Why I don't like to call myself an activist

I truly despise the word "activist". Because it's a word that is being overused. Just like "democracy", it has lost sense. When I look at some actors, I see that they make their millions on activism and reputation. Not on true acting. Not on their Art.

Activism is the new way of making money, especially for artists. Now I still think it's important to talk about important issues (especially capitalism and the burnout society), but people make it a Marketing strategy to gain followers, likes and make money out of it. Now I am not against making money, I follow real decolonial activists who provide great information in Social Media, (they're mostly from the Global South by the way) and I gladly follow them and appreciate their work. But I do it because I know their cause goes beyond making money, they actually want change. Unlike many actors and famous people, who have used activism to grow their wealth while making microscopical superficial changes, but never trully digging deep into the roots of the problem. Digging deep into the darkness of the problem is the only thing that will save us from our own slavery. And ultimately the goal of going into the darkness is to be able to have tools to create art. Not only to speak about decolonizing. If activism limits itself to words, change will never actually happen because words are triggering. Healing goes beyond words.

The more I grow old the less I like words. If I could spend the rest of my life speaking only what is necessary, I would truly do it. I have a lot of unpopular opinions, I have always been like this, and I don't do things just for the sake of doing them. I need to do things that make logical and spiritual sense.

I started writing because I had to express my frustration against a world that has separated and categorized everything, without finding connections between the same separated elements. As if feminism itself could solve the World's problems. As it veganism itself could solve all the problems. Sometimes I am truly tired of using the word Feminism, or even Decoloniality, because in my head it is all really clear what comes from Colonial oppression, and what doesn't (Ego), and how to deal with those triggers myself. It is all now cristal clear to me, and I often ask myself if it is even worth it to explain it and write about it because after having all these things very clear in my head, it should correspond to take the next big step: to dance until I die.

After years of having categorized, reorganized, and reconnected all my values, I am feeling like I am on the right track of discovering things by my own, and that if I try to explain that, people will always misunderstand it and will want to take advantage of my commitment to make the world better, for THEIR own vision. And let me tell you, I have my own vision. In which discipline is important. In which diversity is essential, in which no one is equal. Because Equality is a lie, and it will always be a lie. People still associate every word to "good" or "bad". Ballet BAD, contemporary GOOD, Men BAD, women GOOD. past: BAD, future: GOOD. I am truly tired of living in a society that self proclaims as democratic, but remains basic and binary OF THOUGHT.

The world is much more complicated than that and I don't know if I'll have the courage to write about all of it, because words are extremely limited, and more limited are the minds who read them because they think that the only thing that matters in the world are WORDS. Reparation is a process that will take us another 100 years more because some people still confuse race with Nationality and cannot dare to open their eyes beyond identity politics. It's nice to wear sassy high heels so that people will aplaud your "authenticity". But it's much nicer to acknowlegde where the suffering in the world comes from. And no, the answer is not white hetero cis gender males. There is suffering everywhere in the world. Even the billionaires are slaves of their own ignorance and privileges. After my spiritual awakening, I am in true peace with my negative energy, and you should learn how to accept your negative feelings too, because you are human. Sadness is there to tell you things and you should listen to it closely. Otherwise she doesn't go away. Same with Anger. That's how we heal our traumas. I really dislike it when people tell me to be less negative. My negativity is in fact the one who saved me from becoming a mediocre piece of worker. I would be working in an office otherwise. Because the director of the Academic studies in the University in France told me I would be brilliant as a writer. Then I pictured myself in that future: very overweight (because I love food but I would be so depressed that my hunger would be the trigger trauma response to my anxiety: over eating is a sign of spiritual blockage), ugly, depressed, not being able to dance, frustrated, full of resentment towards the beauty of classical ballet, but with money.

That was my future if I chose "stability". I truly understand why writers kill themselves. Because focusing only, ONLY on thoughts without understanding our CORPORALITY truly is depressing. Virginia Wolf needed to DANCE in order to stay alive, and when I think about Nijinsky locked up 30 years in a mental hospital until his body didn't respond anymore, I cannot stop crying because I understand him, I also would not kill myself, I would talk to death like he did for 30 years. I am even sure he danced in that mental Hospital, just for the sake of dancing with freedom. It is not good to stay in one's mind. For me, the heart is much WISER than the mind, but BOTH ARE INSIDE OUR BODIES and both need to work together, and I am feeling like I should be running and not wakling carefully. MY MIND IS MY BODY. IT IS INSIDE OF IT AND IT WAS NEVER SEPARATED. That is why I don't call myself an activist. Because my mind and body are ONE, and people have no clue of how their bodies work. People think only our thoughts count.

Now, so many years later, never finding stability, but always discovering things about ballet and how my body is changing through all the experiments that I put it through, I can truly say, that I rather much die dancing ballet, than having stability and comfort to exlussively write about it. It is frustrating that one needs to sacrifice personal GROWTH in order to have money and stability. I meditate, I practice my spirituality, I apply feminist, Marxist and decolonial theories everywhere I go and to everything I do.

But in the end, there is this undeniably strong will in my body, to keep pushing its boundaries and keep becoming better as a ballerina. Even more now that I connected with my Ancestors, and decided to dance ballet for them for the rest of my life. And as I keep learning about spirituality, about pain, sadness, anger... I really see so many similarities between indigenous bolivian culture and the russian soul: brutaly honest, extremely passionate, acceptance of all extreme feelings, very strong like their nature, explosive, ambitious in the spiritual sense, hard working, toxic in their way (yes, I understand that toxicity, and to be honest I don't mind it). Ever since I moved to Europe I have been looking to discover the secrets of ballet. Until now, my eyes, my experience, my brain, my body, my heart choses Russian Ballet. The more I discover and understand it, the more things in common I find with indigenous culture, and the more I find answers. True logical and spiritual answers. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to write about decolonizing ballet, because it is not about color of skin, it is about physics, history, non binarity OF THOUGHT (of THOUGHT, emphasis on the THOUGHT) and it is also about heritage. Ballet was not born in the Global South, but people think Ballet is the same everywhere. It's NOT. The understanding of the Body mechanics is not the same in the West as in Russian Ballet. From their approach to Folk dances, to their way of interpreting the body, russian ballet has developped in a far more complete way than in the West. You can get as offended as you wish, in fact, my goal is that you get offended. Because the truth hurts. No, we're not all the same. I told you Equality is a lie. Diversity is beautiful. Now let me tell you, that Bolivia has developped their dances in such a high level, like Russia, that I truly think that we can have good art discussions and exchanges. I have new beautiful dreams that connect the Russian soul to the Bolivian indigenous soul. Like I said, Decoloniality is not about SEGREGATING, but about understanding. None of these dreams will come true if I don't keep pushing my body into this path of the algorythms of the body and mind. Don't worry, I am also getting deeper into my beautiful bolivian dances.

To finish my article, I will tell you an anecdote that I had in France. A lot of ballet masters would tell me not to be so happy, not to express too much. That was a rule in their "technique". DON'T express too much. It pretty much reflects what whiteness is about: the REPRESSION of all of what comes from the human condition, it's all about PRETENDING, and not actually trully BEING, it's about what other people will think of you, not what you trully think of the world. Russian ballet on the other hand, it forces you to externalize all of your feelings, through logical, spiritual and emotional movement. Bolivian Folk dances do THE SAME. Russian ballet has always been like therapy for me, JUST LIKE BOLIVIAN FOLK DANCES. Because it purged my dark thoughts through movement. Western ballet has pushed me into superficiality, aesthetics and stupid beauty standards. It pushed me into carrying only about AESTHETICS. I was feeling very frustrated lately, because nobody seems to appreciate these aspects of russian ballet anymore, but like I said, my path right now is to keep pushing the algorythms of my body as much as I can, because I am very aware of the fact that Ballet was not born in the Global South, but I know that there is an incredible amount of talent there. The real beauty of the Global South is the Indigenous culture: MUSIC AND DANCE. Like I said, Ballet is part of the universal language of DANCE. And you cannot separate folk dances from ballet. And Ballet is not the same everywhere so no, you cannot compare how russian education has approached folk dances than to what the West did through colonisation. That is why you cannot judge Russian ballet with the same eyes as Western Ballet: different history, different cultures, different languages. I cannot write methodically, I only write as my heart says, and I want to show you what I mean with Russian soul and Indigenous bolivian soul:

Russian soul:

Indigenous Bolivian soul:

You cannot decolonize from Cultures that destroyed their own DANCE and MUSIC culture. Period. And nobody will convince me that these dances are not spiritual. This beauty is true human communication. True human honesty. True LOVE.