Dance, a vehicle for advocacy
The stories of the parents and caregivers of children with autism blends with dance in a collaboration between choreographer Camille Moten, a first-year MFA candidate in dance and part-time faculty at Rutgers University, and MyGOAL Autism, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support families affected by Autism. The collaboration will result in a dance performance on December 8 and 9, where a group of dancers will display caregiver’s experiences through their art, choreographed by Moten. Essentially, art will act as a vehicle to exhibit the challenges associated with the role of being a caregiver and/or parent.
Moten has been working directly with Dr. Genevieve Kumapley, MyGOAL Autism’s passionate co-founder and executive director, who co-founded the organization with her husband, Robert Kumapley, after their shared experiences with their 16-year-old non-verbal son diagnosed with autism. The pair, Moten and Kumapley, was connected through coLAB arts, a creative organization that works to engage artists, advocates and communities to create transformative new work. This organization is curating a dance concert with a collection of artist and advocate collaborations, including that of Moten and MyGOAL Autism.
Though the concert is a few months away in December, work is underway for Moten and Kumapley. Moten has begun learning the experiences of Kumapley and families of those affected by autism in order to choreograph her piece. This work is aiming to be truth-capturing, memorable and inspiring — a performance that allows audience-members and participants to come to the same understanding.
“Camille is charged with the responsibility of eliciting the issues from families and being able to artistically, accurately represent those issues. This will require a level of creativity, sympathy, compassion and having an understanding to best represent what these families are facing,” Kumapley said.
Moten said she feels humbled and inspired to be able to take on the stories of these parents and caregivers, who personify the meaning of “advocate” for their children. She said her art in terms of this collaboration is entirely fueled by the MyGOAL Autism families.
“The impetus to create anything in this project has been from direct inspiration from those people and their human testimonies and stories. I didn’t come into the project with any preconceived notions or with an idea I wanted to start with. It has all come from just interviewing and speaking with people,” she said.
Kumapley and Moten agree that art is an effective channel through which to spread the messages of MyGOAL Autism.
“I think now more than ever, this is a great medium to be able to engage people. We’re overloaded with so much going on in this society. I think being intentional to engage people from all walks of life to understand the issues these families are facing is critical,” Kumapley said.
Kumapley added that dance is excellent since it will be able to reach groups who may not pay attention otherwise, she also thinks it is a creative way to present the issues at hand. She said it is remarkable to be able to put families into the process of telling the story.
Moten agrees, and thinks that traditionally arts have been a way for communities to find a connection to one another and serve as an entry-way for people to come into each other’s worlds, to become interested in what’s going on in certain communities.
Through the collaboration, Moten has a variety of goals she hopes are achieved.
“I’m hoping that the MyGOAL Autism community comes and they feel like I’ve done them justice, I hope they come and feel represented in a good way onstage, and I hope that might provide some sort of healing or resolution. … I hope there is a reciprocal relationship happening, I hope that the audience is really engaged and takes something from it,” Moten said.
With the passion exuding from both Kumapley and Moten in simply discussing their collaboration, it is hard to expect anything other than success from this duo.
