Colegio del Cuerpo
Shine a light can’t write enough flattering adjectives to describe our enthusiasm for the Colegio del Cuerpo, a modern dance school for refugee kids in Cartagena, Colombia.
Five years ago, Alvaro Restrepo -- a Colombian dancer who has studied with Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham in New York -- began a dance pilot project. He went to a refugee shantytown and gave dance classes in a couple of public schools. Of the 480 kids he taught, almost all wanted to continue their training, but Sr. Restrepo could only work with the most capable and dedicated.
Today, the kids from the pilot group are teens. They have grown into magnificent dancers. I had the chance to see their most recent work, “The soul of things,” at the Ibero-American Theater Festival in Bogotá, where they were the toast of the festival. The dancers choreographed their own dances, based on recycled objects. The audience did not know that the kids were refugees and street kids, and they exploded with applause at the end of the performance -- simply because the pilot group is full of extraordinary dancers.
When he was young, Sr. Restrepo volunteered in Bosconia, the famous program for street kids in Bogotá, and he has remained concerned by the tragedies of poor children. After a successful career as a dancer in New York, he returned to Colombia “to do what my grandmother always taught me: to make art and to construct the sacred in life.” For shantytown kids, he thought dance could offer this sacred aspect.
The success of the pilot group proved to Alvaro and to his funders that his model could work. Thus, several years ago, he began a full fledged school of modern dance for refugee kids -- the “Colegio del Cuerpo.” Though “Colegio” means “school” in Colombia, Sr. Restrepo hearkens back to the Latin definition of the term: “a community of people given the same dignity.” Dance gives the same dignity to all children, and can transform life. The program now serves several hundred children.
Colegio del Cuerpo understands itself as a professional school, and some graduates will go on to dance in professional companies. However, the program also has a broader purpose: “to create a new notion of wealth, to open doors to new possibilities.” With the dignity and respect that children receive in the school, they can dream new dreams and succeed in fields far from dance.
Boys and girls enter the Colegio after participating in workshops held in Barrio Nelson Mandela (where many refugees live). Though it has been difficult to make the decision, the Colegio knows that dance is not for every child -- and that there is only space for so many kids! -- so they select the most skilled and the most dedicated children.
For a young refugee, the body is a locus of shame. The majority have seen murders, many have been raped. In Colombia, both left- and right-wing guerrillas control the population through their bodies, through rules of fashion and posture, and the traces of this repression scar the body. In the countryside, a proud spine or a flirtatious miniskirt invite death -- especially for girls.
Dance liberates the body from these scars. The body becomes a sacred and joyful place instead of a locus of repression, and pride can again show itself in the neck and spine. The Colegio has discovered that “venting” and therapy do not work half as well as “sublimating sadness in the joy of dance.”
Though it did not intend to work with families, the Colegio has discovered that parents gain as much from the experience as their children. When they see the smiles on the faces of their children, parents forget that they distrusted something as “frivolous” as dance, and they begin to take pride in the successes of their children. Equally important, when the kids dance at a prestigious event, the parents are received with respect, and they learn that they deserve respect.
The dance studio is impressive, a salon in a colonial monastery. There is no mirror, “sort of because we don’t have the money for a good mirror, but also so the kids can serve as mirrors to each other.” Boys become mirrors for girls, blacks for whites... which erases distinctions while it teaches about social justice. When I saw the first year class, they began on the floor, relaxing their bodies limb by limb and re-learning how to breathe. Kids that seemed hopelessly hyperactive became impressively calm.
When the kids dance, Alvaro validates their erros: when a child makes a mistake, no one criticizes him. “Why are we here?” asks the teacher. “To make mistakes and to learn,” a girl responds.
In 2007, Colegio del Cuerpo completed ten years of work in Cartagena. The director sent us an excellent reflection on the experience, which you can read here.
You can also make an online donation to Colegio del Cuerpo at: www.conexioncolombia.com/content/page.jsp?ID=5662
