewed from the opposite sides. The thinking about the wall looks and feels completely different when viewed from opposite sides. The Bible contains many references to duality in man. I intentionally used religious themes to disarm viewers, it's very hard to claim the moral high ground and ignore the suffering. It's hard to be Christian and venomous.
The Latina ballerina is Paulina, in white symbolizing the purity in purpose of most Latino's sacrifices. Christ-like in pose and nailed to the Mexican side of the American wall, with her gaze averted like an illegal immigrant would avert their gaze in public. Symbolically she represents the immigrants willingness to accept their own crucifixion at the American altar, and the American willingness to wash their hands of the immigrants fate, and claim innocence.
She stands on a lettuce crate which symbolizes the jobs in the U.S., jobs as important as life itself. Instead of INRI nailed to the cross, there is a sign that says DACA nailed to the wall. In some ways DACA is satirical, like the titulus INRI. The lettuce crate is on the sand, like the sand of the desert. There are several red crosses in the sand with no names, symbolizing the human cost of forcing people around the wall into the fiery hell of the desert.
One time I walked freely across the exact spot shown in this image crossing from Mexico into the U.S. unmolested, unnoticed. We believe the wall will remain until the people on opposite sides of the wall are the same, then, no longer needed it will crumble like so many other walls in history. Our goal is to bring people on opposite sides of the wall closer, and so speed us to the time that the wall falls from gravity, unnoticed and unattended, and becomes nothing but a forgotten skeleton in the desert.
@lightheart.danceart
Dance without Borders
This image from our first DACA event struck a nerve. It has become a recurring symbol of what we are trying to achieve, it symbolizes how we can use dance to rise above the constraints of the border.