September 17th, 2022

Oh goodness, what a treasurable gopher hole this is! In 2005, the project of SonneBlauma Danscz Theatre, began to emerge, after 9 years of learning, missing the mark, and trying again. At this time, I led a full company class before rehearsal, and then we rehearsed. 

All of our classes were by donation, so no one would be turned away for lack of funds, and were a requisite for dancers in the dance making process. I realize now, this was the Hawaiian genes coming through, this spirit of Aloha, inclusivity, and generosity. 

The classes tended to be taught intuitively, which is to say, from a repertoire of around four hours of teaching material, I would intuit what to teach in the moment. At some point, the class was codified to a degree where I could teach it in Turkish, for our tour to Istanbul, and once I was comfortable with the Turkish vocabulary.

After an encounter with DV8 Physical Theater, I had a profound revelation about my path as a dancer, and my inner prompts gave me the direction to de-dancify my body. It was around a decade in its process, and I realize, it was an act of decolonizing my body in order to explore other ancestral lineages, first Hawaiian, and now, a draw to Africa, and all those rich spiritual nuances.

Notes from Workshop Taught in Turkish

Cati Workshop