body away from home

BODY AWAY FROM HOME starts from my body that is currently away from home.

This is the second time this body has lived away from home for an extended period of time. It lived in Aotearoa throughout 2023, and now it has been living in so-called Australia, in Naarm, for almost a year.

I notice small changes. My body puts on a fake smile more often. It steps back a lot more. My tongue gets twisted. My brain keeps twitching between languages. I sometimes feel that I am moving, speaking and behaving as a slightly different version of myself.

They say that immigrants have two personalities — one in their native tongue and another in a foreign language. But perhaps it is not only personality that shifts. Perhaps the body shifts too.

The project grows from my ongoing interest in duality and my experience of moving between places, languages and cultures. Since moving from Latvia to Australia, “home” has become a new and important question in my practice. I am interested in how living between places can change our body — the one home we have with us at all times.

I feel it is important to explore urgent questions of migration, displacement and belonging not only as political or social issues, but through the body and lived experience. I recognise that my own experience of moving away from home is shaped by the privilege of having migrated voluntarily. Because of this, I want the project to grow beyond a solo dance performance into a community project, creating a space to explore with others how migration is felt, carried and experienced in other bodies.