Becoming the Sky took place in September 2022 on Cherokee Territory across Catawba and Creek nations (South Carolina) and in October 2022 on lək̓ʷəŋən Territory (Victoria, BC).
"I believe that there is knowledge that our bodies hold. Knowledge about our histories, futures, and present experiences. This knowledge is beyond words or thought. My aim is to give space for this knowledge to emerge. Becoming the Sky is a choreographic score that seeks to empower through embodied experience. Developed through gestures of indigo vat making and dyeing it connects the epistemologies and technologies of our ancestors to protecting our current and future selves.
Originally, I am from territories which are part of Cherokee territories and my family have lived in these territories and across Catawba and Creek nations (also known as South Carolina) for more than seven generations. Beginning with an article that my mother and I shared about the uncoverings of vats made by enslaved peoples for dyeing, I became interested in indigo and its relationship to my ancestors and being on these lands.
Becoming the Sky
Kemi Craig
Indigo was once more valuable than gold and “more powerful than the gun”. It’s demand was a driving force in the kidnapping of people across the African continent and the legalization of the slave trade. Our ancestors carried the seeds, the knowledge and the technologies to cultivate indigo. But we had something else,
“Our ancestors could read the stars and understand the land. So the knowledge that made them experts on growing, harvesting and dyeing with indigo, also made it so that they could escape.”
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Paraphrased from conversation with Indigo Griot, Valérie dee MacPherson-Walker
My process for creating this project was first to begin to learn about indigo vat making and after building a vat to dye fabric by hand. The idea is to observe the necessary movements and actions involved in the process. I am documenting, first with still shots, next with Super 8 film and finally with a score for dance through isolating and amplifying these movements. I feel that the experience of dance, the way we interpret and express, is so personalized that rather than setting a choreography, offer a set of guidelines for improvised movement which can create a transcendent experience."
Written by Kemi Craig
We are grateful to Open Space, an organizational partner to the Dreaming the Land project supporting Kemi Craig's Becoming the Sky on lək̓ʷəŋən Territory (Victoria, BC).
We would also like to thank the following people for their support in this project:
Joshua Ngenda - videographer
