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In newest chapter of ongoing ‘Conversation Series,’ CU Boulder’s Helanius J. Wilkins explores concepts of belonging and being heard

The seeds of the dance were planted in walks.

It was 2020, and the way Helanius J. Wilkins saw it, COVID-19 wasn’t the only pandemic. “Structural racism in our country is also a pandemic,” he explains, a fact that gained a spotlight following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.

“Those were the two seeds that really launched me into this journey,” says Wilkins, an associate professor and director of dance in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Theatre and Dance. “I have a saying that I meet adversity by actioning through the arts, which is me finding my footing again inside of all of those things.

Helanius J. Wilkins, a CU Boulder associate professor of theatre and dance, created “The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging” as a path to unlearn fear and create opportunities for listening. (Photo: Paul Kieu. (c)2023)

“In 2020, I was noticing what was happening to me in that time, and what came to light was that I basically was in a place of a lot of fear. I was afraid to leave my own place, I was afraid to be in public in the body that I’m in.”

So, he began walking—every day, by himself, same time, same path, sometimes up to 16 miles. It was his way of reorienting himself to and in his surroundings and creating space for his surroundings to reorient him.

“This work in so many way is me walking across the country and inviting others to walk with me to expand their sense of belonging,” he explains of the newest chapter of his ongoing work “ premiering this weekend in the Roe Green Theatre.

“The vision for this work was to create a path for me to unlearn fear, to create a path for others to unlearn fear, to create a greater sense of belonging and opportunities to listen to one another. We can’t have belonging unless we come together and listen.”

‘Conversation is a passage’

In broadest terms, “The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging” is a “collaborative, immersive work, performed by two men with different racial and cultural backgrounds” who perform an “ongoing and always shifting dance-quilt, confronting and celebrating heritage, resilience, justice and hope.” The work centers belonging as a way to “disrupt the erasure of silenced stories and forge paths towards justice/equitable landscapes. ‘The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging’ is a dynamic intersection of contemporary dance, performance art, technology (video and interactive gaming), music, fashion and design.”

Helanius J. Wilkins, left, and Brandon Welch, right, perform “The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging” as an “ongoing and always shifting dance-quilt, confronting and celebrating heritage, resilience, justice and hope.” (Photo: Paul Kieu. (c)2023)

A key to all of it, Wilkins says, is conversation and listening. As he was conceptualizing it, he had conversations with people across Colorado—in rural and urban settings, on the Front Range and Western Slope, in mountain resorts and small towns.

What he heard is that “everyone is interested in belonging, everyone is interested in their stories being heard and seen and everybody’s interested in their histories being protected in some way, shape or form,” Wilkins says. “The key is how we get to that and find those meeting points.”

He found a nexus between the art of conversation and listening, the art of dance and social justice because “there is no social justice without the body. We have to bring our bodies to the frontline to make the changes that we desire to see. What this work is for me is it’s a way of bringing forward two bodies in this current moment, bringing two bodies to the frontline, choosing to be at the frontline, to work together to figure out what it means to coexist.

“What I’m not striving to do is tell someone else’s story, because it’s not mine to tell, but I can reveal my story and show how I’m grappling with someone else and how I can understand what we are in relationship to these other stories.”

For Wilkins, performance feels, in many ways, like a continuing conversation and an invitation to lean in with curiosity and ask perhaps the biggest question: “What does it mean to create the world that we deserve, one that can work for everyone?” he says. “What does it mean to sit with that for 90 minutes and to dream, to hear bits and pieces of how people are grappling with reflections on ancestry or the present while we’re also trying to work and construct a future that we don’t know?”

The performance, Wilkins says, reflects his “audacity to hope” and his commitment to “knowing or feeling that things can be different and that we can find a space where more people feel a sense of belonging and where more of us can come together.

“I hope that audience members walk away hopeful—hopeful because conversations are happening and we’re invited to join them. Conversation is a passage, but it doesn’t have to be the end point, there are ways in which audiences will be able to continue the journey with me in some way, shape or form.”

Top image: Brandon Welch, left, and Helanius J. Wilkins, right, and perform “The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging." (Photo: Paul Kieu. (c)2023)

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