Most Arrivals Alums will know the Arrivals Personal Legacy process, developed over 20 years ago by Diane in collaboration with Heather Hermant, Danielle Smith, and Rosemary Georgeson. This began Diane’s journey of offering a new/old grounding for artists based on African and diaspora ways of knowing/being and doing.
In 2015, in residency with the Moving Voice Institute (formerly the National Voice Intensive), Diane began to explore ways to connect the dots between Caribbean forms of ritual and song cycles, African dance training, and Western theatre forms. Inspiration came from longtime mentors Zab Maboungou, Judith Koltai, David Smukler, and collaborator Gerry Trentham.
Arrivals Legacy Voice honours the rooted, embodied methodology of the Personal Legacy process, while expanding into the realm of embodied vocal techniques. In synthesising the profound listening capabilities of the body – with call and response, languages of liberation, and story gathering – the Arrivals Legacy Voice process provides powerful new opportunities for self-knowledge, ancestral and community connection, and creativity.
This is an opportunity for performers, writers, singers, educators, change leaders, and artists of all disciplines to come together in a collaborative space for cross-cultural exchange and performative story-making; exploring where their ancestral histories meet.
“Legacy Voice, for me, is a witness and participant looking backwards and forwards at transformation that recognises both difference and privilege. It is a process that seeks to reunite my dancer queer body with a self-honouring, resonant and bold, accountable voice.”
-Gerry Trentham
“We ask the questions that haven’t been asked before or haven’t been asked for a very, very long time. The conversations allow us to open up new questions and recover answers to old questions. These are answers that people might not want to respond to or face or acknowledge. When we speak truths to each other, we open the potential to conquer our fears, to heal the wounds from our past, and to move forward.”
-Rosemary Georgeson
“Just as the voice and the body are inseparable, so are the concepts of voice and legacy. I see legacy as the voice that comes through our family systems, and through us, most innately, through all our trials, triumphs, shortcomings, gifts, and talents alike.”
-Jude Wong
