Cultural exchange visit by young dancers from Australia, February 2013

Kinetic, a Brisbane-based movement collective, visited Lospalos to lead a workshop with local dance group Sanggar Haburas in February 2013.  The three workshop facilitators, Emily Boyd, Erika Goldsmith and Madeleine Boyd, focused on the use of dance and movement to develop body awareness and explore creative expression.  They describe their work here:

Our intention was that these activities would help improve communication, support relationship development, manage stress and anxiety, and promote self-care. Often these outcomes become more evident with a longer contact period, for example, through a series of workshops, so we predominantly saw this as an opportunity to provide a new stimulating experience for the participants.   It was also an opportunity for Kinetic to gain an insight into creative arts in Timor-Leste and a chance to exchange creative work.  It was wonderful to see the dance routines that Sangar Haburas had been working on and quite nerve racking sharing our hip-hop routine!

The group was highly responsive and several of the exercises had us laughing together. For us this reaffirmed the effectiveness of dance and movement as a communication tool cross-culturally and with language barriers. This group of dancers were usually led by their dance group leader.  We think that the workshop activities provided an opportunity for the participants to experience creating movement with less direction and with direction from their peers.  For Kinetic, Sangar Haburas provided an example of the important role that art and culture plays in bringing young people together in the community. Have a look at our dance  journey on youtube here.

Erika Goldsmith, Kinetic Collective, Contact Kinetic: kineticcollective@gmail.com, kineticcollective.com.

Two years later, leader of this group Erika Goldsmith was successful in applyoing for funding and initiating a project for Timorese women entitled Enpowering Women Through The Arts. This offered 12 women from across Timor an opportunity to participate in a month's intensive program at Griffith University in Australia studying a range of arts and media and performing in Brisbane and Melbourne. Khey Ghandara, the leader of Sanggar Haburas and one of her students, Trisna, were lucky recipients of this opprortunity from regional Timor-Leste. Read about the program here.