We give thanks
by ALICE OTIENO
in Spring 2023
baaba, UNSHAKABLE, 2023
We give thanks to our mothers who intercede on our behalf.
We give thanks to the music that interprets the cries of our soul, like the Spirit, it too demystifies and decodes the language of the unseen.
We give thanks to that remix, that chopped and screwed, rearranged and made a new thing showing us that beauty is two-fold.
I give thanks to the dance, to the rhythm—oh thank God for the rhythm.
The swaying of the hips, and the one place where I can be entranced.
All shame and sorrow, guilt and anger vacate here, there’s no need to perform when the music takes over.
It’s a place for the ultimate surrender.
If the beginning was sound, and that sound is love then through dance is how we show our devotion.
I give thanks and praise to those who move through it all and paved the way for such resilience.
I give thanks to my mothers mother, her grandmother too whose songs were sometimes silent, quiet, yet still all the more powerful.
They gave thanks, through chants and hymns, melodies and psalms, sweet songs that haunt me ever so often when I'm still enough to listen.
Like them, I too find comfort in the sound and the music.
Like a portal it carries, a container it holds and is held somewhere deep and hidden inside.
And so gracefully it speaks to you in a way you can’t miss or ignore.
We give thanks because that’s all we can do,
it’s all that there is left to do.
Alice Otieno is a UK based artist who works across the disciplines of direction, research and writing. Her work seeks to explore fundamental ideas surrounding the nature of our existence — bridging the gap between intellectual thought processes and creative practice.