Wednesday, November 29, 2017 // The Statement
6B

Personal Statement: Dancing in color

I

always feel as though I was
given a second chance. I was
born in Guatemala City to a
homeless mother who never
had the opportunity to go to

school. She signed my adoption papers
with her thumb print because she couldn’t
write her name. She told the social worker
her one wish for me was a good education.

As I write this article I think about

what her wish means to me. I attend
one of the top universities in the world
and I’m able to pursue my passion for
dance. When I chose dance as my career
path, I was unsure exactly of what that
meant. I wanted to find meaning in my
work, so I decided to combine my love of
dance with my passion for social justice
work, specifically on issues regarding
racial injustice. Recently, I have realized
my responsibility as a Latina artist — a
responsibility to use my art to give a voice
to those who may not otherwise have one
in this country.

I grew up in a very white neighborhood

in
Brookline,
Mass.
that
was
very

accepting of my family. I have two white
moms and a younger sister who is also
adopted from Guatemala. Growing up,
I did not notice I was different from
my parents. I remember a classmate in
second grade asking me why my parents
were white and I was brown. I didn’t
understand what he meant. I did not see
myself as any different than my parents.
It was a harmless question asked by a
curious 8-year-old, but this question
sparked many questions I would have to
ask myself.

I became more and more interested in

learning about my country and its native
language. My family and I started taking
service trips back to Guatemala to expose
me to the country in which my sister and
I were born. I slowly started to realize I
would have been living a very different
life in Guatemala — I wouldn’t have access
to a good high school or higher education,
and most likely would have had to work
instead of attend school. I started to
recognize my privilege and, with that,
my responsibility to give back to the place
where I come from.

With this newfound recognition of what

I wanted to do in life, I decided to invest in
becoming an artist. I believe art can express
things that words and text cannot. I started
dancing later than the average dancer. I
was 15 years old when I officially decided
to give dance my all. Before I came to the
University of Michigan, I only wanted

dance for a professional company like Alvin
Ailey. But over the past two years here, I’ve
learned I can still dance for a large-scale
company and still be involved in other
outlets of dance — outreach, teaching and
choreographing to name a few.

Right now, I am most interested in

creating my own work, connecting my
heritage to my choreography. I use my art
to create social justice dances in which I
can highlight racial injustice happening
in the United States and in our own
school. Currently, I am creating a piece

that will be performed at “Marching
Forward: A Scholarship Symposium,” a
series dedicated to shedding light on social
injustices on campus. My work, “Through
Our Eyes,” highlights what it feels like to
be a performing artist of color. The dance
includes seven dance majors of color from
the University, including myself.

I created a sound score to accompany

my piece, featuring interviews with over
50 students on campus. I talked to Latino
students about the writing on the Rock
that targeted the Latino community. Other

students spoke about being told to go back
to their country when talking to family
members on the phone in Spanish in public
areas on campus. One LSA senior reported
never being assigned to read a single book
by a Latino author in all his four years as
an English major. Another interview with
a Black student revealed what it felt like
having the word “N-----” written on his
door tag in West Quad Residence Hall and
how there was little to no follow up on the
incident.

I use these interviews to dance and

communicate what words cannot express.
I believe in the saying, “actions speak
louder than words” and dance, as well
as other art forms, can inspire people to
make a difference. Watching a dancer’s
body move on stage can tell an entire story
without using words. It can evoke emotions
in people they may not have had simply
reading an article online.

Although racist incidents on campus have

been disheartening, our communities are
working to empower minority communities
and fight back. I have been devoting my time
to form groups within the School of Music,
Theatre & Dance to talk about these hateful
acts and what we can do to help people
understand the severity of these them. We
talk about how we can work as a school to
react to these events more effectively.

This semester, I have started a group

called “Arts and Color” along with a few
more students in the Dance Department.
This is a group within the department
where
undergraduates,
graduates
and

faculty come together to discuss racial
injustices within our community and plan
events to have open discussions on race and
racial injustice on campus.

Being a dancer of color at the University

has its challenges and advantages. I am
one of very few dancers of color and one
of the even fewer Latino dancers in the
Department of Dance. This lack of students
of color is not just within our department
but reflects the University at large. Latino
students are less than 6 percent and Black
students are less than 5 percent on campus
in 2017. We must ask ourselves why this is
and why our numbers continue to decline,
instead of grow.

I create work for the fulfillment of my

passion and for a whole race of people who
are drastically underrepresented at the
University, as well as Universities across
the United States. I use my platform as
a student and artist of color to bring
awareness to racial injustices on and off
campus.

by Johanna Kepler, SMTD sophomore

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHANNA KEPLER