Pequeña flor de piel  (Little flower of skin) 

De semilla a botón  (From seed to bud) 

Do you know where the colour of your petals comes from? 

El viento te llevara lejos, muy lejos de lat tierra que te parió (The wind will take you far, far away from the land that gave birth to you.) 

Pero en tus pies tienes el poder de volverte a plantar (But in your feet you have the power to stand again) 

De nutrirte de la madre tierra (From nourishing yourself from mother earth) 

Habrá tormentas  (There will be storms) 

Tendrás dolor (You will have pain) 

Parts of you will have to die 

Ese es el proceso natural de la vida y la muerte (That is the natural process of life and death.) 

One death equals rebirth. 

I imagine she wanted my father and all her children to love all parts of themselves. 

I imagine she wanted to love and be loved 

for all the parts of herself 

I imagine she saw something familiar in his eyes, something she was deeply connected to 

in the way he moved, 

something she longed for her whole life. 

I imagine she could see the life they would make together, the little ones they would bring into the world. I imagine that in the deepest part of her she did not look past his brown skin. She looked directly at him, saw him, saw herself and reached out. 

In my grandmother’s bedroom, she had a picture of a Spanish dancer. She was beautiful, 

the background was black and mysterious. 

My grandmother never knew her father, never knew that side of her family. She knew her mother’s side; Irish.  They called her father a dark Spaniard. Some said his family was from Colombia. 

They hid my grandmother away. Never let her forget she was illegitimate, much less mixed race. 

I imagine she wanted my father and the rest of her children to love all parts of themselves. I imagine she wanted to love all the parts of herself. 

Born in Colombia, Olga Barrios is an awarded artist. Choreographer, dancer, arts educator, video dance creator and the co-founder and co-artistic director of Vanguardia Dance Projects. MFA at York University of Toronto. Olga has collaborated with dance, theater, musical and multidisciplinary projects in Canada, USA and Colombia with diverse companies and troupes. As an independent artist Olga has created and produced several works participating in diverse festivals in Canada and internationally. As dance teacher she has worked in Montreal, Hamilton, Kitchener, Toronto, San Francisco, New Jersey and diverse cities in Colombia.   

Her more recent works as choreographer and director include:  Hybrid Women (Vanguardia Dance Projects creation 2021); The Echo of Hair (2023-4); multidisciplinary collaboration with Triangle collective at Museo de la Memoria in Chile 2024; Films: Dreaming in Blue (Underwater Dance Film 2020) and Cormoran (Dance Film 2024).   

Currently Olga works in exchange projects between Canada and Colombia. She considers the arts a basic link in the process of building community and society.  

More info:  www.olgabarrios.com  

Norma Papalotl Araiza is Mexican of Yoeme/Basque heritage, performer, choreographer, and instructor living in Tkaronto, Norma works in different modalities within the arts blending dance, physical theatre, vocals, percussion, and text with cultural and traditional themes in a contemporary context. 

Norma has studied with international theatre directors and artists such as Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba, Butoh Master Natsu Nakajima, theatre group Tascabile di Bergamo, Kei Takei, Pol Pelletier, Charles Koroneho, among others. 

Norma is the co-artistic director of Vanguardia Dance Projects, a collective promoting Latin American and Indigenous of the Americas dance artists. She holds a master’s degree in dance ethnology from York University and she graduated from the Expressive Arts Therapy Program at CREATE Institute. She has a private practice as an Expressive Arts Therapist and supervises students. 

Her work has been presented at different venues in Tkaronto, throughout Ontario, Montreal, Hungary, California, Rochester, NY, New York City, Colombia and throughout Mexico.   

Animikiikwe Couchie is an emerging multidisciplinary dance artist from Nipissing First Nation. She has worked across a number of disciplines and artistic genres. In 2013, Animikiikwe worked within acclaimed choreographer Penny Couchie’s dance theatre piece entitled When Will You Rage?. She narrated and danced within her mother’s piece. In 2015 she completed her studies at the Canadore College Theatre Arts Program. In May 2018, she completed her training at the Ecole de Danse Contemporaine de Montreal. She was a dancer within Bill Coleman’s piece, Felt in 2018 and 2019. She received OAC’s indigenous Arts Projects award, which gave her the opportunity to workshop and present her piece Within the Layers in May 2022 at Big Medicine Studio on her home territory, Nipissing. She currently works as a community artist with Aanmitaagzi in Nipissing, and finds joy in the inclusivity and collaborative nature of the work. 

Jennifer Kelly is a costume designer and sewer based out of Toronto. Jennifer has 25 years experience cutting and sewing costumes for film, television, theater, musicians and performers of different kinds. Previously, Jennifer owned a costume shop “Kelly-Francis Costumes” where she made costumes for Cirque du Soleil, film and television, Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival as well as the Dubai shopping festivals. She has created costumes for television series including The Handmaid’s Tale; The Boys; Beacon 23; The Strain; Canada’s Drag Race; Umbrella Academy; American Gods; Canada’s Got Talent and many other projects. 

Sherry Guppy is a community-based multi-disciplinary artist from northeastern Ontario. Her work incorporates traditional and contemporary storytelling through large-scale installation, painting, printmaking, and textiles. Her passion is creating community-engaged processes, community-based research methodologies, set design, interactive installations, and arts education. 

She works collaboratively with Aanmitaagzi Storymakers as a lead visual artist on multi-year productions, including All My R(elations, Where Does Art Begin, When Will You Rage, Dances of Resistance, and Serpent People. She has also worked and toured with Aanmitaagzi and Spiderwoman Theatre in productions such as Material Witness and Misdemeanor Dream.