Matriarchs Uprising’s Ñswe niiminwinan (3 Dances): ‘what is,’ ‘who is,’ ‘how does,’ and ‘why would’ a mother…? by Tin Gamboa
Grounded through the heels, aware of the lumbar, tender in the palms, powerful and ready spine, open and grounded hearts. If Matriarchs Uprising Festival were a living being in itself, the Indigenous matriarchs and artists would be its beating heart, their matriarchal lineages would be the spine, a woman’s everyday labour and life-giving force would be the blood coursing through its veins, and the embodied expressions of movement performance, verbal sharing in circle, and the act of witnessing and holding space are some of the offspring that the festival birth every year. As an uninvited guest to Turtle Island (North America) who attended Matriarchs Uprising Festival, I am thankful for the space that Matriarchs Uprising provides anyone to engage in the worldviews of the Indigenous female artists, who through their simple acts of being, allow me to witness various ways to simultaneously be brave, firm, welcoming, soft, tender, and powerful. Matriarchs Uprising Festival manages to take a meaningful turn towards the importance of bodily experience as it merges verbal conversation and movement in such a way that embodiment and lived experience are put at the forefront of compassion, care, and strength in remembering, living in the present, and being mindful for the future.
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Dance Central Spring 2023