Texas Roadtrip 2014
My first dance activism videos emerged in June of 2014. They were no more than 20 seconds in length due to my old camera phone at the time which had a time limit on videos. In July, I remember getting a new phone. Five new dance activism videos were uploaded that month with the new camera phone. On July 31st, I had gone out onto the streets of Windsor to talk to people about dance activism. Nine videos were shot that day co-created with willing participants. Some were willing to simply listen to what the dance activism was about while others were willing to be a part of it by filming. And a small handful chose to participate by dancing in the videos as well. The nine videos of me dancing in a purple shirt, a few of which featured other dancers too, were uploaded on the next day, the first of August.
In August, I uploaded only 2 new videos before my family and I took a road trip to Texas. My mom, my younger sib Zuko and I got into the red CRV and drove down to Texas to visit family members of ours. Along the journey we stopped in various American cities and the dance activism was given new landscapes to be tested on. Maybe it was unfamiliarity of the new terrain or the joy of travelling. Maybe it was that the land we were travelling in hails itself as the land of the free. Maybe it was a combination of various elements that led to a new aspect of the dance activism being born.
Up until then doing dance activism for me meant going out to the streets and finding willing participants to share the vision. You are free. Be free. I dance in demonstration of freedom. It's not a kind of freedom granted by the constitution of any nation. It's a freedom from suffering and attachment. It's a freedom from the opinions and attitudes of others. It's a freedom that we're all born with, know well in childhood years, and need to remember in later years. After talking to people about freedom, I would ask if they would be willing to participate. Participation could mean two things. Most people took the easy option and just filmed me. Some had enough joy to courageously jump into the frame and dance with me. But what happened in August in San Antonio, Texas changed my application of dance activism. It changed my perceptions.
One morning in San Antonio, I ended up spending the day alone. After eating, I was walking down the streets of this new and unknown city. With great spontaneity and creative force, my walking erupted into dancing. I was now dancewalking all around town. I spent hours dancewalking around. It was therapy. This became another extension of the dance activism that I would end up bringing back home. Up until that point, I was talking to people and getting them to film me. But after the evolution at San Antonio, I began just going out in public and dancing for hours without stopping to talk to anyone. The following video is just a snippet of that dancewalk when I reunited with my family members in the evening. Big thanks to my sib for taking it!
In the last string of posts, I've been talking about enabling the dreams of others. In The Tree and Her Friends 1 - 3, I dove into the topic while giving examples from a 2018 trip to Penang. Following that post, on the same day I ran into a soul who had enabled the dreams of her son. She Bought Her Son a Guitar. In that post about the mom I had talked about how my own parents had also enabled their dreams in their own ways and that my dad's efforts deserved a post of its own. That post about my father was made yesterday featuring the same title of the dance activism film my dad made called Answers to a Father. This current post continues on the same thread. You guessed it! This time we're focusing on how my mom enabled my dreams during the roadtrip to Texas.
My parents have always been people who love to travel. I remember living in Izmir and always going to nearby towns on the weekends. That continued in Windsor as well as we explored parts of southern Ontario and other places. On this particular trip, it was my mom's idea to stop in major cities along the way and see new sights. I appreciate that idea because now I realize just how much it enabled my dreams and especially my dance activism. Thank you Anne for enabling my dreams too (Language note: Anne is not the name of my mother such as Anne-Marie. Anne is pronounced 'Un-nae' and is the word for mother in Turkish. We don't use the word Mama like many languages do. Mama means babyfood in Turkish. Also it's highly uncommon and a bit disrespectful to refer to your mother by her name in our culture).
Some of my friends back in Windsor had shied away from my dance activism. They avoided me. And some expressed their dislike of my dancing on the streets. What Anne did was different. She supported me and she never made discouraging comments. On our trip to Dallas, Texas we stopped in different cities such as San Antonio, Austin, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. I took the opportunity to do dance activism and Anne recorded me. Zuko recorded me there as well. That was the video we took directly under the Arch in St. Louis. So a big thanks to Zuko as well! Thanks for enabling my dreams and I want to enable yours too!
We actually visited the Arch as well. We went up there. I was thinking that I could make a video up there as well but it was much narrower than I expected up there and there were many people. It wasn't the best space for dancing so I respectfully passed on it.
My first response to seeing that sculpture in Indianapolis was awe. I was amazed. We were actually driving by when we saw it and I wanted to stop to take a video. We parked and Anne got behind the camera. The sculpture is called Ann Dancing Sculpture. The artist is Julian Opie.
This other video from San Antonio captures the spontaneity of dance activism. We were waiting at a long and winding red light when I got the inspiration to jump out and transform that median strip into my dancefloor. I want to inspire spontaneous creativity. I jumped back in the car when the light turned green. You can hear Zuko saying "Annecim green, green, green!" (Language note: the 'cim' inflection, pronounced 'jim', makes it mean 'my dear Anne.' It can be added to names and titles of loved ones.)
This mural really caught my eye. I feel like calling it a mural doesn't give it full credit. It seems like much more. It's an artistic canvas in the city. It's a reason to take your mind off the daily routines of the city. It's a landscape of colour and contrast. Thanks for being the background to our Austin Dance Activism video. No, that's not enough. Thanks for being the reason for the video.
Many parents don't support the dreams of their children and this is something I would like to change. But for now I am thankful that my mother has been supportive. Her acts of filming me in public show me that she is behind me on this one. Thanks for never saying anything discouraging about my dreams as well. And thanks to Zuko as well for being an enabler by getting behind the camera here and there.
I am going to end this post with one final video and a note about the power of spontaneity and my mom's ability to spring into action - action that enables dreams. The following video was also taken in August back home in Windsor. I was practicing the dancewalking on my way back home, Anne saw it from the balcony, and she recorded it. Fun!
In August, I uploaded only 2 new videos before my family and I took a road trip to Texas. My mom, my younger sib Zuko and I got into the red CRV and drove down to Texas to visit family members of ours. Along the journey we stopped in various American cities and the dance activism was given new landscapes to be tested on. Maybe it was unfamiliarity of the new terrain or the joy of travelling. Maybe it was that the land we were travelling in hails itself as the land of the free. Maybe it was a combination of various elements that led to a new aspect of the dance activism being born.
Up until then doing dance activism for me meant going out to the streets and finding willing participants to share the vision. You are free. Be free. I dance in demonstration of freedom. It's not a kind of freedom granted by the constitution of any nation. It's a freedom from suffering and attachment. It's a freedom from the opinions and attitudes of others. It's a freedom that we're all born with, know well in childhood years, and need to remember in later years. After talking to people about freedom, I would ask if they would be willing to participate. Participation could mean two things. Most people took the easy option and just filmed me. Some had enough joy to courageously jump into the frame and dance with me. But what happened in August in San Antonio, Texas changed my application of dance activism. It changed my perceptions.
One morning in San Antonio, I ended up spending the day alone. After eating, I was walking down the streets of this new and unknown city. With great spontaneity and creative force, my walking erupted into dancing. I was now dancewalking all around town. I spent hours dancewalking around. It was therapy. This became another extension of the dance activism that I would end up bringing back home. Up until that point, I was talking to people and getting them to film me. But after the evolution at San Antonio, I began just going out in public and dancing for hours without stopping to talk to anyone. The following video is just a snippet of that dancewalk when I reunited with my family members in the evening. Big thanks to my sib for taking it!
In the last string of posts, I've been talking about enabling the dreams of others. In The Tree and Her Friends 1 - 3, I dove into the topic while giving examples from a 2018 trip to Penang. Following that post, on the same day I ran into a soul who had enabled the dreams of her son. She Bought Her Son a Guitar. In that post about the mom I had talked about how my own parents had also enabled their dreams in their own ways and that my dad's efforts deserved a post of its own. That post about my father was made yesterday featuring the same title of the dance activism film my dad made called Answers to a Father. This current post continues on the same thread. You guessed it! This time we're focusing on how my mom enabled my dreams during the roadtrip to Texas.
My parents have always been people who love to travel. I remember living in Izmir and always going to nearby towns on the weekends. That continued in Windsor as well as we explored parts of southern Ontario and other places. On this particular trip, it was my mom's idea to stop in major cities along the way and see new sights. I appreciate that idea because now I realize just how much it enabled my dreams and especially my dance activism. Thank you Anne for enabling my dreams too (Language note: Anne is not the name of my mother such as Anne-Marie. Anne is pronounced 'Un-nae' and is the word for mother in Turkish. We don't use the word Mama like many languages do. Mama means babyfood in Turkish. Also it's highly uncommon and a bit disrespectful to refer to your mother by her name in our culture).
Some of my friends back in Windsor had shied away from my dance activism. They avoided me. And some expressed their dislike of my dancing on the streets. What Anne did was different. She supported me and she never made discouraging comments. On our trip to Dallas, Texas we stopped in different cities such as San Antonio, Austin, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. I took the opportunity to do dance activism and Anne recorded me. Zuko recorded me there as well. That was the video we took directly under the Arch in St. Louis. So a big thanks to Zuko as well! Thanks for enabling my dreams and I want to enable yours too!
We actually visited the Arch as well. We went up there. I was thinking that I could make a video up there as well but it was much narrower than I expected up there and there were many people. It wasn't the best space for dancing so I respectfully passed on it.
My first response to seeing that sculpture in Indianapolis was awe. I was amazed. We were actually driving by when we saw it and I wanted to stop to take a video. We parked and Anne got behind the camera. The sculpture is called Ann Dancing Sculpture. The artist is Julian Opie.
This other video from San Antonio captures the spontaneity of dance activism. We were waiting at a long and winding red light when I got the inspiration to jump out and transform that median strip into my dancefloor. I want to inspire spontaneous creativity. I jumped back in the car when the light turned green. You can hear Zuko saying "Annecim green, green, green!" (Language note: the 'cim' inflection, pronounced 'jim', makes it mean 'my dear Anne.' It can be added to names and titles of loved ones.)
This mural really caught my eye. I feel like calling it a mural doesn't give it full credit. It seems like much more. It's an artistic canvas in the city. It's a reason to take your mind off the daily routines of the city. It's a landscape of colour and contrast. Thanks for being the background to our Austin Dance Activism video. No, that's not enough. Thanks for being the reason for the video.
Many parents don't support the dreams of their children and this is something I would like to change. But for now I am thankful that my mother has been supportive. Her acts of filming me in public show me that she is behind me on this one. Thanks for never saying anything discouraging about my dreams as well. And thanks to Zuko as well for being an enabler by getting behind the camera here and there.
I am going to end this post with one final video and a note about the power of spontaneity and my mom's ability to spring into action - action that enables dreams. The following video was also taken in August back home in Windsor. I was practicing the dancewalking on my way back home, Anne saw it from the balcony, and she recorded it. Fun!
keep it going bro
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