Reclamation: Home - A Screen Dance On Ownership and Agency.

Ag fok, where do I even begin.

I am a big little hustler, a go-getter and a dream chaser; always coming and going, returning, sleeping, and getting up to go. That's been my life. I have been raised and nurtured by a single mother who did all the werq to make this happen. You can say I am lucky, blessed or whatever, but, what you must understand is that I am from Manenberg, Cape Town.

I was conditioned to believe and taught myself that home is “where it's not”, that the “grass is always greener on the other side”, (the other side being a bit further than Athlone Terminus). Nothing/fokol/niks about being in tune with your space, Manenberg, but this was much of my own thinking, whilst I was growing up.

The return was always laced with “jinne, now I must go back”, with a suurgevriet; uncut internalized disdain of everywhere not close to opulence and everywhere “the white people didn’t” stay. Returning to Manenberg hid a disclaimer, but I’ll leave that to white-run mass media to perpetuate, reiterate and druk on.

I digress.

I went to study at UCT with a late NSFAS appeal attached to an email and then at Jazzart Dance Theatre with a transport stipend in the bag. Two years later my mom lost her job (that's 7 years in your mag!). The desire to create work, opportunity and performance that subverted the already stained narrative of Manenberg was at the forefront of where I wanted a part of my artistic experiences to be.

"I had to reconfigure and reframe the ways I’d thought about home."

Me at any given introduction: “Hi, I am Darion Adams from Manenberg'' (with a - don’t say anything shady or I will read you the house down). Now y'all know that being a classified coloured person living on the Cape Flats has a stigma and I was at least one more person who tried to change that narrative (but does it?). This stigmatized reality played a role in uncovering the person that I am today and am still becoming (Darion Michelle Obama, 2022).

The safety and security I needed was at home. In order for it to feel real, I had to reconfigure and reframe the ways I’d thought about home (coz the Group Areas act was made for the mense to hate home and each other). I needed to create a space to exist in, to embody, reclaim, decolonize, and most importantly reconnect with where I lay my head at night.

This thinking laid the foundation that sparked my interest to create a screen-dance that allowed for audiences to be invited in. Not only to witness a beautiful dancer but also to see what a simple thought about the possibilities of reclaiming home could do for one person. To witness “queer coloured” excellence at play, not only in a theatre space, but a specific artistic birthing that is from Manenberg.

So I created Reclamation: Home, where the iconic 3 storey building became the performance space, from where kids and parents cheer and watch over me and my friends who are putting this thing together. I even asked the aunties to keep their washing on the line and without hesitation they did so. They kept us safe and for a few hours we had an audience that held the space and cheered but watched with curious eyes as the process unfolded.

I will always hold this project dear to my heart as it had many meanings and it was all personal.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

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