Skip to main content

Reflecting on Exile From an All-American Perspective

Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, participated in a performance of “INXILE: The Trail of Tears” in Medellin on April 9, 2013.
Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, participated in a performance of “INXILE: The Trail of Tears” in Medellin on April 9, 2013.
Allaeddin Twebti
Watermill Center's weekend open house will feature talks and open rehearsals by four resident artists
By
Mark Segal

The Watermill Center will welcome guests this weekend to a unique version of a fall arts festival with performances, an art show, and even an international brunch.

With so much happening, it might be best to start at the finale, an open rehearsal on Sunday of “INXILE: The Voice of the Good Neighbors.” The piece will be performed by its creator, Alvaro Restrepo, and 10 dancers from El Colegio del Cuerpo (the Body School), a dance school he founded in 1997 in Cartagena, Colombia, with Marie France Delieuvin. They will be joined by members of the Shinnecock Nation.

This is Mr. Restrepo’s fourth residency at the center and the second with the company from the Body School, which was founded to provide an opportunity for children from urban slums and those displaced by civil war to express themselves in a positive way.

“Most come from very deprived areas of Cartagena, which is a very mixed African-Colombian city,” Mr. Restrepo said during a recent conversation at the center. “Some of the dancers have now been with us for 16, 17, or 18 years. Now these kids are citizens of the world.”

The Watermill performance is an adaptation of the original piece, “INXILE: The Trail of Tears,” which was performed in Bogota, Colombia, in 2010, on the occasion of the bicentennial of that country’s independence.

“I wanted to touch on one of our most painful wounds, which is the problem of the victims of our undeclared 50-year civil war that is now about to end.” The piece was staged again in 2013 in Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city and the one with the most victims of the conflict.

“The Medellin ceremony was very special because President Santos participated, walking barefoot with the victims, listening to their testimony,” Mr. Restrepo said. “It was a very touching moment. We did it again in Cartagena in December 2013 with female victims of the region."

On one of his previous visits to the East End, Mr. Restrepo learned about the history of the Shinnecock Nation. Nixon Beltran, the center’s manager, connected him with Shane Weeks, a multidisciplinary artist who has lived his entire life on the Shinnecock Reservation and has worked on several projects with the center, including a video documentary of tribe members, from kids to elders, talking about their lives and memories.

“Last fall the Watermill Center contacted me and said this Colombian dance company would like to do something with me and the Shinnecock,” Mr. Weeks said. “Alvaro got in touch and talked to me about exile, and that’s exactly what it is here.”

Mr. Weeks has traveled the Powwow Trail, visiting tribes throughout the United States and in Canada. “What I realized is that across the Americas, most Native Americans have been and still are going through the very same issues, externally and internally. To talk to Alvaro and know the same thing is going on in South America was very touching and interesting.”

“One of the major movements of the last two years is unifying Native Americans, not just in the U.S. but in Canada, and South and Central America,” said Mr. Weeks, who discussed the recent protest in North Dakota, where the Army Corps of Engineers has been trying to run an oil pipeline near the tribal lands of the Standing Rock Sioux. “Today a delegation of Shinnecock, Naragansett from Rhode Island, and Wampanoag from the Cape Cod area are all heading out there to stand in solidarity.”

Two days after the conversation at the center, the Obama administration blocked construction on federal land and asked the company behind the project to suspend work nearby. 

Mr. Restrepo noted that there are more than 60 ethnic groups and dialects in Colombia. “Some are very small, and some are disappearing. We have to acknowledge and celebrate the great ethnic and cultural diversity we have that in the past we have not been conscious of. With the peace process now going on, we are recovering our self-esteem as a nation.”

“Our goal, too, is to bring awareness to our reality,” Mr. Weeks said. “The Shinnecock and the tribes of the Northeast Coast are known as the 'first contact' tribes. Southampton was founded in 1649, and we’ve been documented since then as being here on Shinnecock. Something that’s happening today is that the Town of Southampton does not recognize us as town residents, so we can’t access our own beaches or any of the shoreline for free. A lot of the battles of recent years have been about water, and it’s a continentwide struggle. ‘INXILE’ is meant to bring awareness to this situation.”

Mr. Restrepo mentioned that in Colombia people from age 5 to 95 participated in “INXILE,” and he hopes to involve people of all ages in the Watermill production as well.

“I’ve been telling Shane that maybe we don’t have to limit it to Shinnecock but also involve other people interested in this theme who want to express solidarity and empathy.”

He hopes local authorities will be interested and has written to President Obama inviting him to attend. At the 2012 Summit of the Americas, Mr. Restrepo staged the welcoming ceremony at the House of Guests, which Mr. Obama attended.

The performance will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday. Rounding out the weekend will be a talk by Noel McKenna, an Australian artist who works in a variety of mediums, on Saturday afternoon at 1. While in residence at the center, he will create a series of works related to the local landscape. At 3 p.m. on Saturday, Zeinab Shahidi Marnani, who divides her time between Tehran and New York City, will discuss “histories,” an experimental video project.

Tori Wranes, a Norwegian artist and singer who combines voice with multisensory sculptural environments, will perform during the International Brunch, which will take place Sunday at noon. Jason Weiner, co-owner and chef of Almond and Zigmund’s in Bridgehampton and two restaurants in New York, will prepare seasonal dishes that highlight ingredients from neighboring farms. Brunch tickets are $75 and must be purchased in advance from the center’s website.

Saturday’s artist talks and Sunday’s performance of “INXILE” are free, but advance reservations are required.

 

Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.