“Considering your own location in colonial systems, as well as in the web of relationships, what next step can you and your organization take to nurture decolonial possibilities?” This question has lingered in my mind since I wrote it in the conclusion of “Decolonial Possibilities in Arts and Peacebuilding” (Ditzel Facci, forthcoming). There, I explore decolonizing as an active, creative process aiming to reflect, mourn and address colonial violence, and to harness the potential in existing alternatives. Decolonizing seeks to strengthen solidarity for creation of interdependent pluriverse futures potentialized by multiple ways of knowing (Spyer et al., 2019). In arts and peacebuilding, decolonizing can be an art practice (Gamedze, 2015) that addresses the hierarchical use of selected arts to achieve a predetermined peace. It encourages changing peacebuilding organizations toward more embodied, intersectional and participative ones.
“Can you give examples of what next steps for nurturing decolonial possibilities you are envisioning in your own roles?” students challenged me in the Circle of Resonance, an activity in which we offer resonances to each other’s creations in the Creative Approaches to Peacebuilding class. “I don’t know yet” was my honest answer. However, the prickle of the challenge kept stirring my attentiveness to the emergence of possibilities.
One of those possibilities came in a team workshop. Drawing on systemic constellations, the facilitator encouraged us to engage not only in systems thinking, but systems sensing (Ritter & Zamierowski, 2021). In that shift, land was represented among the stakeholders as we explored the visions for the year. What a profound difference it made. While the concept was not new, embodying land reached deeper layers of knowing. Even if no clear pathways of action unfolded in relation to land yet, its embodiment in the representation shifted my perspective of time and space, nesting the annual planning within a broader—and more humbling—understanding of change.
To remind myself that systems go beyond human-centered connections to encompass an interconnected web of life, I have been playing with the expression “ecosystem sensing.” The challenges posed by interconnected crises such as increasing inequality, violence, coloniality, climate crisis and oppressive power dynamics cannot be transformed by thinking alone. They demand creative innovations that summon a plurality of ways of knowing to respond to violence, ignite justice and cultivate peace. Octavia Butler said “(…) there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. (…) Instead, there are thousands of answers – at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be” (Butler 2000, p. 165). Hence, the students’ challenge became even more palpable.
What next step could be taken? Could peacebuilding approaches, for example, strategic planning, be more creative and participative, opening space to the unknown? Could a joint effort of peacebuilders, leaders, artists and participants in creative processes of artistic peacemaking be a decolonizing strategy? As Donella Meadows said: “We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!” (2001, p. 59). Could dancestorming invite deeper awareness of colonial entanglements, creativity, further ways of knowing and encourage ecosystem sensing in peacebuilding approaches?
Dancestorm is a spontaneous movement activity that taps into multiple ways of knowing for a deeper understanding of conflicts (Ditzel Facci, 2020). Participants are invited to connect with body and breath, and let a conflict they would like to work with emerge in their consciousness. A careful progression of prompts woven with music invites participants to let themselves be moved, noticing how the conflict influences their body, breath, senses, emotions, thoughts and what emerges in that interaction. They have the chance to dance with their conflicts (or with a person in that conflict), and notice how that dance goes, exploring potential next steps in that dynamic. The dancing is followed by free drawing, mapping of themes and potential next steps.
Participants reported feeling more comfortable with vulnerability, more open and connected to what was alive inside and around them, and more confident to raise their voice against injustice (Ditzel Facci, 2020). However, they also wondered how much dancestorming could work outside the dance floor. Is there space for dancestorming before programmatic expectations, tight deadlines, funding procedures, and familiar methods curtail a creative process that enables us to sense the unknown? Students invited us to try it out, as they facilitated a creative process with the strategic planning committee as part of an assignment. Being a participant myself felt connecting and empowering. In moments when sorrow for the challenges to peace and justice in the world felt heavy in my limbs and chest, my feet gently reminded me of the land supporting me. When my shoulders bent, feeling the seemingly insurmountable work needed for change, the dance of others energized my body with the warmth of relationships and solidarity connecting to the wider peacebuilding movement. Unexpected ideas emerged, and continue to unfold.
Could dancestorming nurture decolonial possibilities? In the classroom, it has shown potential to make systems of oppression less abstract and overwhelming by revealing their deep personal and relational impacts on body, breath and senses, from where palpable next steps can emerge. Moving with the pain and discomfort of colonial violence can encourage reflection and allow space for mourning, slowly shifting helplessness into energy that can be used for transformation and action. Dancestorming’s decolonial contribution in a strategic planning process remains to be assessed and will depend on our ability to foster wide participation with attention to intersectionality and deep listening. Yet, it does feel like an energizing small next step, among many possible ones.
References
Butler, O. E. (2000, May). A few rules for predicting the future. Essence, 31(1), 165-6, 264.
Ditzel Facci, P. (forthcoming) Decolonial possibilities in arts and peacebuilding. In Tim Seidel, Maia Carter Hallward, Ji Eun Kim, Cécile Mouly, and Zubairu Wai. SAGE Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies. London: SAGE
Ditzel Facci, P. (2020). Dancing conflicts, unfolding peaces: Movement as method to elicit conflict transformation. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gamedze, T. (2015, February 12). Decolonization as art practice. Africanah.org. https://africanah.org/decolonization-as-art-practice/
Meadows, D. (2001). Dancing with systems. Whole Earth. Winter (106), 58-63.
Spyer, T., Leroy, H., and Name, L. (2019). Zulma Palermo: A opção decolonial como um lugar-outro de pensamento. Epistemologias do Sul, 3(2), 44–56.
Ritter, L., & Zamierowski, N. (2021). Systems Sensing and Systemic Constellation for Organizational Transformation: Building Collective Capacity for Navigating Complexity. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 1(2), 101–115. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v1i2.1181
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Paula Ditzel Facci is a dancing peace researcher and facilitator of creative approaches for conflict transformation. She serves as Assistant Professor of Peacebuilding at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University.
