“Dance is My Vocabulary”, Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo

“La danza es mi vocabulario”, Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo © 

Juan G. Sánchez Martínez

Translated from Spanish © Jocelyn Montalban

If you prefer to read this post as a PDF, click HERE

Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo is part of the Kanienkeha:ka nation (Mohawk), and the Kahnawake community, located close to what is today known as Montreal, across the Kaniatarowanenneh river (the big waterway), commonly known by its colonial name “St. Lawrence River.” Barbara is a choreographer, dancer, and director of the A’nó:wara Dance Theatre, where she creates experimental pieces that fuse Indigenous perspectives on Canadian history with powwow and Haudenosaunee dances, contemporary dance, and diverse dance styles such as hip-hop, and ballet. Barbara studied theatre at Concordia University and at the Native Theatre School. In 2015, she was one of eight dancers invited to participate in the first hoop dance competition, as a part of the Gathering of Nations in New Mexico, the largest powwow in all of Turtle Island (North America.) Barbara also collaborates with various organizations, including La Danse sur les routes du Québec and Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance, with whom she facilitates intercultural educational spaces and supports Indigenous artists across all of Canada. 

I met Barbara in the Longhouse of Kahnawake in the summer of 2023, while participating in an intercultural gathering with Kanienkeha:ka artists and educators. As part of the guest speakers, Barbara shared one of her hoop dances as well as a short-movie: Smudge, Dancing the Land. In the fall, we met again–this time virtually–to talk a little bit about her perspective on dance, so we could share her experiences with the Siwar Mayu project:

“…dance can touch people on many levels, not just on an intellectual level, you know, as reading an article. It also can touch people on emotional levels. And maybe you can even say spiritual levels (…) Dance is my vocabulary, the vocabulary where I am very comfortable, so the more words, the more moves that I know, and the better I can express things. These different vocabularies can be read by more people as well, you know. So that’s why I like to mix a lot of styles…”

Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo

As we can experience in her 2017 McGill University performance (see above), coordination and technique converge with color and beat in the hoop dance, all together in the midst of a circular movement of both body and story. Before her performance in Kahnawake, Barbara warned us that everybody in the audience would likely weave a different story throughout the dance, or at least would identify different beings or scenes from the natural world. Indeed, hoop dance is highly narrative, and allows simultaneous times and spaces: a butterfly, a canoe, a harvest, a mother carrying her daughter. In this thought-provoking space, there is a connection with the ancestors and with the land, but–as Barbara clarified to me–in the moment of a performance before a cross-cultural audience, her intention distances from the ceremony, although it is inevitable that some aspects of the ceremony slip through her performance. 

“I have encountered people who would like to keep powwow dance separate from other kinds of dance, and I respect that. To me, there is a value in keeping a more pure form. I also think it’s important to evolve because I think all these dances came from their environment at the time. And, you know, where did that time start? Where did that time end? Is it just a glimpse of a 100 years or a glimpse of 500 years? Who knows, right? We don’t know. So to me, we’re just continuing what we’ve always done, which is creating our dances from our environment in our experience as Indigenous people.”

Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo

Through the transformation of Indigenous cultural expressions, new generations may find an art form which they can identify with, and then receive “tradition” from this dynamic environment. Furthermore, Barbara’s dance is a powerful tool to break stereotypes that classify “Indigenous art” as “folklore,” since these dances are, at the same time, ancestral and contemporary. This aspect is clear in the short-movie Smudge.

Choreographer and dancer: Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo. Director: Pepper O’Bomsawin.
Music: “New Women Song” by Cris Derksen featuring Jennifer Kreisberg.
Dancer and additional choreography: Marshall Kahente Diabo.
Director of photography and promo photo: François Léger Savard. Editor and colorist: Eric Morel.

In the middle of the global pandemic, during the time of social distancing, Barbara had an idea for Smudge, a piece in-between film, dance, and intergenerational healing. While walking in the forest behind her house, she felt the need to dance with the land and to reconnect with the trees and insects through movement and her body. One location of Smudge is that forest. The other location is the McCord Stewart Museum and its “Wearing Our Identity” exhibition, on which Marshall Kahente Diabo, Barbara’s son, tries to reconnect with the pieces and regalia exhibited, out of reach on the other side of the glass showcases. 

“… one of the themes around this film is that when our culture isn’t accessible to us, when the land is no longer accessible to us, what do our beliefs, practices, and ceremonies mean? If you can’t access that, you know, you can go through emotions. But what does that mean? And so to have our clothing, our culture behind glass cases, inside, not outside, I found that was the perfect location.”

Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo

The contrast between the museum and the forest, the son and his mother, the inside and the outside, oblivion and memory, is powerful. Despite this apparent contradiction, both dancers communicate with each other through dance, and build an intergenerational vision: perhaps the certainty that we are all one with nature, and that everything is in a state of movement, the sap of a tree, traditional practices, atoms–as Barbara reminded me. At the end of our short interview, I asked Barbara if she had any advice for the young artists who may one day read this text. In response she said: 

“…we’re all born with gifts, and we’re on a journey to discover what our gifts are. So just be your authentic self, and there is a place, an important place for you.”

Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo

¡Fie Nzhinga, Barbara! Thank you. 

For more about Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo

For more about Juan G.  Sánchez Martínez

Juan Guillermo Sánchez Martínez was born in Bakatá/Bogotá, in the Colombian Andes. He coordinates the online multilingual anthology and exhibition Siwar Mayu, A River of Hummingbirds. He has published the following books of poetry: Uranio (2023), Bejuco (2021), Salvia (2014), Río (2010), and Altamar, awarded with the National Prize in Colombia in 2016 (University of Antioquia). He is the author of Memoria e invención en la poesía de Humberto Ak’abal (Abya-Yala, 2012). In 2019, he co-edited the volume Muyurina y el presente profundo with Quechua writer Fredy Roncalla (Pakarina/Hawansuyo), and he is currently co-editing Abiayalan Pluriverses. Bridging Indigenous Studies and Hispanic Studies with Gloria E. Chacón and Lauren Beck (Amherst College, 2024). He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Indigenous Learning at Lakehead University (Thunder Bay, Canada). 

The translator

Jocelyn Montalban was born in Ontario, Canada, where she currently lives. Her parents immigrated to Canada from Guatemala City in 1997. In 2023, she obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminology from Lakehead University (Ontario, Canada). She is currently studying to obtain a Master’s degree in Social Justice. Her research focuses on Indigenous issues in Canada. In her free time you can find her traveling or hiking in the mountains.

“La danza es mi vocabulario”, Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo © Juan G. Sánchez Martínez

Translated by Jocelyn Montalban ~ Siwar Mayu, January 2024

The Memory of Plants in Three Poems of Gloria Mendoza Borda

Dulce naranja dulce luna © Gloria Mendoza Borda

Introduction, selection and translation from Spanish © Andrea Echeverría

If you prefer to read this as a PDF, click here

Gloria Mendoza Borda (1948) is a renowned Peruvian poet from Puno who currently resides in Arequipa. She joined the Carlos Oquendo de Amat Group in the 1960s and has published Wilayar (1971), Los grillos tomaron tu cimbre (1972), Lugares que tus ojos ignoran (1985), El legendario lobo (1997), La danza de las balsas (1998), Dulce naranja dulce luna (2001), Mujer, mapa de música (2004), Q’antati deshojando margaritas (2006), Desde la montaña grito tu nombre(2013), Amtasiña (2013), and Mi abuela, mi patria (2018). In the three poems below, included in Dulce naranja dulce luna (2001), Mendoza represents how plants communicate their memory. Three of them: the cherry tree, the avocado tree and the honeysuckle. These texts provide an ecological vision based on Quechua-Aymara forms of knowledge that transcend the anthropocentric perspective. To initially approach these poems, perhaps the best thing to do is to ask yourself: what do these plants communicate? What vision do they convey about the passage of time? What forms part of their memory? I invite you to read these poems within the historical framework of the political violence that affected all of Peru, and especially provincial cities and rural communities in Peru during the Conflicto Armado Interno (1980-2000). As you will notice, these plants cry and suffer the passage of time, nostalgically remember the past, and communicate their experience about traumatic episodes that happened in this context.

~~~

The Cries of the Cherry Tree

I am the old cherry tree

who saw them grow

as artists

I also knew how to be an artist

I also knew how to be a river

phosphorescent birds

would stay in my currents  

they made nests with dazzling weeds 

and they sang to life

my roots

keep moving forward

through the underground

I cry in the name of mother earth

in the skin of the boys

suffering

the desolation of the courtyard

I cry

on the posters

that they hung

on my mutilated arms

“Protest against the Cherry Tree’s Death”

I cry

because I don’t know the reason

why did they destroy my branches

I cry

in the name of the white doves

(those who came from the Plaza Mayor

they will no longer be able to shelter from the sun

under my shade)

I cry

because the sound of the boys’ pan flutes and guitars

stayed in me

they played in my lap

during the sunsets

however

I exist 

in our memory

I exist

I am the invisible cherry tree

that keeps them company

my fruits used to adorn

girls’ heads

that took shelter

in my skirts

why did the ax become enraged

with my silence?

from my invisible image

I predict life

I light the fire

my currents grow

I also feel bird 

I also feel man

I also feel artist

I also feel river.

Listen to Gloria Mendoza reading her poetry in Spanish

Looking for the Avocado’s Path

In these times

I did not bear fruit

it’s true

but my leafy green inspired

announced a time of hope

I tried to get closer to the sky

I walked more than a hundred years

downward

towards the immensity

I flourished on the cliffs of silence

only the trace of my forms remained

the semi-destroyed sculpture

looking for my lost path

and the dismayed look

of my friends

I am the result

of changes and death.

The Honeysuckle’s Agony

Mother and lady

centennial

I cry my green agony

drunken my flower

numbs

the morning 

I scream

I implore

they don’t listen to me

I sing in the language of the green

dry

and weak

my skin 

in other times

my fruit was honey

as a child

the sculptor Jorge Mendoza

took one of my branches

and soon

ran with my scent

looking for his mother

I was born

before all of you

‘the house of art’

came later

in my roots

lives the story

of men

that passed through

and left

I still exist

a cable

covers my fingers

crosses my feet

I hope the crows

don’t eat my leaves

in each contour

of my path

there is a wire

at each knot

I break and twist

I look at the blue sky

the song of birds

accompany my green symphony

wild dance

my heart

the wound

it won’t let me walk

a terrifying shadow

covers my eyes

from the sun

A white dove

drinks water

in the pool

in the well

the mirror

of my image

the water

doesn’t reach

my insides

I’m hung

from the throat

imprisoned

forgotten

mutilated

nightfalled

hanged

scrawny

stretched

withered

disoriented

scared

threatened

bitten

without truce

oh perfection

I cry my green

from so much spiraling

death stalks me

but does not find me

here I am friends

rooted

ancient

lonely

silent witness

youthful dreams

students go on strike

for struggles and triumphs

for permanent creation

for happiness

alone

I cry

my green agony

hungry

imprisoned

centennial.

For more about Gloria Mendoza

About the translator

Andrea Echeverría Langsdorf is an Associate Professor at Wake Forest University. She earned her doctoral degree in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of Yeyipun en la ciudad. Representación ritual y memoria en la poesía mapuche (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2021) and El despertar de los awquis: migración y utopía en la poesía de Boris Espezúa y Gloria Mendoza (Paracaídas Editores & UNMSM, 2016), as well as of several academic articles published in journals such as Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Latin American Research Review and the Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies. She is currently working on a book that studies Mapuche visual art.

Dulce naranja dulce luna © Gloria Mendoza Borda

~ Siwar Mayu, October 2023

Introduction, selection and translation © Andrea Echeverría


Bringing the Cherokee Syllabary to the Spotlight, Jeff Edwards

Sequoyah © Jeff Edwards

By Celestine J. Epps

Published first in the Blue Banner, UNCA

“A Living Language” exhibition celebrated recently the cultural and national identity of artists from the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian (EBCI) in downtown Tokiyasdi / Asheville, NC. The curated works on display at the Asheville Art Museum consisted of over 50 multimedia pieces by EBCI artists who direct audiences’ attention to the Cherokee syllabary. 

Their artwork defies the bias that Indigenous languages are dead by uplifting local Indigenous creators who help to restore the language. A variety of compositions such as Rachel Foster’s stone-polished ceramic “Sequoyah,” show traditional representations of Tsalagi, or Cherokee, in cultural artifacts like pottery and basket-weaving. Likewise, the graphic designs of Jeff Edwards puts on a prideful display of the syllabary, and inspires viewers to want to learn how to speak it. His piece “Tsalagiopoly” is delightfully shocking.

The syllabary was invented by a Cherokee man named Sequoyah in the early 19th-century who translated the 4000-year-old language into visual symbols and the written form we know today. 

Tsalagiopoly © Jeff Edwards

Edwards is also a Language Technology Specialist for the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He contributes to the language education in schools and ensures that students are equipped with the technology needed to be successful. In 2010, the artist worked with fluent speakers to integrate Tsalagi into system keyboards on devices including Apple, Android, Microsoft, and Google

Edwards says: “What started our 10+ years of working with tech companies is we wanted our kids to be able to text in Cherokee. That was it. Nothing more. So, we worked with Apple for about 18 months and once the technology came available we saw something we didn’t expect. Our elders also took advantage of the technology. So not only were our students and elders communicating but they were also communicating with each other.”

Trickster © Jeff Edwards

Upon completion of the keyboard, Edwards explains the labor involved in translating entire operating systems and its impact on Cherokee people throughout the diaspora: 

“So, when we started translating Windows 8 we had 18 months to complete the project. We had the 5 regular employees and some contract translators that were from various communities. We would receive 500-1000 words a day, I would do my thing, split them up evenly amongst the available translators, email the project out and when they finished they would send them back, I would submit and we continued this for 18 months with very little breaks. It is tough to say how many words were translated. It was well over the 300,000 range. But once the project was completed Microsoft in North America recognized two languages, English and Cherokee.”

Despite the nation’s success in making Tsalagi accessible on major platforms, they were forced to stop working with tech companies due to the endangered state of the language. There are only 176 people still living in the Eastern Band who grew up speaking Tsalagi and an estimate of 2,000 speakers left in the United States. Thus, prioritizing second-language speakers in tribal communities.

“A Living Languages” exhibit lived up to its name in its selection of pieces from Cherokee artists across generations. While navigating his busy schedule, Edwards continues to make original graphics. His latest piece, “Relocate, and/or Die” drew inspiration from Benjamin Franklin’s political cartoon intended to unite the colonies during the Revolutionary War.

Relocate and/or die © Jeff Edwards

Edwards explains: “My piece is made on a backdrop of a map of the Trail of Tears and the routes taken in Cherokee. My Uktena is cut into 8 pieces to represent the 8 states the tribes traveled through during removal and the Uktena has 5 buttons on his rattle to represent the 5 tribes that were forcibly removed from their homelands.”

“Anger can be a very good motivator.”

Ultimately, what inspires Jeff Edwards the most is bringing the syllabary to the spotlight.

“I try to showcase something that all Cherokee’s are proud of, our writing system.”

After seeing the exhibition multiple times, I was immediately drawn to Edwards’s work, especially “Tsalagiopoly.” Upon first glance, I recognized the similarity to the game Monopoly, and all that it represents in our western capitalist society. 

Edwards’s intricate designs and sole use of Tsalagi communicate to a specific audience that is uniquely Indigenous. I believe his piece speaks volumes to first and second-language speakers. To participate in the game, you have to be able to understand the rules, but Tsalagiopoly breaks one’s expectations. With the syllabary as the centerpiece of his work, non-Tsalagi speakers like myself are stuck at collecting $200, incapable of moving forward.

The longer I examine the artwork, the more I wish to comprehend the nuggets of history, and cultural references embedded in the cards I imagine in the community chest space. Like anger, ignorance is a great motivator to understanding the language of the land that I stand on.

More About Jeff Edwards

About Celestine J. Epps


Celestine J. Epps was born in Bronx, New York, on April 16, 2000. She is studying Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and is currently the assistant Arts and Features Editor at the Blue Banner. She enjoys learning about global Indigenous communities, including the Haliwa-Saponi near her grandmother’s hometown. Upon graduation, Celestine would like to write about her conversations with Indigenous storytellers and the impact of their artistry across generations.

Bringing the Cherokee Syllabary to the Spotlight, Jeff Edwards © Celestine J. Epps - Siwar Mayu, April 2022

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