FUSE#2

SCOPE #3
LA MARIPOSA BORRACHA -The process
by Shanice Stanislaus
Choreographic research in slum
communities
After the first two years of writing and performing this work, I
wanted to take this investigation outside of my own personal
experience. I wanted to find the communities where this work
would resonate and present a narrative that belonged to a
larger community. In the past year, I have been very lucky that
the work has taken me to communities of individuals who
experience physical illnesses, mental illnesses and their
caregivers whose narratives have greatly informed the
narrative of the work.
The research of the work also took me to the poorest of
communities internationally, from the Kibera slum in Nairobi,
Kenya to the Battambang slums of Cambodia where illness
was the everyday narrative of the individuals who live
amongst unpiped sewage and piles of loose trash, with a
constant exposure to cholera, typhoid, malaria and various
It was in my time in these communities in the past three years, I found the power of
dance and community to keep everyone going despite the harshest of conditions in
their poverty.
Music and dance was the one tool that kept these
communities together. In the past three years, I studied each
community intensely and found the similarity between both
slum communities in different parts of the world, they all
celebrated life in music and dance despite the harshness that
their environment brought, even in its widespread illness.
Photo credit: Shanice Stanislaus
97 98