At the 9th anniversary celebration, I danced at HFC on behalf of Sudden Flowers for the first time. I am so happy because in Sudden Flowers, we made films but we had never before done a dance. By offering a dance performance, we show our other talents besides making films.
The performance was Yonas' idea. We make films with stories, so how could we make a dance with a story too? We liked Yonas' idea for a dance, but some of us didn't like the story he wanted to use. He came up with a story about a girl getting raped and suffering from fistula. We worked together to modify the story over the course of two weeks. Our final story was about using dance to cheer a woman up after people were unkind to her. As they cheer her up, a beggar from the street joins them in the dance, showing off his talent, a talent no one would expect from him because he is a beggar. Collaborating and rehearsing was difficult. Some people are better dancers than others, so we had to rehearse a lot to be in synch. We also had to rehearse so our acting of the story was convincing. As we rehearsed, we worked out the story so everyone liked it.
At that celebration I was sad because there were some people who talked about their life history. When they talk about the challenges they have faced and the support that they have received through Hope for Children, they are telling our story too. After that, when I was dancing with my friends, I felt good and I was happy again.
