13: Fabiola Ochoa Torralba on Decolonizing Dance

Hello everyone and welcome. This is Marisol Cortes from Deceleration. We are an online journal writing journalistically. academically and creatively at the intersection of climate justice, resilience, and human rights. You can find us online at deceleration.news. Today's podcast guest is Fabiola Ochoa Torralba. Fabiola is a dancer, a cultural worker, and a community organizer around migrant rights, housing justice, displacement, and recovery of Afro-Mexicano identities.

Here in San Antonio, she is known for creating community-based dance projects that use movement to draw people into a variety of issues. from access to public space, to climate justice, to our relationships to land and the more-than-human worlds around us. Today's podcast sprang from a conversation that she and I had back in the winter.

when she mentioned she was in the process of doing dance research on what she described as bird movement vocabulary, in response to the situation at Bird Island, at San Antonio's Elmendorf Lake Park. And just really briefly, the city and military have spent the last year trying to remove a longstanding brookery of egrets from a city park on San Antonio's west side.

which is an effort that many residents of the surrounding neighborhoods feel is connected to these larger efforts of the city to remove, to demolish nearby public housing. And if you're interested in that story, it can be found on our site. Just visit deceleration.news and search for coverage related to Bird Island. But going back to Fabiola, I was just intrigued by this idea of bird movement vocabulary for the way that it suggested that movement, both bird and human, can be a language.

And I'm perpetually inspired by the way Fabiola interweaves the artistic realm with the realms of activism and research. And so several months and one pandemic later, we finally sat down to talk more about her work. about the theory behind her praxis, and about how her various projects all link together. So here is Fabiola Ochoa Torralba. Thank you so much for taking the time to...

hear me out and ask me questions. I think it's a good practice to be asked about your work and to talk about it. It's a very basic way of being engaged with artists and supporting me. local artists thanks for doing that and I don't get asked a whole lot about my research it's really interesting most of the questions about dance is when is your next performance? Are you teaching any classes? Rarely is it are you working on projects or are you in research?

mold or what what are you exploring at the moment and it's interesting so i appreciate this opportunity I think with bird movement vocabulary, I had prompted it as that because I was looking for a way to create a structure that would... engage regular folks non-dance identified people that hang out at the park already with movement research and I've found that sometimes mirroring or responding to something in the physical, actual, in-the-moment, live world, like, feels...

goes like a way into this world of movement research that can be very intimidating for a lot of people. I think we do it all of the time. Like we're always in movement research.

We move or we navigate our own movement through space on a daily basis, even if it's just going to the bathroom in a household.

for other people, navigating those pathways, our choreography, our movement, our performance. And I think that when it becomes... something usually um people think of dance as the the performative element only um but i like to think about it a lot too and so the Bird Movement Vocabulary Project, I had titled it as that, but I really wanted to call it Bird Island because I wanted to draw attention to what was happening at Bird Island.

As a way to support the work that other folks were already doing, such as the deceleration news, local neighborhood residents. environmental activists, cultural workers of the Westside community. There has already been work happening and I wanted to see how I could be in dialogue through my medium, which is dance, which is usually something that I kind of have to fight for because I get distracted with a lot of other.

work but they're definitely interrelated so my way of kind of navigating my relationships and I think in some way desire and desire to remain accountable to community work um is to include my dance in that community work in some way so um dance action

to me is using dance making, dance exploration, dance research, dance inquiry as a way to raise awareness or have discussions about Things that are happening in our community that affect our lives and that can be changed or reimagined with the engagement of.

real people that are affected um or that are in solidarity with the issue so um i have a tendency to okay I'm going to put on my teacher hat and my choreographer hat, and I'm going to put on the program development hat and create this whole project.

And so that it's inclusive and then it's just, there's a lot of layering that happens when you're... working on gaps when you're engaging other people other bodies it's just a another level of kind of organization and coordination that sometimes just the logistics of it kind of get in the way for me So, and in the case of this project, it meant that it was delayed and I was getting called to other urgent work and my work in community sometimes.

It comes with different levels of urgency and urgency that I feel that I need to be responsive to. So my attention flows. So what happened with COVID-19 is that now that I'm not able to physically gather people, I've had to think about how then... Then who am I right now at this moment as a dance-making person? Because a lot of my identity in San Antonio has been about these community-based dance projects. And I am also...

Apparently, you know, a soloist, you know, or I make staged works. I like experimental based dance as well. And I like teaching and speaking and thinking and writing from those places. And sometimes there isn't as much maybe space or opportunity for that here.

I think a lot of my work, I approach it at those intersections, but trying to be responsive, trying to really center the creative inquiry and... trusting in the process of people making and thinking together and that being a way to mobilize people and that platform as a way of engaging folks in dialogue. Where I'm at right now is... I'm in the process, and the reason that this project, what I wanted to call Bird Island, had initiated is because I...

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what is, I think, an ongoing question. What is my practice? What is my dance practice? um and then another question is like what is my practice of being in relation to land like what is my practice and then one recently is

Like, what is my dance practice at this very moment? And those are three, I think, questions that are guiding how I'm moving at the moment um and so can't gather people so it means that if I want the work to happen then I have to do it right yeah you have to sort of rethink I have to do it

And I have to put my body out there in space and I can't hide in a studio. And I can't hide being a teacher and instructing others or facilitating others to move. And it's forcing me to reckon with myself and what I had been honing in on. as a dance maker, which I think was mostly recently about choreographing, teaching, and producing. And so now there's this solo thing and it has to happen because I feel responsible for moving this conversation forward that I had.

kind of initiated with myself and um had already yeah put out there into the universe and now it needs to unravel and I think it's been interesting because it's It's challenging because I'm having to put myself, be visible and vulnerable in a way that I don't feel comfortable doing.

And that I love to have score because I can hide in people. I can hide behind. I can hide in motion. I can hide in performance. But being a... like a single body in space and in the public space where there's lots of opportunities for people to look at you yeah and it's challenging for me in that regard but i think that that

I think that that's where I'm landing in the context that we're in. And that's definitely work that I've been needing to have. And I think that this is... this is what needs to happen and how I say like I will earn my moccasins the reason that this kind of me wanting to connect like through dance making to this local issue with me trying to think about well what is my practice and reflecting on

yeah, how am I tied to all of these things? Like, how am I in dialogue? Like, what more, how can I deepen my relationship? So there's little things that I can do that I've borrowed and learned from in the performance world, and there's little things that I can do that I've learned in ceremonia or... different spiritual based practices and I understand protocol but I wanted something of my own and I

And I think that that's a thing of dance as well, you know, that you each mover, I think any art form, right? Everyone has their own vocabulary, their own expressions, their own nuances, like what makes them unique. as a person, as a nature, as a being. And I don't know. I think that... Go ahead. Oh, no, go ahead, go ahead.

I think that this kind of, like, falling into myself and my body is forcing me to... go into a new place that I've been needing to go to and that I think is kind of already there like a space of energy that i can already harness from um but that yeah for whatever um social like life commitments and responsibilities and navigations and like all of the things of the logistical world that are being turned upside down now yeah like they're no longer like

They don't exist. Right, right. They don't exist, and they're falling from under, and so I'm just, yeah, falling along with it, and I'm saying, like, myself in some way. So you don't... So this is me finding a practice. Yeah. So you don't necessarily know in this moment kind of what the final production, I guess, will be. You're kind of having to respond just as things develop.

to figure out what that will look like but I you're so you're in process basically um but I think one of the interesting things the things that was so interesting for me to think about with the idea of bird movement vocabulary is because like I'm because my medium is words, because I'm a writer, to think about movement having a vocabulary, and then bird movement having a vocabulary.

The idea of movement and the body expressing language, that was really amazing to me. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what that... research actually looks like like how do you um how do you collect information about that language um the embodied language of how birds move and then how what you do with that with your own body. Like, did you go to Elmendorf Lake?

park a certain number of days did you know were you watching the birds were you taking written notes or were you taking notes with your movement just talk a little bit more about kind of the actual research process okay Cool. I appreciate these questions. So the bird movement vocabulary... concept has now expanded to something that I think other movers of some sort may identify as maybe something called land dance. I don't know officially what land dance is, but there's...

In general, there are these different practices that exist in dance and performance that are about moving and making... um in the moment to the land with the land um so that's been a part of my um a big part of how I explore movement research. And that kind of fascination with land. I think comes from my, um, what it, like, desire to, like, what is movement? Like, what is... What is migration? What is displacement? What are the forces that impede movement?

what what does the color of displacement look like at the moment like just thinking a lot about movement um like as an individual moving entity and also like movement as a force and and what are the forces and the conditions that that move um other beings other things and so

Bird Island, I think for me, is about migration, is about how do we treat other bodies when we're competing for space. When our relationship to space and land is reoriented and our... understandings of how we are in relation to or not are also changing. I think that in some ways maybe what I'm What I'm trying to understand is, like, is there a relationship between how we treat these birds, these species, and how we treat?

land how we relate to land and each other i feel like i think a lot of the my thinking right now is on trying to find ways of expressing and understanding and communicating like my relationship affiliations to kinship with Afro-Mexicanos as an immigrant migrant who was born in an Afro-Mexican region and who has family. and is of Afro-Mexican descendancy. What is my relationship to this? What are our relationships? to this diaspora and to other migrating bodies and masses. I, you know, if we...

Think about the environment at the moment, the collapse or regeneration, however you want to see it. There's people and islands and edges at the moment. who are being moved and shifted and displaced, and bodies of people who are also, you know, being relocated and detained. and forced to flee on foot. But there's a lot of migration that is taking place at the moment, and I'm asking, like, I'm asking, like...

What is that? Like, what are those waves? Like, where do people come from? Like, what are these islands? Like, what is the relationship between the environmental degradation? and and human and other you know species displacement um i think what is happening at bird island is you know I think it's a reflection of colonialism and how we invade or colonize or monopolize great environments.

It's interesting because the contention around these birds are also, they're overpopulation of this space, right? That's one of the contentions. And yet, you know, they're overpopulation and they're... balance as a result of our disruptions right disruptions to their ecosystem so we're all like fighting for space and so i think i think about At the moment, you know, the other work that I'm engaged with is housing. And so how, you know, even in a city that already has its...

Very limited resources on accessible, affordable, humane housing. that there, of course, other folks that are migrating into the city. And so I'm thinking a lot about, yes, like there is this protect, you know, who has been here. I'd say that that's probably like a healthy form of nativism, like honor the people that have been taking care of this space of this land. But I don't think that...

we should say, and this is an unhealthy form of nativism, that if you're not from here, then you can't be here. So I think it's about me engaging with housing issues. also thinking about these migrations and forced displacement conceptually in my dance work and another work is how do we share space? And I think that that's like at the heart of or one of the hearts, I don't know, like when I think one of the central kind of maybe questions of indigenous.

is to think about how we share, how we cohabitate. How do we live together? So I see those overlaps very, like, thoroughly in between all of the, you know, the world that I... seeing myself as a part of. The other, I guess, project that where I'm really thinking about identity and culture is the East to West Project.

which is not performance or dance focused. It's more about honoring individuals who are working in community. who are of the Black diaspora, African-American, Afro-Latino, Afro-descendant, Black.

indigenous Afro mixed goodness all these words that apply or don't apply but that are about really um again like how are we interrelated um how are we interrelated and And really, it's a project that I'm kind of using to help my own personal goal, which is to create solidarity with Afro-Mexicans of the Costa Chica, as I have been. to do by local artists and cultural workers and political leaders who want the world to know.

that Afro-Mexicanos exist, that they have been working on a movement for the past at least 30 years and are celebrating because... Very recently, the Mexican government has agreed to recognize and allow an option for Afro-Mexicanos to self-identify. in the Mexican census. So in Mexico right now, of course, there's existing Afro-Mexican communities, and then there's also new communities.

of Afro-descendancies from other countries, other migrants, other refugees who are on their way to Mexico or on their way to the U.S. or somewhere else who are... coming into Mexico to seek a temporary refuge or to create a new life. So there's a lot of ways as well around Black identity, Afro-descendancies, like there's a lot of different ways I'm interested in having a conversation about.

those different waves like that diversity um of understanding and also um like conversations about colonialism what are the impacts of um forced to take on these categories these definitions that like don't apply um always um are inappropriate that reify this idea um make real in our imaginations this idea that um race as a physical biological um a characteristic or expression is a valid, like, scientific, like, biological truth. Right, right. There is... So...

What I've been seeing and, you know, my, like, own trying to understand, like, what is Afro, what is Black, what... What is, like, Latinx? What is indigenous? What is indigenous descendant? What is Native American? Like, all of these words. I'm seeing also how... Those words are limiting and often are words that... someone else gave us so that they can understand us but that aren't appropriate and ultimately just kind of reinforce this idea that um you know if you look

a certain way, then racially you must be this. Yeah, and I guess for me, as somebody that is not phenotypically Black, but comes from a family that is Black. And also is very aware of the privilege that I have because... I'm a mestiza. I'm darker but not lightest. I'm in the U.S. I'm privileged to have the ability to travel without. I'm economically or academically privileged. And I think just by virtue of being in the U.S., also economically privileged.

What is my responsibility to my family, to the communities that I identify with, to... addressing these issues of displacement, colorism, anti-blackness, migration, nativism, xenophobia. They're all interrelated. For me, anyways. And I think that, yeah, that's part of my work, my responsibility. So that's how I kind of thread them through the research process with the movement research.

agree what that looks like right now that's yeah um so yes it is landing it is being in um the physical space almond dwarf park um And usually I kind of go in with this is what I think I'm going to like hone in on or focus on or like what's going to be like my motivator. But sometimes I arrive and I think one thing that I really love about modern dance or postmodern dance.

improvisation is that you really have to I guess you don't but I feel like you have to like feel and sense and or at least like feeling and sensing like is important in dance Even if we don't like, oh, that's the center of our universe, and that's, like, what I'm here for, like, you do have to feel and sense. Like, a gymnast, I'm sure, like... can sense like oh shit my rotation is off just by like how thick the air is moving around their thighs or something like they're in

In the same way that a fisherman, like, has to be able to sense, like, weight on the net to know, like, is the catch ready to be pulled up or is there anything here? Like, you sensing and feeling is integral. And so that's kind of a, to being a human, but I think it does lend itself, you know, I guess in like social, logistical, Western world of thought, like it does. There are benefits, real actual benefits that can enhance your performance or your ability to respond clearly and effectively.

And sometimes in an improvisational practice for myself, anyway, that means I land. And when I land, if I'm feeling a feeling, if I'm sensing... Or if I'm just being distracted because I'm freaking out because there's people walking around. Like, whatever it is, like, I'm in there. And so the goal for me is not to...

Sometimes when dancers go into studio time or they're improvising and they're using improvisation to generate a new movement vocabulary or... their work that they're researching making putting together um there is this like produce produce produce like you're in there and like move move figure it out go the now this remember, now add, like, that time and space, like, is usually very, like, you're, yeah, you're there to work, you're paying $40 an hour, you better, you know, make something.

But this, my approach in this context, in this work is about like falling in and sensing and moving with. And so there are things that I use that can help. Well, what is that? What are you talking about moving with? Sometimes I talk with my housing colleagues and we're talking about power dynamics and I say things like, create space, create space, open up space so more people can fall in. And my director is just like, I don't know.

what you mean by this like analogy about space um and i'm trying to address power but anyway so yes like you arrive into the moment Sometimes I come in with mechanisms like exercises prompts. So there are things that usually I set myself up with, like, okay, today I'm going to respond to this question. Or today, I'm just going to arrive and see how I'm responding.

to everything or today I'm really going to observe the birds and maybe I've been focusing a lot on my head my wingspan and my like reach from my torso but maybe there's weight Or, like, they have hops. Or, you know, there's that. Or sometimes, a lot of times, too, it's, like, tracing, tracing what you see around you. with different parts of your body. Yeah, or playing with speed based on the speed of how things move around you.

Yeah, so there's lots of ways. There isn't a set way, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. And I don't want to, because the practice for me is about, are you, how... are you responsive? And that, and that is, and that is like maybe the, I, that is my practice. I'm a responsive, a responsive dance artist. I feel the need to create work that is in dialogue and in response to something that we are questioning, experiencing, asking, or should be.

I feel the need to create work that is in response, in response, whether it's stage, solo, or, yeah, community. That's always in response. Reminds me, actually, there was a while back when I was doing my own, like, grad school research stuff.

And I was writing about embodiment and waste and ecologies of waste and where waste goes and ends up in which communities. But one of the books that I read that... had a concept that i just loved so much which was um the idea of so it was responsibility but like they highlight they italicized the response part um response ability and the idea there was like waste has in our encounter with it like it has this ability to shock us or move us

to produce a response in us that opens up like an ethical space where we are forced to reckon with. or we are forced to do something about, we are forced to have an accountability to, like the fact that we... have this economy that's based on consumption and the production of waste and the accumulation of waste so like so however we feel when we have this encounter with with garbage or with like um environmental pollution or whatnot, that negative charge that we get when we encounter that.

opens up this deeper responsibility in us and that was what that's what i was thinking about when you were talking about like responding or the the

The movement research being about this responsibility. And that being a kind of dialogue that... makes the person who's moving have to think about well what is my relationship you know what what is And if I have to think about what is my relationship, then I have to think about what is my responsibility to those beings or to the land or to other people that have been displaced or have moved through spaces or are being moved out of spaces.

Um, yeah, it's really, it's really, really interesting and profound, like, for me to hear you talk about that. Um, and I know, um, I think Greg's gonna need his computer in a minute, but, um... I feel like you, like all the questions I wanted to ask, you kind of just answered like in your responses, just weaving in and out of the various things I wanted to ask you.

But I wanted to close just with a final question, because I've heard you talk about the idea of decolonizing dance, and I think you really kind of touched on it already, or started to. or implicitly talked about what that means. But I don't know if there's anything else you want to say explicitly kind of about what that means to decolonize dance, just kind of in closing.

I think it can mean a lot of different things to different people. And I'm really speaking from a particular experience of a particular part of the world. The way that I see the dance world that I'm a part of, modern, postmodern, improv, concert. theater, like a lot of the expectations, definitions, structures, ways of understanding dance are heavily Euro-Western.

centric and so how and that impacts maybe how what we expect of dance or what we recognize as dance, I think is part of the reason that, for example, folks are always looking for a performance, for example. um or a product like a final a final product right and i think that those things are like good like i value benchmarks and um I think that they're good things, but I think that they're also kind of processes and ways of understanding movement, dance, and being in relation to each other.

they conflict with other world views um and i would say you know for as an example you know like in ceremonial bass dance like Danza Azteca or Danza Conchero and which those And dances, I think, of Indigenous and Black Afro-Diaspora people throughout the world. I think people of color, like, in general.

And I'm sure indigenous, like once indigenous, like European white folks too. Like our dances were about honoring... time cyclical time um so that when you went to hunt when to fish when to farm like Honoring like our codependency and rebuilding dams or cleaning out the earth or mending trees. Like our speed in... Everyday interactions, our understanding of like our physical body in relationship to other bodies, physical or not, is very different than...

going to a studio, create something in like two hours. Our practice, I think, is about listening, observing. um witnessing right witnessing um being with um acknowledging that there's protocols and sometimes you have to ask the commission and i think that In the U.S., I don't know if it's a U.S. thing, I see it in arts for sure. Entertainment, most definitely. We think that when we are...

when we're engaging with art or culture, that there are things to be consumed. There are things to, for us to see, for us to... stand outside of and judge entertain um they're there for our viewing pleasure um And I don't think like that we're taught well how to ask questions about art as younger people or like how to ask questions in general that are about. just living in curiosity um so i i feel like that decolonizing dances also is like saying like okay like

Other folks have other ways of approaching dance. And one, it's not always about entertainment. It's not always about putting a pretty show for you. Or like, you know, like... creating sparkles for your eyes or translating something to be easily understood and digestible for you like it's not always about you actually dance is often like about us it's about like us in the moment

Us listening and moving through each other's energies. Us communicating with our bodies and with our gaze. Us being in this moment together. Not always just, like, I'm going to, like, watch from a distance and be a passive observer. Right. You're a part of it. Like, your body is a part of it, your energy. And you're equally responsible.

um there's that word again again like in ceremony right for like holding space carrying the energy that is in that space um we are all like we we all are Yes, physical beings, but we also have energy, and we're responsible for that energy, how we use it in the moment, the intentions that we set, and how we share it.

with everything around us that's what I've been learning so I think decolonizing dance is about challenging maybe some of those assumptions that we have about what is dance what is performance when do we see it how do we see it um what is this third wall like you know do i have to pay i only see it in the theater like what and when are we performing when are we not performing when is something just when is something to practice like

If that is, I guess we could, yeah, it is performance, but there are some things that I don't, I mean, when people pray. Is that a performance? I don't know. I think that there's some heavy assumptions that we have about what is dance. And I think some of those assumptions kind of conflict, contradict, and erase sometimes other approaches, other communities, other traditions.

their ways of understanding and I think that yeah all of those are very much tied to colonialism and so in this version I mean I think what I've learned as a choreographer is that like some people don't i didn't grow up with experiences of being outside that is a very very new thing um i didn't really go to park You know, we just didn't do stuff like that. We're always working or tired. Having people like go outside, like even go outside and not.

to a storefront or to a building like some people also like are very mobile but they don't they're not mobile like in natural kind of like environment areas so having people go to a park is sometimes a big thing Especially like for folks that are looking for a dance where that usually takes place in some context in a studio, right? Or in a theater, they're looking for a storefront.

for a studio and so if there's no studio and they're like oh it's in the park it's you know a big old brain buster I think like a lot of younger folks too right like and I'm included in that I'm I am part of I guess technology wave although I resisted a lot and I don't think all generations can be generalized there are many different kinds of experiences with technology and land and space especially

amongst migrant communities. But a lot of folks, I think, in general are growing up in this digital world. And so for me, like, it's also important to... Yeah, like what is this practice of how am I in relation to? Very important and seriously. Yeah, I think we're...

Yeah, that is a... That is a... And I think, like, maybe that is also, like, what... um like talk about and you know current living elders like that it that is the practice that we're all fighting for um yeah it's the practice of being of listening, of witnessing, of being with, of moving with, learning how to move around each other. Yeah. So, yeah, those are the questions. Yeah.

Thank you so much, Fabiola. I could easily keep asking you questions and talking to you and listening to you, but I have to let you go for today. But yeah, I just thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about these things. I think you're right. Like we don't give each other time and space to really like reflect deeply on these questions. And I just.

I just have a lot of appreciation for the work that you do in the community and the work you do theoretically, the work you do, you know, as a thinker and as a creator. So, yeah, thank you so much.