From the first day I heard the song Blackbird by Nina Simone I felt very identified with it’s lyrics and all that it speaks about, I wanted to tell my story through this song using the language I know in dance, flamenco.
I have been living in Seville, Spain, for over ten years, I left my native country at the age of eighteen years old in search of my dreams as a flamenco dancer. In this artistic quest I came across a reality I was not expecting to encounter such as loneliness, struggle, heartbreak, rejection and all other things that come along with being an artist and a foreigner in a culture that is not you own. It came to a point that even when returning to my country of origin I felt as if I didn’t belong there either. I felt like a blackbird who wants to fly but cannot, a bird who feels trapped in a cage of loneliness and pain, no family and without a place to call home.
Blackbird relates the emotional journey of feeling encaged and unable to fly due to unchangeable circumstances of life.
I have been living in Seville, Spain, for over ten years, I left my native country at the age of eighteen years old in search of my dreams as a flamenco dancer. In this artistic quest I came across a reality I was not expecting to encounter such as loneliness, struggle, heartbreak, rejection and all other things that come along with being an artist and a foreigner in a culture that is not you own. It came to a point that even when returning to my country of origin I felt as if I didn’t belong there either. I felt like a blackbird who wants to fly but cannot, a bird who feels trapped in a cage of loneliness and pain, no family and without a place to call home.
Blackbird relates the emotional journey of feeling encaged and unable to fly due to unchangeable circumstances of life.
Finalist, Sadler’s Wells Theater Dance Competition London 2011.
Choreography and Dance
Cristina Hall
Music
Blackbird, by Nina Simone
Choreography and Dance
Cristina Hall
Music
Blackbird, by Nina Simone