Movement, Dance, Migrations, Protests and Ideas

By Anisa Daniel-Oniko from Nigeria 

Movement

A word that brings much to mind.
From the tap-tap-tap of a dancer’s feet,
To the stamp-stamp-stamp of protesters’ feet.
Or the plod-plod-plod of an elephant’s feet.
Or the silent synergy that is movement of ideas.
Because movement is such a broad spectrum, I am going to tell you what it has meant to me.

Dance

I live in a country moved by rhythm, glowing with dance and song.
The step-step-step of nimble feet tap out a rhythm I know well.
One that I only need to hear, to be compelled to join in.
Isn’t it like that for everyone?
From the swaying movements of native dances, to the swirling softness of ballet, dance has been an important part of the human existence.
It tells a story with each step. 
Dance is Poetry, Dance is Light, Dance is Movement.


Migrations

Animal migrations have always fascinated and awed me.
Watching noble elephants, for example, make their slow, graceful, way towards their destinations miles away is a strange but beautiful sight.
Did you know that elephants have been known to migrate up to 62 miles away from their original locations?
That’s almost one hundred kilometres!
62 miles of slow, steady, steps making their way to a far-off place.
Every year.
Treading paths like their ancestors did before them.
Some elephants are born with that yearning, travelling their long path once a year without a specific cause. It’s born in others only when they need it. When food or water is scarce, and they must go away to find sustenance.
Either way, it is a beautiful sight to imagine. And an even more beautiful one to see.
Migration is Tradition, Migration is Beautiful, Migration is Movement.

Protests

The right of people to (peacefully) protest is one that has been exercised throughout the ages.
As someone who is passionate about advocacy, it is a right I strongly believe in.
And as the Black Lives Matter and End SARS movements swept my world in 2020, I noticed that a lot of other people in my generation are passionate about protesting too.
But we aren’t the only ones.
One of the earliest peaceful protests (which took place around CE 26-36) took place in Judea and involved Jews who were standing against Pontius Pilate’s impending defilement of their sacred laws. Not a weapon in sight, even when the Romans threatened to draw theirs.
That’s almost two-thousand years before Mahatma Gandhi’s famous Salt March in 1930.
And that Salt March took place ninety years before the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
There have been many protesters who stamped their feet in unison.
That marched in one accord.
That stood in solidarity and civil disobedience.
That marched, that stamped, that shouted, that moved in pursuit of what they knew to be right.
We aren’t the first, nor will we be the last.
Protests are Ancient, Protests are Powerful, Protests are Movement.

Ideas

There are times when I have illuminating conversations with my friends, and I am sure that I can see lightning shooting between us. 
I can practically see thoughts and ideas jumping between our heads.
Movement of ideas should not be underestimated as a type of movement.
Because without the movement that begins in the mind, all the other types of movement are unfounded.
Without the ideas of a choreographer jumping to the mind of a dancer, where would dance be?
Without the movement of ideas between the protester’s minds, where would their protest be?
Movement of ideas may not be “movement” in a typical sense, but it is the base of movement.
Ideas are Foundational, Ideas are Electric, Ideas are Movement.