4 The Bloom after the Harvest: A Story of Resilience through Dance. Featuring Alicia Mullikin

The Bloom after the Harvest: A Story of Resilience through Dance. Featuring Alicia Mullikin

Intro:

It’s time for the Ofrenda Podcast: a series of special episodes dedicated to learning more about the roots and futures of ofrenda practice, at the heart of Día de Muertos practices that continue throughout the year. Celebrations are planned for Seattle Center, Beacon Hill, Burien, White Center, Tacoma and places all throughout the United States and Mexico.

In our episode “The Bloom After the Harvest: A Story of Resilience Through Dance”, we explore the theme of how Alicia uses dance to simultaneously honor her ancestors and elevate her community. My name is Andrea Vivas-Jimenez, I’m here with Quesias Fernandez, and we are a team of University of Washington Students enrolled in a Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies course called Latina Cultural Production and we produced this episode in partnership with KVRU 105.7 Community Radio and the Women Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities Collective. We will be talking to dance artist, activist, and educator Alicia Mullikin.

And now, our show!

Guest Bio:

Alicia Mullikin is a first generation Mexican American and Native American dance activist, dance promoter, and educator. Alicia aims to serve her community through artistic activism. She is the director of a company called El Sueño. El Sueño uses dance as an expressive entryway to community engagement as well as for healing and empowerment for marginalized communities. Alicia’s choreography intertwines ancient and contemporary identities into physical manifestations; These manifestations gather from her rich cultural experiences and deeply rooted ancestral connections. While Alicia has worked to create poetry, blend film, and to incorporate live music into her dance works, her main focus is fusing social justice with dance. Through her work, Alicia’s goal is to empower BIPOC communities and nurture the following generations of dance artists.

Photo of EL SUEÑO Founder/Director Alicia Mullikin. Photos Credit Devin Muñoz.

Production Team:

Madalyn Stucker – Director/Quality Producer

Lola Gil – Sound Producer/Audio Management

Drea Vivas-Jimenez & Quesias Fernandez – Interview Producers/On-Air Hosts

Stephanie Torres & Sofia DeLeon – Story Theme Producers

Theme and Podcast Description:

Theme: How Alicia uses dance to simultaneously honor her ancestors and elevate her community

Podcast Description: In this episode of the Ofrenda Podcast, we hear from Alicia Mullikin and how she shows her resilience through dance. Alicia is a first-generation Mexican American who uses dance and art to express her culture. In this episode, Alicia will walk us through how she was introduced to dance and how she uses dance now as a tool to elevate her community that is hidden from the spotlight. Join us as we discuss honoring ancestors through dance and exploring the concept of dance as an ofrenda. Alicia gives us an insight into her creative process which includes acknowledging everyone who has helped her get to where she is, with every performance. She also shares how her intimate performances have been impacted due to COVID. Alicia describes how she has made space for herself in an environment that often made her feel unwanted and what it means to take ownership of that space through dance. Lastly, Alicia takes us through her personal journey of dealing with COVID while also working on an ofrenda for her Nana who just turned 100 years old. Listen in as we are taken through Alicia’s journey of resilience through beginning dance, to making her own space in dance to then finally using it to continue to thank and honor her ancestors for the opportunities she has been given. Stay till the end to get a sneak peek look into Alicia’s next project, El Sueno: The Flowers that Bloom, that takes place in the Henry Art Gallery from November 21st through March 27th.

Interview:

Drea: It’s time for the ofrenda podcast. A series of special episodes dedicated to learning more about the roots and futures of ofrenda practice at the heart of Día De Muertos Ofrenda practices that continue throughout the year. Celebrations are planned for Seattle Center, Beacon Hill, Burien, White Center, Tacoma, and places all throughout the United States and Mexico. In our episode, The Bloom After the Harvest: A Story of Resilience Through Dance, we explore the theme of how Alicia uses dance to simultaneously honor her ancestors and elevate her community. My name is Andrea Vivas-Jimenez and I’m here with Quesias Fernandez. We are a team of University of Washington students enrolled in a Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies course called Latina Cultural Production. And we produced this episode in partnership with KVRU 105.7 community radio and the Womxn Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities Collective. We will be talking to dance artist, activist and educator, Alicia Mullikin.

And now our show.

Drea: So, Alicia, how did you get into dancing, and who are what has been your biggest influence in your choreography?

Alicia: I actually started dancing I think around eighth grade. I was a singer in, like, not like a professional singer–in middle school, I was in choir and stuff like that. And we had little funny dance moves that we would do. And the choreographer kind of quit last-minute on the teacher and the teacher was a little freaked out and I was like, “I’ll do it!”. As a kid. I was like, “sure, I’ll do it.” And I went home and watched Backstreet Boys and N-SYNC videos and learned dance moves, and just came back and had a little, little dance routine for middle school choir. And I loved it. I was like, this is the best thing ever. The teacher told me, “That’s called being a choreographer and if you want to do that, you should probably take dance classes.” So, I went to a high school that had dance, so my family didn’t have the means to be able to pay for dance classes regularly. But I did go to a high school for dance. And so, I was able to kind of just pursue dance in that way, I was completely convinced that I was going to be a dancer, even though I had so little experience and started super late. And my teacher there was super supportive and loving and so she was a huge influence on me. But definitely my reason for dancing is my family and my heritage. My honoring of all of my work is done in honor of my ancestors.”

Drea: Were there any choreographers specifically that you looked up to?

Alicia: No, there are not many women of color, specifically Latinas of color that I knew of. Growing up, I’m sure there were some, but I just wasn’t exposed to that. So, I really just knew that I loved it and that’s what kind of propelled me forward.

Quesias: How do you approach making an art piece with the rhetoric that you’ve chosen? So, it’s the questions basically asking, do you think about the dance moves first, the theme you want to produce? Or like what kind of music, what is like the process between or like, that comes around when you’re trying to create a dance?

Alicia: Yeah, I think all of my work is approached from the standpoint of honoring my ancestors and so even if it’s not directly tied to a specific person, or a specific thing, I’m always thinking about how this work in honor of the people allowed me to be where I am today. So I usually will start with just listening to music, not necessarily the piece of music that I’m going to dance to, but just listening and moving with the music and then from that point, I’ll start setting some choreography. And then at that point, there’s conversations that happen, either journaling with myself if it’s just me, being a part of the dance or taught in conversation, talking with my dancers, if there are dancers who are part of it like How is this work progressing? What is it looking like it’s leaning towards? Occasionally I will start with the theme or idea first, but usually it’s inspired by a piece of music. I very rarely will use that piece of music in the final product. But I’m very drawn to music as a way to as an entry point towards emotion. It kind of starts with I think the music and then we’ll build out from there. And then the themes will start to develop in conversation with either the journaling that I’m doing, or the conversations with my dancers.

Quesias: Thank you, and how do you make sure it comes together in the way you envision it? And I know that we live in pandemic times. So how has COVID changed your creative process? Did you have to do everything online? Or did you have to kind of do things on your own in your living space?

Alicia: Yeah, the final product almost never looks the way that I wanted it to be the first time. But that’s also kind of the exciting part is you start with an idea, then you allow it to grow and develop kind of naturally then in those conversations with dancers as well, they’ll have ideas, and they’ll have experiences that they want to be a part of the work that aren’t necessarily my experiences. so, we kind of figure out how to navigate and bring that into the process as well. I really believe in honoring the people that are a part of the process, too. So unlike traditional western dance, where or contemporary dance specifically that usually is about the choreographer’s vision solely in my process, I really try to make sure that the dancers are seen as people first and not just a tool or a vessel for the choreographers’ work, but that they also have human experiences that are valuable and can be brought to the table. So, I try to make space for that and then allow that to be a part of the work as well and it’ll oftentimes evolve into something that I didn’t know, usually I feel like something even better, because it involves collective experiences rather than just, ‘this is my voice and only my voice’. So, I kind of like that. I also think that when you’re a little too rigid, you’re never really going to achieve that perfect vision, either. So, I love when there’s sometimes mistakes that happen in the process. If you’re just kind of open and allow yourself to go, “Oh, that could be something else. That’s really cool!”  It’s so you know, sometimes a lift or something that I’m trying to do in the dance will go wrong. But what comes out of it is so much cooler than something I could have thought. And I think that allowing yourself to be open is sort of that in it, maybe not in a literal sense, but a sort of like channeling ancestors that way of, there’s all these sorts of little tidbits that kind of slip into the process that were completely unexpected. Definitely COVID has shifted the way that you know, we’ve had to make work. The piece that we’re kind of wrapping up and finishing up is the El Sueno film that we’re creating, that started as a live performance evening-length work that we worked on for about four months or so before COVID hit.  Then we moved in, we still continued to rehearse. But we had to transfer it into a film instead of a live performance. We were rehearsing all the way through the pandemic just by doing regular COVID testing for all of the dancers so that we could still rehearse together.

Drea: That’s great. I honestly expected that it would change the outcome of your work a lot more. But I think it’s really impressive that you were still able to express what you wanted to express in your videos, even, you know, going through COVID and these are just really hard times, you know, for everyone. So that’s really impressive.

So, in our class, we’ve discussed a lot about social death, which has impacted specifically undocumented families that live here in the US. You know, because everyone is going through these hard times, but documented families are able to receive Federal Financial aid, and these Families are not, so we were wondering how the social death that has impacted the Latinx and Chicanx community has had an impact on your dancing or your choreography?

Alicia: I think I’m always thinking about the impact on Latino communities. My family specifically is a family of immigrants, I have that empathy and that will really spotlight those communities, I think through dance or traditional, Western forms of dance, specifically. There’s not an empathic or not a spotlight on people who come from the kinds of communities that my family comes from or that my communities are from, it’s oftentimes very White-Eurocentric. It specifically even body type like tall, thin. These are the people that are spotlighted in traditional dance forms, I should say traditional, like ballet, modern contemporary forms. My goal as a dance-maker is to look at who is not receiving that spotlight, the communities that I’ve been a part of. I think of my grandma who immigrated here and worked in a factory, you know, just to feed her kids and my other grandma who lived in the projects and raised her kids in the projects in East LA. I think of my mom who worked multiple jobs, three jobs throughout my whole life and my dad who works backbreaking construction labor. Those people are never highlighted in dance. Those sorts of real people, the immigrants, immigrant communities and minority communities are never highlighted in that way and so that’s what I really tried to do in my work, I think that has just made that even more important, the work that we do as El Sueno to spotlight those communities. I think it is even more important now with COVID kind of really impacting those communities in ways that are not seen even, that aren’t given the attention that they really should be.

Drea: No, you’re absolutely right. Thank you so much for sharing that. That’s really beautiful.

Drea (Station ID): You are listening to KVRU 105.7 FM. A low power FM station, directed by members of the community. Rooted in Southeast Seattle, KVRU 105.7 FM provides a platform to share stories, discuss issues, and empower listeners to create a more equitable and just society.

Quesias: Do you believe that you would be able to recreate or represent an altar with dance? What would that look like? And how would you incorporate dance into an altar?

Alicia: Yeah, I actually created a work called Iron Daisies that was an ofrenda. So, the way that we did that is we had an actual Ofrenda set up in this space. So as people walked into the theater, there was the altar there and there were all of the dancers’ passed loved ones. There were images there, important items and things like that and then there was a deck of cards, there were blank cards for them, and we asked them to write the name of someone that had passed on the card and to drop it into a little box that we had. So as people were coming into the theater, they were able to contribute someone that they wanted to be a part of this ofrenda if they wanted to participate in that way. Then what we did is we had this dance that we created, the dancers, five dancers and a musician as well. We created a dance that was in honor of the people that we had lost. It included text and poetry that was written, it included songs that were important to those people that we have lost and loved. I sang a song in it that was in honor of my grandma, it was one of my grandma’s favorite songs. Then at the end of the piece, while the dance was still continuing on, we read the names of everyone who participated. So, we read the names of our own family that had passed and our loved ones, then we took the cards that everyone had participated in, and left and we read over 100 names, because we had guests who were participating in that as well. And so that’s kind of how we brought the living or friend to life is kind of what we were hoping to do at that moment. I definitely would like to figure out how to do that again. In another way, I think I was super young at the time that that happened, that we made this work. And I didn’t really realize the impact of it at the time. I mean, I knew I was personally impacted by it. And I heard from audience members that they were as well. But I feel like I’ve understood, like what my place is and what my role is as a dance-maker a little more now. I feel like I would love to recreate that piece again, I think in another way. Maybe BB Baker, maybe more people maybe? I don’t know. So yeah, that’s kind of how we brought our ofrenda to life with the work called Iron Daisies.

Quesias: That was really beautiful. Thank you for sharing. How does dancing and nature connect you to nature and Earth itself? And when you’re doing the dances, how do you choose the scenery? You dance in? And what do you want it to signify?  for you and your audience?

Alicia: I haven’t done many dances outside. There’s really only two that I think are in my work samples that I’ve done outside, but in both of those are locations that I grew up in. There’s one piece called La Primera Reina, which is again an offering or an altar to my Nana, who’s still living. She just turned 100 and she’s my whole whole heart. I grew up in that area that’s in the San Bernardino desert– forest out there. I chose that location because it was a place that I grew up hiking and walking around. I felt really connected to it with my childhood and things like that. And then the second location, that’s a part of the dance film that we’re making now is at Joshua Tree, I didn’t grow up as connected to, but that embodies that desert feel that I did grow up in and that my family, I was thinking about people who crossed the southern border and that desert landscape there. I chose that location to kind of represent that feeling, that connection to ancestry again, so I think both of them are connected, in terms of personal experience, and also ancestry and experiences of my ancestors. So that’s kind of why we chose those I think it just feeds in when you’re on location, and you’re feeling the sand, the dirt, the wind, and the trees and everything around you, I think it does feed into the feel of the work and what you’re really trying to say and who you’re trying to honor.”

Drea: You mentioned La Primera Reina was an Ofrenda for your grandma, can you tell us a little bit more about what that film means to you and a little more about the process for that one as well?

Alicia: So, my Nana, it’s my Nana Geta in that film, she just turned 100 and she is just my whole life. She’s probably my favorite human, but she helped raise me. You know, my parents were both working a lot, so my Nana helped raise me and cared for me and loved me and so she just has shown me the deepest, truest love I think that a grandmother could share with a grandchild and so she’s just super special to me. During COVID, right as the pandemic hit and the shutdown happened, I got COVID, and I was incredibly sick. I have asthma, so it was really traumatic for me, and I was on bed rest for a couple of months. I wasn’t able to sit up or even walk to the living room on my own and was having asthma attacks and things. I got pneumonia after COVID, so I was sick for a really, really long time. I just had this idea to honor my Nana in a piece for a really long time and just hadn’t made it happen and that experience of experiencing COVID, not being able to dance and do what I love and feeling like she’s about to turn 100 and I still haven’t made this piece, I was like, “I need to make this right now, like I cannot wait.” So even though I was still not able to dance, I was still taking four asthma medications, just to be able to not have pain in my lungs. I did a COVID test, and I flew to California to be with my Nana.  I didn’t have a film crew or anything, I just asked my sister to come and film it for me with my cell phone, so she literally filmed it with my cell phone. I was so sick still, I didn’t have COVID otherwise, of course I would not have seen my Nana, but just the recovery from my lungs was still super painful so I did my best to dance. It was not as aggressive and hard hitting as some of my other films because I physically was not able to do that. I was out in the desert dancing and after filming that I actually made myself really, really sick by doing that and ended up being bedridden for another two weeks because I had pushed my lungs too far. It was still worth it, though, to honor my Nana in that way. But yeah, I just felt like I really had to, it wasn’t a matter of, “Oh, I want to make this film!”, it was like “I need to do this now. I need to honor her while she’s still alive and while she can see and know how much I love her and how important she’s been in my life”. So that’s kind of why that came about. I definitely get emotional thinking about her, thinking about her being 100 and knowing that there’s not a lot of time left with her. So yeah, that is a feeling that comes up when I watch it, but it’s also what makes it even more important to make that kind of work. It’s to honor your ancestors while you have them and to say “I recognize you; I see what you’ve done. I know the sacrifices you’ve made. Your sacrifices have allowed me to do this”, even though it was done just with a cell phone and my own, like not really great editing. You know, that’s not what this piece was about. This piece was about saying to her, “I see you.”

Drea: Thank you for sharing that. I know that was personal and I’m so sorry that you went through all of that, especially with being sick and you know, pushing yourself to make a piece that honored your grandma and I agree that it’s so important. I think a lot of us forget that, you know, we do need to honor our ancestors while we still have them. So, thank you so much for sharing that.

Alicia: Yeah, thank you.

Drea: Yeah, I’m really excited to hopefully attend a live show. You know, we were introduced to your work through the class, or at least I was, and I just found it really touching. I think especially La Primera Reina. That one made me emotional, that was really deep, that one hit deep. So thank you for taking the time to talk with us today and it was really nice getting to know you. Can you tell our listeners a little more about the event that you’ll be hosting next month at the Henry Art Gallery and how they can learn more about your art as well?

Alicia: The event that I’m doing at UW at the Henry Art Gallery is November 18th and what we’ll be doing is sort of, well, I’m excited! We’re going to be partnering with the Henry Art Gallery, and we’re taking our logo, which is a sort of Chola Virgin Mary, that was created for my company El Sueno, they’re going to put the logo in the gallery, 14 feet high, which is gonna be so exciting so I’m so excited to see that. The logo has some flowers that are kind of drawn around it and what we’re asking our community partners and people who want to come is to participate in making this 14 feet high Ofrenda. At that event, we’ll be calling on our ancestors and their experience, their experiences, our experiences with them. We’ll be honoring them with some journal writing, some conversations of thinking about them, And then we’ll be learning how to make Mexican paper flowers. Each of those flowers will be sort of in representation of the people that we love, the people that we want to honor, and that will be pinned to the 14 feet high ofrenda. So I’m super excited. I think it’s especially important to me, I think, to be able to see a Latina in a space like the Henry. The logo that was created for us includes a Chola image and a Virgin Mary image because those are two quintessential Mexican images. Growing up, these in my mind, and in my community, it was either a really good image or really bad image. And, you know I’ve never wanted to, growing up, I never wanted to be pinpointed as “other”. And so I oftentimes would push these two images away, I didn’t want to be associated with Chola and I didn’t want to be associated with that traditional Mexican imagery. And growing up, as I started to develop my own artistry and really understand the sacrifices that my community had made, I started to really value these two images. I also believe that they didn’t have to be separate, that, you know, all of us have within us, the badass woman and the really loving, nurturing, caring woman. so I have this kind of idea of like, how do we bring these two images together into one and the artists and Alicia Rankl, who is also Latina, she’s Venezuelan-American, I reached out to her and asked her if she could combine these two images for me for a logo and she did this amazing work that I’m really excited to share. But yeah, I think it’s really meaningful, really impactful to be able to see a Latina image in a place like the Henry Art Gallery, and to have it have a place of honor there, rather than excluded like I have experienced in the past. So, I’m very excited. Hopefully people will join us on the 18th to come and make paper flowers with us and for us and to honor their ancestors in the process.

Insights on Theme:

Alicia Mullikin honors where she has come from as well as those who have crossed southern borders by implementing the element of earth in the form of deserts into her dance pieces. This imagery can be seen in her ofrenda, “La Primera Reina”, where she is in the desert forest near San Bernardino. Alicia also incorporates the desert in her upcoming film that takes place at Joshua Tree. Deserts are a significant part of honoring herself and her ancestors because her childhood was filled with running around the desert for fun while her ancestors ran across the desert to get her where she is now. Although the element of earth is apparent through her dance projects, Alicia also honors the element of air and wind as they all come together to help connect her to her ancestors through dance. Alicia incorporates these elements into her artwork to better convey her altar.

Outro:

Thank you for listening. The Ofrenda Postcast is a collaboration between KVRU 105.7 FM Radio, students of the UW Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies class “Latina Cultural Production,” taught by Michelle Habell-Pallan,, Highline Heritage Museum’s ‘Our Voices: Social Justice in times of COVID-19’, and the Womxn Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities Collective.

We’d like to thank our guests Alicia Mullikin and our podcast team Drea Vivas-Jimenez and Quesias Fernandez. Friends and family may hear this by visiting the KVRU 105.7 FM website. Special thanks to the band Quetzal for our theme music titled “Barrio Healer.” Look out for Dia de Muertos events in the fall in south Seattle, and online, and check out Highline Heritage Museum’s ‘Our Voices: Social Justice in times of COVID-19’ series. For questions, email ofrendapodcast@gmail.com

Interview Date: 10/22/21