September 22, 2011

Marriage: It Isn’t Really A Choice

 Nimo Farah was invited to share her words and images in the lobby during our run of Tushaanal Fires of Dry Grass. We were honored by her talents and our audience were moved by her. We wanted to share, once again, the work of Nimo Farah

I go to bed with ideas lately
after hearing women speak through the radio.
The women on the radio are free.
I wonder if they know about me, a girl
who lost her smile at fifteen
when I was married to a man older than my father.
I was a child decorated with henna and borrowed gold.
I don’t remember smiling.

Time moves slowly
as I sit under the sun.
When I sell mangos in the market, I think of going away.
Now I have gold of my own, small pieces I bargain for
from the other market women
and bury under our hut.
I listen to the radio to learn how to speak
like a city woman.
I save newspaper pictures of dresses I want to buy
when I go there.
I will keep my head covered.

Nimo Farah loves orators and different forms of storytelling and sees the material for a compelling story all around us. Being exposed to Ananya Dance Theater’s powerful storytelling through movement has inspired her to write about the struggles of humanity, particularly those of women. Feeling that our collective and most basic human values have been adopted without the counsel of women of color and that the abuse and imbalance of power has left a legacy of great hardship. With their natural resources thrown into the fiery pit of consumption and greed only to be branded into gleaming instruments of oppression and violence. She is moved by these women’s fortitude and shares some photography and poetic narrative that is inspired by Tushaanal: Fires of Dry Grass.