Rosy
Simas Danse presents “We Wait In The Darkness”, a story of one Native American
family’s struggles through generations of displacement and search for identity,
and is a multimedia event that documents the history of a Native American
family through the generations that includes traumatic events of Simas’ mother, including the flooding of her ancestral home to make way for the
Allegheny reservoir. Rosy Simas Danse will present, “We Wait In The
Darkness” on Saturday, April 9th at 7PM. Admission
$10 adults and $5 children. Simas will also conduct residency activities in the
area and in neighboring Native American communities associated with her
visit. Ms. Simas’ accompanying historical exhibition will be
displayed in The Edge Center Gallery April 8 through April 30.
From the
Rosy Simas website (www.rosysimas.com): “Recent scientific study verifies what many Native people
have always known, that traumatic events in our ancestors lives are in our
bodies, blood and bones. These events leave molecular scars adhering to our
DNA. Our grandmother’s tragic childhood can trigger depression or anxiety in
us, but we have the ability to heal these DNA encodings and change that trait
for future generations.”
"Rosy Simas, wearing an old-fashioned white dress,
dances to the sounds of rushing water and whispering voices. Eyes closed, she
steps carefully along an invisible path trod by many before her, including her
grandmother Clarinda Jackson Waterman. Simas uses her slowly unraveling
movement to reach back into time while still performing in the present..."
From http://www.startribune.com/tragic-history-informs-dance-by-rosy-simas/265597851/
Ms.
Simas states: “If time travels in both directions, we can heal the scars of our
grandparents’ DNA.”
“We Wait In The Darkness” is an art/dance work created to
heal the DNA scars of Simas’ grandmother, her mother, and our ancestors.
It is a journey of displacement and homecoming fueled by the stories of the
Seneca women of Simas’ family, particularly her grandmother Clarinda Waterman.”
Within an environment of images and sounds from Seneca
lands this new dance work engages past and future, DNA memory, and invisible
presences, to create a personal artwork about loss, family, perseverance and
home. This work is created in collaboration with French composer Francois
Richomme.
Background of
the Seneca People and the KinZua Dam
The Seneca are a group of indigenous Iroquoian-speaking
people native to North America who historically lived south of Lake Ontario . They
were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or
Iroquois League in New York
before the American Revolution. In the 21st century more than
10,000 Seneca live in the United
States in three federally recognized Seneca
tribes. Two are in New York and one
in Oklahoma, where their
ancestors were relocated from Ohio
during Indian
Removal. Approximately 1,000 Seneca live in Canada , near Brantford, Ontario,
at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation.
They are descendants of Seneca who resettled there after the American
Revolution, as they had been allies of the British and forced to cede much of
their lands.
“The federal
government through the Corps of Engineers undertook a major project of a dam
for flood control on the Allegheny River . The proposed project was planned to affect
a major portion of Seneca territory in New
York . Begun in 1960, construction of
the Kinzua Dam on
the Allegheny River forced
the relocation of approximately 600 Seneca from 10,000 acres of land which they
had occupied under the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua….The Seneca had protested the
plan for the project, filing suit in court and appealing to President John F. Kennedy to
halt construction…The Seneca lost their court case, and in 1961, citing the
immediate need for flood control, Kennedy denied their request.”
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_people