Daak: Call to Action
"Daak: Call to Action" is an artistic response to historic and continuing land rights violations happening across the world – from the Native communities here in Minnesota to "special economic zones" in West Bengal, India, to the maquiladoras of Tijuana, Mexico. Second in our trilogy on environmental justice, "Daak" works through vivid dance images to share stories of trauma in global communities of color and the resistance and conjuring of hope that rises from desperation and devastation. "Daak" ends with a metaphoric "call to action" for audiences to lend their energy to the struggles of many women of color around the world about land and environmental and socio-cultural breakdown.
World Premiere: June 12, 2008, The Southern Theater, Minneapolis, MN
Running Time: 80 minutes, without intermission
Concept & Choreography: Ananya Chatterjea
Direction: Dora Arreola
Composition & Musical Arrangement: Shubha Mudgal & Aneesh Pradhan
Costume Design: Rex Rajavairin
Lighting Design: Pearl Rea
Scenography: T’acoumba Aiken
Poetry: Omise´eke Natasha Tinsley & Marcie Rendon
Environmental Justice Organizers: Cecilia Martinez & Shalini Gupta
Visual Design: Darren Johnson & Northern Dawn Media
Dancers: Ananya Chatterjea, Chitra Vairavan, Hui Niu Wilcox, Stefania Strowder, Gina Kundan, Lela Pierce, Srija Chatterjea Sen, Sachiko Nishiuchi, Sherie Apungu, Omise´eke Natasha Tinsley, Takawi Peters, Jasmine Kar Tang, Simran Kundan, Arunima Shiney Ajay
Music Credits:
Composition & Sound Design: Shubha Mudgal & Aneesh Pradhan
Musicians: Shubha Mudgal (first voice), Pratap Rath (percussion), Aneesh Pradhan (percussion), Minal Gajjar (second voice), Son Gajjar (child’s spoken word).
Extracts of folk songs from Kumaon, Uttarakhand, India
Recorded, mixed & mastered by Tanay Gajjar at Ava Studios, Mumbai, assisted by Pranam Pansare
Production & Stage Manager: Kari Mosel
Stage Managers: Laura Selle & Michala Cornell
Video Documentation & Production: Darren Johnson & Northern Dawn Media
Technical Consultant: Collin Sherraden
Lobby Exhibit Construction: Jessica Briggs
Choreographer’s Note: by Ananya Chatterjea
“Daak” emerges from struggles around particular land rights violations and hinges on explorations of the intimate relationships of hands and feet to ideas of grounding and connectedness. Efforts by leaders in Minnesota’s Native communities to seek restorative justice that acknowledges and addresses the wrongful and forced acquisition of Native land since statehood opened our eyes to the long histories of injustice about the ground on which we dance. We also saw, through workshops conducted by our collaborator, theater activist Dora Arreola, how this history of colonization and land appropriation has been continued in the establishment of “Free Trade Zones” in Mexico and of maquiladoras in border towns such as Tijuana and Juarez. These histories resonated deeply with contemporary struggles in West Bengal, India, where government initiatives to establish global industrial sites as “Special Economic Zones” has rendered countless villagers destitute in the name of development.
We have everything—Work and interruption—Journey and submission—Responses—Hope—Voices—Assault—Organizing—I just need to sleep—Factory/withering earth—Land—Ghost—Precarious/Equilibrium—Call to Action—Finding our feet
