You’re involved with community organizing and environmental activism. Are your creative endeavors connected with those interests, and if so, in what ways?

I definitely say they’re connected. In college one of the things I’d do when I was trying to still find out my purpose in life was [ask] “If Simeon was its own non-profit, what would Simeon’s mission statement be?” It was always about trying to create community and whenever there is a gap, [asking myself] how I [can] be that bridge between folks.

There are times when [my interests] do overlap but I definitely want to be doing more. I’d like to see more leadership development within the dance community and recognition of the different institutional and cultural norms that can make it difficult to be successful.

A lot of time, when I hear folks talk about dance, they use it as escapism and I think that is nice, but dance can also be the tool we can use to address these different things that are making life difficult.

I get to see the overlap with environmental justice [and dance] with the group, Pacific Climate Warriors. This is a group of advocates trying to make sure our stories are getting told. The group is split between those living on the islands—on the frontlines—experiencing the realities of climate change, and the folks who are in diaspora like me [who] don’t see those realities but also still feel really connected with our homes and want to do something about it. Our biggest tool is storytelling.

What’s a project you’re particularly proud to have worked on?

[In September 2018] I got to collaborate with Florence “Flo” Folole Tupuola and Nala Taukilo, two other [Pacific Climate] warriors in putting together a performative piece [called] Babies of Diaspora. It was really cool to feel like my whole being [was] engaged in that moment.

[We] spent a week together [in Australia] choreographing and performing. Flo was representing the siva, a traditional Samoan dance, and I was introducing contact improv. Those two things were clashing and together in the piece, and then [we had] spoken word.

We were [creating] awareness of the coal extraction happening. They’re trying to actively stop Adani, the largest coal mine in Australia. The export route goes over the Great Barrier Reef, so there was black and red paint involved. Even though red is a color that is associated with power, the black paint blends and the red gets lost.

Sometimes when [we] come to the movement, there are things we carry that get in the way and harm. When you have been hurt or harmed [and] that doesn’t get addressed—what can happen is that you harm other people.

I was representative of that person that comes in, trying to do good, but causes more harm. Contact improv is a very intimate dance. A lot of black paint was rubbing off onto Flo. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and really address and clean up things. That was a later part of performance—stepping away. We had bowls of water and a washcloth for cleansing.

I’m really proud of that piece because it allowed me to have all these intersections of my being, but [spoke to] something that has always been on my heart; how do we continue to engage folks who cause harm?

I don’t feel good or believe in call-out culture. I know that sometimes it needs to happen and I understand that folks who come from privilege definitely need to be checked, but when it’s folks in our own community, I don’t know that call-out culture is helpful because we’re already marginalized folks. Why do we need to ostracize each other even more? That performance, for myself, was for the day I end up, for some reason, getting called out and ostracized.