In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Gladys Agulhas, a multi-award-winning independent dance artist, choreographer and dance facilitator who has pioneered inclusive dance practices in South Africa.
In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Gladys Agulhas, a multi-award-winning independent dance artist, choreographer and dance facilitator who has pioneered inclusive dance practices in South Africa. Gladys shares her early love of dance and social work during apartheid and how an introduction to Adam Benjamin's " Table stories" created for Candoco Dance Company changed her trajectory. She describes how she learned from the dancers with disabilities themselves working in relative isolation in South Africa where disability carried stigma and basic access was not met. She created her own ways of working with blind and Deaf artists and people with other disabilities, as well as parents of children with disabilities and how they can find self-care through dance. She reflects on the state of inclusive dance in South Africa.
Gladys Agulhas has more than three decades of experience in Johannesburg thinking of the body as a visual, tactile, spatial, emotional and healing mechanism and auditory medium. Her integrated dance studies started with renowned teacher Adam Benjamin. She has a long history of involvement in dance in education and started The Foundation of Community Arts in Eldorado Park, a platform where community families can access and experience the excellence and transformative elements of the performance arts through active participation and international collaboration. Gladys is a member of various research networking groups that help marginalized community members, especially persons living with disabilities and senior citizens. She is the founder of former Agulhas Theatre Works – Inclusive Contemporary Dance Company which presented work locally and internationally.
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Silva Laukkanen: Gladys, welcome to dance cast, I'm so.
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Silva Laukkanen: Oh, thank you.
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Silva Laukkanen: Have you here?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Thank you so much, such a pleasure to be here.
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Silva Laukkanen: I've been actually reading about you, and I knew you're amazing. But the more I read about you and your work I'm like, Wow, you truly are amazing. You've been doing a lot of work for a long time in South Africa, and pioneering work. So tell me a little bit with your own words like, how did you end up in the dance world?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Well, you know, during the apartheid years in South Africa we had there was these community centers where you have, like some ladies coming. You know, ballet teachers from the Royal Ballet Association, Royal Academy of Dancing, and they used to come into our communities, and they would give class. But my my niece.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): She danced in another area another location. So I went to go watch, and I saw she's doing ballet, and I thought.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I want to know about ballet like what is ballet, and you know. So I came to when I came home that weekend, I actually went to the community center to see if there was this ballet, because I sort of fell in love with ballet. I think I was about 8 years old, and so I started learning ballet. But but snippets, you know, you know you learn snippets because the teachers used to come and they leave, and they come. So you don't have like a consistent training.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But then there was one teacher when I was like getting finishing like sort of my primary years going into high school. And so this this teacher her name was Lynette Lussingen.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and she came to El Dorado Park, and then she started teaching. But she's like very Spanish, and you know, and she's got Spanish dance, but she's really much. She loves the ballet she used to dance, and so she taught us like like the like. Hansel and Gretel, and like all the ballet stories, and I love the stories, and you know, because it was like so beautiful. I thought ballet was just so beautiful, and I just I fell in love with it.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But then, later on, you know, as you grow up in your high school, and you started seeing fame, you know.
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Silva Laukkanen: Blessed.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Fame on TV. And you like, you saw this like modern dancing. And you want to go to America. And yes, I want to go to New York.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and that was like, sort of my 1st thing is like, yes, I want to be a dancer. But the other hand, I really wanted to be a social worker, you know I love children.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And so what happened in my my years of of learning to dance? Lynette made me teach the little ones like, say, the newcomers that comes in like 3 year old. So I loved working with them, and so she taught me on how to do like technical training, you know, strengthen their bodies. And she taught me the little, the real things about technique, the technique of ballet.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And so I learned from a very young age 16, you know, up. And I didn't know like. And I thought this, I actually thought, you know, this woman doesn't like me. Why does she give me this work to do? And I don't like to do. I just want to dance. I want to work with children, but I know that I want to.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): For me. I love working with children. I love
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): teaching children life playing with children, you know. So that was that was like sort of my passion, either social worker or a hostess, because I could fly all over the world, but never thought that I would become a dancer
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): until you know.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): in my matric. I finished matric and I wanted to go and study at university, but then, during that time we were not allowed to go into universities, you know, if you're a black or a college, you have no access.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And so
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): but my teacher saw this 3 year course that the Johannesburg dance foundation was offering, and she says, Gladys, you must go here. And so when I looked at the course they offered Graham and Horton technique that Bonanville ballet. And so it was like an extra thing that I could learn after matrick, because I couldn't get into the university. So I studied with him, and I graduated there, and so in there I also learned. I also finished my Royal Academy of Dancing, you know, like my early learning training, you know, of dance ballet.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So all the techniques I learned that I learned body conditioning. I learned so a lot of things and outreach and how to do outreach in a community. So that is what I learned in that company, because they would go into the rural places, and we would do outreach. But it's very much Jazz
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): company and Graham and horse. And so it's like, very like.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): you know, like you were in this box. I didn't know anything about improvisation. I didn't know anything about creative movement, nothing of that. It was just this technique that I learned. And so your body is like this rigid thing, that is. And my mind is so rigid because I couldn't make up things, you understand, because it was just this technique that I learned.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But but like later, when I started, you know, when I went into the industry like when I started going to pack dance company. Wow!
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And so there was all these, you've got these international choreographers coming in, and I did not know a thing I couldn't even improvise to name my name. You know. I couldn't even improvise. I couldn't do any. I felt like a stick, you know. I felt like I was dry. But you know, with people like Robin Orlin
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and Sylvia Glasser. So Sylvia glasser does anthropology of African dance. So she's got all the rhythm. You know what I'm saying. So all this rhythms in
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): all this freaking dance grounded, and then I learned from Robin Orland how to improvise, like just to just
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): not think about the body as a as this, just an instrument. But what about starting creating things. What about working through that but using your technique as the foundation?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And then you start so with people like Robin Orland Bebe Miller. So those are the people that I really get to know in the companies that I work with.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But then I I danced the company for a while and I started.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): you know, in South Africa. In those times, you know, people only just invest in the male counterpart of the South African dancers, so they would not really invest in the black female. So you had to just get up and do your thing.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So what I did was I started creating works for women, you know. So I started creating solo pieces for myself. I started creating pieces for some other black women in black women in my in in South Africa from the community. I started doing various things like, you know, there was like.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): The soccer, you know, in the soccer they always have like this field events. So I got involved in soccer events. You know where you actually choreograph for 1,500 children to dance on a field.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So my community work continued. While I was dancing, I would come back in the community and we actually started a community project called Krypton Arts Foundation, and in the Krypton Arts Foundation. We were artists from the community, from El Dorado Park that would create work, and we would have like a festival at the end of the year, whether we do spiritual dancing or whether we do artistic collaborations. But we work for the children.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But it was in in 19 to 9,
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): you know you. You have done so many things, and sometimes but I just think this is the most important things is when I actually did a a duet or chat with 4 women called Strings.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and that's and so during that festival
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I was introduced to Kenduco, you know. So the festival organizer invited Adam Benjamin. But I didn't know Adam Benjamin by that time, and she only showed forms, you know, about Kenduco to actually show table stories. And I loved table story, I thought, Wow, this is like the most exciting, because, you know, I was going through a stage of my life where I was questioning, okay, Lord, where do I go
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): with my dancing? I've danced, I've taught. I've learned all the different techniques, and I was sort of getting bored because I mean, I've danced in all the companies freelance
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): than corporates. So now I'm on my own. But there's still something missing that I still haven't tapped into. So when I saw table stories. I thought that was the most beautiful thing, the most beautiful piece I've ever seen, with these dancers popping in and out in and out of this table, and when I saw that these these dancers are dancers with disability, I was so I was so in all my I had goosebumps. My heart was pumping so fast.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I was so excited because I thought.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen that actually dance can go so far, you know, I mean, you know, I've been teaching dance in the community. But you don't really think, okay, I can. Actually, it can actually go that far where people with disabilities can actually perform on a theater stage, as you understand.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So so when I saw that piece, I was blown away, I thought it was the most beautiful. It was the most funniest piece. I laughed throughout the piece, and then everybody in the audience was so quiet, and they go like oh, shame! And I go like, why are you ashamed? It's the most beautiful thing I've seen. You've seen these dancers. They're excited, they are. They are just excellent dancers, and they equal standard of any other dancer that I've seen, you understand, so that for me I thought it was the most beautiful thing I
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and my heart is pumped because I thought, there's a new avenue that I can look into. What dance can become. Dance is dance can open another door, you understand.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And so when I walked out of the the auditorium, I bumped into this Lady Jill Waterman, which is a very good friend of mine, but also one of my teachers, and then she introduced me to Adam Benjamin.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And then Adam Benjamin was saying, oh, you know what I saw your piece last night, and I was, and he loved my piece, and I said, but I saw your piece now, and I loved your piece. It was awesome. It was the most it was so synchronized. And then he was saying to me was, They're going to do workshops in South Africa. Would I be interested? And I said to him, Count me in. I'm in. So
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): so that is where my integrated thing starts in 1899, 1999, right.
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Silva Laukkanen: Okay. Okay.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Adam Benjamin was teaching like kind of workshops. So it's like, really basic workshops
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): on inclusivity, how to include dances within your environment, how you can use the tools, and I loved it. Oh, I loved it so much! It was the most beautiful thing. I think. I was just sitting there and just taking in everything. So then, before
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Adam left, he choreographed a piece called the Chorus, the chorus Choir. So it was with choir singers, like the Soweto choir, and then we were like the I think we were 8 or 10 dancers with Louise Catalygo also, as you know. Also being part.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): That is where I met Louise, and we became friends. So wow.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): so we've been friends and sisters since that day since that year until now. So that was incredible. You know it was the most beautiful memories, meeting new people and seeing
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): a different side of where you can.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): You can like really steer, dance in into the unknown, into places where people do not really want to go to.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and they would always say, No, it's not. It's not for these people. No, it's not for. So I go into their places, you know. So I go into the places the gaps where people don't want to go into.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So what happened after that? You know Adam left the country. So you have all these dancers that did all these workshops, I mean. Listen, I have. And I thought, you know, what what am I going to do now? And I thought.
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Silva Laukkanen: Right, so.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I phoned up some of the dancers. This was part of the workshop. So I said, Hey, guys.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): you want to choreograph a piece for next year. You know that dance umbrellas coming up. I would love you to
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): work with me. So I got David April. David Bombata. He's a dance in crutches. So he but may soul rest in peace because he died in 1990 during Covid. So I got David in, and one of the dancers, young ladies that came in, and myself, and we did trio the following year, so I kept going with the work, so I didn't stop, so I had classes every. Even if I didn't have space. I didn't have money. I didn't space. I had nothing. And I just thought, you know.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I've got these skills. What am I going to do with it?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I'm not going to let it go. It's fresh. It's exciting. I can go into places now. I can. I can put things together. It's like a puzzle, you know. So there is this. So there is this big puzzle about like what is next? And how can I
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): maneuver it now? In my.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): in my dance system, in my teaching, in my choreography, in my vision of what I want to do? So that's how I got involved in it. And I started just choreographing. So with that, I started the Dallas Theatre works. And then we created piece. But we worked from project to project because we did not have enough funding.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and then, when we work project to project, I would maybe work with one of dancers with disability, and we would do workshops, and we would do outreach. So while I'm dancing, I would do outreach at schools, so we can open up the door for young people to see the possibilities of artists with disability and able bodies to work together.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So in the environment where we go, we do workshops. We do a dance, maybe a duet, and then we teach.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): We do like a workshop with the kids. And then the dancer with disability would change, you know. So the artist. So the artist has diverse abilities. And what happens is that that is how I learned and started learning from the artist more because I had no other experience.
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Silva Laukkanen: Right now. You're working now, and now you're working alone and pioneering this work. So you have nowhere to look up to.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I had nowhere to look up, so in that
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): throughout my knowledge came from my dancers.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): you know. So we had been a Jean. That was a blind dancer. She was born blind, right? So I didn't know how to work with. I had no structures, and I didn't even think about going to the Internet because there was no time for that. You had to create something, and you have to produce something, and you need to move around. So there was no time for me to to like. Oh, who's doing this in this world? And also people were saying, Oh.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): why is Gladys doing that type of work, you know, you know. So people were asking these questions, because, like, you know,
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I just, I don't understand why you're doing this type of work, you know. So people were like some people started moving away from me. Some want to come close to me, but don't really want to get involved with me because disability had a stigma, you know.
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Silva Laukkanen: Right? So this is fantastic.
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Silva Laukkanen: Frequently. Yeah.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): With disabled artists or artists, with diverse abilities, and I did not care.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I would go, and I would put this piece so I would. All I did was create pieces and would present it on stage. So before I go to the stages, I would tell the theater, you know, like the theater managers. This is what I need. I've got 2 dancers that are blind, one in a wheelchair, one with crutches, 2 able bodies, and this is my cast. I need to enter from the front of my of your theater. I do not want to go around the back, because that is what I was fighting for access accessibility
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): because we did not. We had no access in going in. There was like no lifts. There was like. Sometimes there's no access for the dancers to go on stage. Then I said to him, Okay, if I can't use the stage, is there any other room that I can use?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Because I'm not. Gonna I'm not going to let you lift up because I had big dances, as well, you know, in wheelchairs. So it's not. It's very disrespectful to lift somebody up from the wheelchair or to be carried from 1 point to 1 point, especially if they are independent. They're independent artists. They know how to maneuver themselves in the ground. They know how to create pieces on our way. When we have to access a building, we have to have all these challenges. So then, you know.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So I worked at the museum, so I didn't have space to work. I didn't have like an accessible space.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And then. That Mr. Steven. Sec. He was part of Johannesburg development, arts and culture in Johannesburg. So the one day he had this whole meeting, and he says, Well, you know, you artists, if you really want.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): my door is open so you can come. And I thought myself, Oh, yeah, your door is open, so I'm taking your numbers. I took his number the next morning I phoned him. I said, Hello, Mr. Sack, how are you doing? And he goes like lettuce. I said, yes, I'm a choreographer. This is what I do. I work with inclusive, and they go like what is inclusive, he said. I work with artists with diverse
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): abilities like, what is that?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I said. Just come and see the workout, just. I'll invite you to one of my things. So I said to him, look, I need an office, and I need space that is successful. Do you have space for me? And he goes like, why don't you just go around and ask. I said, no, you said, your door is open, so I'm coming to you, and I'm asking you for assistance. And this is what I need, and if you need any help from me, I can help you. We can do this whole body, you know.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So he sent me into Johannesburg to go. Ask people, he said, go ask this one, go ask. So I went, and I go ask, and I got space at the Museum, and if I had a problem. Then I phoned him. I said, Mr. Steven Sack, I'm having a problem with this, this, this, this and this. And so that's how I got to move in at the Museum because of Stephen Sack.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So I got a space there. I've got an office space. And so my whole idea was this, they give me the space I've got room to rehearse. It's all accessible. There's no stairs, there's no no troubles for my dancers, whether they're in wheelchairs or crutches, or with blind everything is accessible. So my thing was that I need to do an outreach. I said. I can do an outreach program for you, and bring in about 2,000 kids every month for you.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So and that is what we did.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So for us to get our work going. That is what we did. I would do schools outreach, and so I would invite the schools to come to the Museum. They would come for a tour to the museum, and they would finish at the stage where we are, and we do a performance for them.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So that is how we I sort of bartered my, the the progress of the work. I had no funding
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): but this helps, you know, so I could only now, like fundraise for to pay the dancers.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So in that, that's how I sort of got involved and really spread my wings out to to really notate what? How do I do this? I worked with one dancer that is
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): he used to see he's blind, but he used to see before and with him I could ask him questions about. Can you remember this? What do you think of this? And remember he's blind now, and now he wants to dance
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and and I was doing a duet with him, and then you would remember certain things, certain ways how to hold a person when they were doing social dancing. So in social dance the the dance that they would do like a ball dance. It's called Lang Adam Dance. And so this long Adam dance was like ballroom dancing, and he could remember that.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And then I would say to him, remember, you used to do it like this because he was blind, and so I use his memories to create pieces. But then, with the other blind girl, I could find a different way, because she's never
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): she's been. She's blind from from birth. So we had to find another strategy, so she was very good with rhythms and maths, and so we used to do so. I use
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): numbers with her. So with the 2 of them I could figure out
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): how to how to work with these 2 blind dancers.
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Silva Laukkanen: I wanna hear more about how did you use numbers like? Give me an example like random numbers.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Yes, we did rhythm numbers, but also we worked in a clock, you know. So you know your your stance of your body right? So if you've got a clock upright, so the top of your head is 12, your feet is 6, your right hand 3. So you know 3, 9, and then that's kind of a foresight thing
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I did like.
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Silva Laukkanen: Brilliant.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So I could change it like that. And then we started using material, you know, like textile, like ropes. And and then, when she did a solo on the floor, we we would do the texture or her floor pattern with ropes, and she would work through that on the stage, because
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): that is how she could feel her space and work in the pattern
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and then we would also close our eyes, and we would work in that pattern. So we would go do that, as you know, able, like seeing dances.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But we experiment with a lot of things in terms of that. But the most important thing is, I started gathering information, you know.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and started sifting. So from 2016 I started sifting things and see what is important. How do I work with a person that is blind. I've got a whole like. If I only work with blind people, I could do this structure when I work with deaf people, so I had to learn sign language. We had a dancer that is, in the in the company, Delene, and she also grew up with me she was in grade 10 when she started, and now she's an actress
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and so she started studying, working how to teach moms
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): that has children that are deaf, so how to communicate to that. So then she started teaching us sign language.
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Silva Laukkanen: So I.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Transformed my teaching
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): into, like my my words that I use for traveling, I transformed into sign language. So when I teach
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): in a class. I can teach blind people, deaf people in one environment without me saying much, but just using signs and using sign in.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So so there's things that I've learned from Adam. But then I started using in the context of South African context, how do I use it in my environment?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): How do certain things change. Yes, the exercise may be leading and following me. Do it like this. But then, how do I do it when I come to a different when I come to a different community that doesn't touch.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Then how do I do that? How am I going to integrate that? How am I going to work with a community where that maybe speaks closer and I can't speak closer, and then I use sign language. So I use English sign language, and in that my class would keep moving. So in that I started building my blocks of teaching
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and I know it's a latte. It's really it's really messy.
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Silva Laukkanen: Amazing, amazing! And was this in the time when you started your own dance company.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Yes.
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Silva Laukkanen: Is it cloudy? Okay.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Yes, and then we. And with the company we started working with, like, say, for instance, the sound technician.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and we like with the deaf people, deaf dancers in the company. Then we sort of play around with the sound, you know, like, maybe we have the sound coming from the front of the front of house, or maybe the sound only comes from this from the from the audience point of view, or from the stage, and nothing in the studio and nothing in the audience. So we play with the sound so that the dancer could know more or less where they are, and the, you know vibration.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and we work on those kind of workshops
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): we did. I did one
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): performance where we did a textual thing, where we actually had voice over where the dancers talk about their movements, and then we blindfolded the audience members, and they would walk into the different sound spaces and experience what a dancer
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): or a dance would experience like. For instance, if you only hear things. This is what you hear from the dance, and if you go into the other room. That is what you experience in terms of the touching of the dance, and the next one would be, you know. So we had like sort of a kind of a textile senses.
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Silva Laukkanen: Yeah, like a sensory tour, almost like a different sensory tour.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And then they would.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Then they would finish on the stage, and then they see the whole performance.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): From what they heard
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and what they've touched, you know. So that was like, for I did it for students, you know, and it was really great.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But it also pushed me to think, hey? I can do a little bit more.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I really at the moment want to experiment a little bit more. I I just would love to have a space where
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): dances, and I can just experiment some of my thoughts that I really want to.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): that I want to play with in terms of like pulling in artists, disability and young people and people with autism. And how do I work with autism kids and also adults? That's with epilepsy? So I've also started working with adults with epilepsy. And how does movement and sound help them? Or actually
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): hmm allow them to find more senses in their movement, and how they can think about.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): think about the body movements that is not so active and how they can, through thinking and movement, activate those muscles again, you know.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So yeah, there's a lot of those kind of things that I'm
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): that I've been working on, basically aren't. Yeah.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And I have recently done some workshops that I've always thought about. I've always love to do workshops with mothers that has got children with disability right? And then how do they
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): work with the, with the, with the, with the children, but also for them is a self-care like when.
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Silva Laukkanen: Right.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Their babies or their children are resting or sleeping.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): how do they self care themselves so? Because they are the 1st
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): caretaker? They are the the primary caretaker of their child that is physically, emotionally, mentally.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Everything is upon them as the mother. So how do you self care you as a woman, and when you step away from your child and not and just giving yourself an hour space of just moving in the space and just taking a breather and not thinking about.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Oh, my baby, is this but your your baby is in safe care next door, and you are just here recuperating to establish yourself again, so that when you step back and work with your child you're in a very
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): harmonious state, you understand, because sometimes you can get overwhelmed with the situation, that your child is. So I did some workshops on that and self-care, and how we could just, and it was amazing, because I had fathers. We never had fathers coming in the class. I had about 3 fathers that take care of this, their children that are disabled, and they were in the class together.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And also now this was a group of ethnic, like elderly men and women, and in their culture they're not allowed to touch, especially if they don't know each other.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And so what happened in the class? These people were touching hands, and they were. They were moving, and they did this. I was so so impressed with it
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): because of what dance can do breaking the stereotype errors reconciliating in like
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): people in ways that you cannot even think about.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): You know.
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Silva Laukkanen: Right.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Because you, you can think there's certain things that can reconcile people, but sometimes just non-verbal and just being in a space and moving, and maybe just breathing together, and maybe just a simple touch, or even a touch through an object, you know, brings that you understand.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and even just to look at each other and breathe together and understand and be able to speak about things that you can know, that you cannot speak to other people about.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I'm really frustrated because my baby's like this. I don't know how to handle my children is doing this when my child's body is frozen like this. What do I do? How do I relax, my child? You know? Or how do I relax?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So that is what dance do it does? It does. It's got this very therapeutic, but as well as an excellent thing for
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): performance skills, you understand, and for that person to find themselves in
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): growing confidently, you understand, become the person that that person wants to be or needs to be in this environment, you understand. So I truly believe it's it's with dance. There's so much I mean, I still, I feel like I haven't done nothing yet. I feel like I'm I still need to do so much more in terms of
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): how do I do this now? Like how do I? Where do I take it? How can I? Maybe even look at racial things? That's maybe that is happening in my community, you know, like there's a lot of
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): you know, the changing of government, the changing of people's mindset. You've got this free.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): You've got this free South Africa. But somehow, in our hearts, in our minds, we still so sucked, you understand, and you not free enough to be able to move all this, all these barriers. But when people are in a room and they
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): they move together in one signature, you know, and they don't have to talk.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): They don't have to become friends. They just move together, and at the end of the day the ones that didn't want to become friends are the biggest friends, you understand, and there's a bigger understanding about people that works
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): with. It's like, you know, when human beings start, just care for each other and have the kindness for each other.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So if we have kindness, and that is what I feel, what dance does. It just makes you just become human and you become. You care for, not yourself, but you care for the next person.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But you are part of that care, you understand, and you have compassion for your community compassion for this environment that you move in.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And and sometimes I feel like, if we just have a little bit more compassion for each other.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): You know a little bit more kindness to each other. We all can grow so much more, and become so much more important for each other. Not one person must become important, but everybody becomes important.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So so for me, that is what you know integrated dance, and what the how inclusivity. I don't even want to say inclusivity. That word doesn't mean a thing for me, but just movement with people. You understand the interaction, the sharing, you know, the understanding, and sometimes just the listening is the most beautiful thing that you can impart. You know, it's like a mom that just gave birth, and she just holds a baby. And this baby is just breathing in her arms.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and that is what we need to be for each other, you know. Just let us breathe in each other's arms for a bit, you understand.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): anyway. So that is just how how's the.
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Silva Laukkanen: That's incredible.
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Silva Laukkanen: that whole arc. And like I hear this like passion in your voice, like you're not done like. There's so much like
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Silva Laukkanen: I mean, you have done so much, but you have like this huge passion and and enthusiasm towards this work, and like I can see you being curious at all times when you talk, and it just
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Silva Laukkanen: it's beautiful, I mean, do you still feel like you work very in alone? Or do you feel like other people are catching up. Do you feel like South Africa is building a community around this this work, this community and integrated dance work? Or how do you feel like it's happening now, after all this, this work that you've done, I see that you've been recognized many times like you have received many awards, which is amazing.
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Silva Laukkanen: But how do you feel like that? The community is now responding to your work? And do you feel like there's more happening?
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Silva Laukkanen: And where do you? Where do you want to, Gladys? I mean, we heard a lot of things that you want to do. But tell me a little bit more like, what is what? What? Where do you want to see yourself in 5 years?
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Silva Laukkanen: So those 2 questions.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Well, I've actually been thinking a little bit, you know, like the studying I I do feel that there's a little bit. There's more openings happening.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): There's more openings happening. There's more awareness. But now it's it's about implementing the things
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): it's like you need to be aware of what's happening around
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and then create the possibilities and then include people as we go along so that we can fill the gaps because it's about the implementation, you know. Sometimes we can speak and say, I'm doing this, but then there's no real results. You understand. I can say to my funder, yes, I have 40 dancers with disability that I have.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But where is the evidence, you understand? And where are they? In the industry and also the industry out there needs to open up their doors now, like the directors, the film directors, the theater directors, the
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): produces the scriptwriters, and I still feel that they still use able-bodied artists to pretend to be disabled where there is artists living with disability that can fill those spots, and sometimes they don't give that opportunity to those artists. But it's there, you understand. So that is just. It's just that that
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): director or the filmmaker. They just have to put their foot down and say, no, I don't want you to act
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): being disabled. I want an artist that is in a wheelchair that can do this thing
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): that understands how he needs to how, how, what it is to be in a wheelchair, or a blind person that's really blind in doing this thing. And so it's those kind of little things that I still find it.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): We we have to just give. We just need to give each person a chance.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): We need to give these artists, young people that are coming up, that are people with disability, blind artists, Dave dancers.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): We need to give them an opportunity like you were given opportunity. I was given opportunity to to work and fulfill my dreams. So let us open. I still feel we still need to open that door and give the opportunity to these young artists and and let them run it, you understand, and not have Gladys running it. But
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): this office has no say
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): that artist must have a say that Arthur must have the freedom to speak and say, no, this is how I want the production. This is how and this is how I feel, or even directing it.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So it's so. That is what I I still think. We just need to keep pushing for that and
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and you know, just doing the studies at London contemporary. I think that I'm so excited. I thank God for that opportunity, because it has opened doors for me to. I mean, look at you, I can communicate with you, and I can talk about the world, you understand. I did not have anybody to speak about the work like man. I'm really having trouble with this. I don't understand how to do this. I have people now that I can consult with, and I can speak to somebody if I don't.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): If I really feel like I just don't know how to deal with this little problem. So the fact that I have
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): colleagues that I can tap onto. You know. That is for me the most important thing, because all the time when I worked I was by myself
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I didn't know how to deal with things. I didn't know how to solve the problems
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): or the how the situations. And I just had to push through, and I made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes, and then I would try and give up.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): But I said to myself, Why am I going to give up because there's so much work still to be done.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Thinking my 5 years, I I at 1st I thought, I want to have my own studio at home, but I just thought, no, let me just back up, away a little bit from it.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I'm back in my community. So in El Dorado Park. I have not been teaching for a while, right? So since I started my studies.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I actually it brought me back into my community. And I actually.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): my heart is broken because I just saw how my community is really lacking so much. There's like, really not much developing happening with the young people there is but slight.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): There could be more. You understand. It's like
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): official people. Why do we move out?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And I? And so now I'm back in the community. And I've started working with elderly, which is awesome because you can hear the stories right? And then you.
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Silva Laukkanen: Right.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Okay, because the stories, and when you start, and when you're in a community, when you work with elderly, they encourage their grandchildren. So you work with the elderly, and you know what you do. You pull the young people, and then I'm trying to knit connections at the moment like with the job of ballet. So when they have Sleeping Beauty, they give me tickets. And I go like, Okay, I've got the elderly. There's youth groups. There's church groups. There's this this, and then
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): I invite all these people and say, Hey, I have 20 tickets. You want to come. Bring a youth group. Give me 20 people. So so I'm networking. And so when there's a piece that when there's a performance, I take the community and we go to the theater.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So the last time we went we were 400 people
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): from the community, 400. So we from
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): the children, the the moms that stay home stay home like the moms that are at home. That doesn't work.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And then I have, you know, teenagers that doesn't work. So I pull them in. So I see all these gaps in my community. And I thought, Okay, I need to find a way like how the teenagers, what am I going to do with them the elderly. What am I going to do with them? The 3 year old? So I'm also investigating in terms of there's ex dances in El Dorado park, and they can teach ballet, or you know, and if I pull them in and we do a training program, and we can start doing classes.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And they? I don't have to do everything by myself, but I get these people that are passionate about dancing, and they want to help me teach. So that's the thing is like, how can I start activate my community by working with my community and do like this co-creation, co-collaboration?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And then also investigating like, how? Where did dance develop in Aldos before I even started dancing?
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): And what is the social dance that was there that kept the people going during apartheid, you understand? And then what do.
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Silva Laukkanen: Oh, yeah, that's rich right there. Yeah. One of my favorites, when I lived in South Africa is that these guys were doing the gumboot dance, and I just thought that was so amazing and powerful.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): Now, you see now in Soweto you've got like the Gumbu dances done by people that come from the mine. So they started doing that kind of. But what did people in El Dorado, you know? So there was these.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): There was these long Adam dances. So there was these balls that used to happen every Friday night, and the ladies used to dress up these long ball dresses, and there was a band playing, and they would have this dance going on. So I want to find out about that, you know. So there was like a culture there happening besides the ballet that I learned at the center, and then there was ballroom dance.
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Silva Laukkanen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's super interesting. Project. Oh, my, gosh.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): So I can speak to the elderly, and they can tell me the type of things that they did. What was their, what was their social things in those time when they heard they were restricted, and they could not do certain things. They could tell us the stories, and don't think that would be such a good story for the young people. Now that does not know anything about apartheid.
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): and doesn't know how their great grandparents lived. They only hear about it, but they've never heard it from somebody close to them
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): or from somebody in the community, you know. So in our community, I can tell you there is white people living. There's Chinese people living. There's Indian people living. There is like us mixed
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): pellet people living. So there's this whole kind of
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Gladys Agulhas (she/her): mixed cultures in this community. You know, that has lived here all these years. So I actually want to go and ask the Chinese people, how did you get here? How did you? How come you? You're based in El Dorado Park? I mean, that is incredible story to hear from their grandparents and their families still living here, you know.