AMVTP presented "Yam, Potatoe an Fish!” to Minnesota audiences in October 2018, in a split bill with Choreographer-Dancer Jonathan van Arneman (Sint Maarten/Minnesota). "Yam, Potatoe an Fish!” was cited as Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Best of Dance that year and Alanna was recognized as City Pages’ Best Choreographer and Artist of the Year. The work reflects a deeply personal journey researching the notion of HOME and was to be presented back in her hometown of New York City in June 2020 by Gibney Dance Center…

Sadly,

when the ocean is your border you must make do.

home is far

and your hunger for it

might make your bones ache…

In 2017 I had an tense relationship with my sister. We were always very close growing up. In fact, kids on the block used to call us the “Double mint Twins,” for those you that get that reference! College years brought us physically and emotionally apart. I rarely saw or talked with my sister. When I moved to Minnesota perceived misunderstandings and unresolved pain worsened through the years. I felt like I had lost my sister/didn’t know the woman she had become/missed her formative years…

The HOME section is the first thing I started creating, and it really was a process of DISCOVERY more than creation. As an Artist-in-Residence with Art On Purpose (dir. Jamie Philbert) at East Yard (dir. Kevon Foderingham) in Arima, Trinidad I worked out of Art On Purpose’s dance studio for almost 4 weeks in the September of 2017. I knew the purpose of the project—what I wanted to help resolve or research—to claim my relationship to family, history, culture, legacy, gifts, and story. I did not know how I would do this; but I figured the best place to start was with my own Mother.

Excerpts from my interviews with my Mother guide the sound score in the first section of “Yam, Potatoe an Fish!” I took notes and then focused on the words that were most resonant for me. (See an example in the picture below. These type of posters were taped to the walls)…

I didn’t know anything about making altars. It’s just what I did before my rehearsals to prepare for the work, to enter the portal. In fact, I didn’t start calling it an “altar” until public showings because there was no other name for it. This prop is not a prop. The altar is a place to meet people, specifically my late maternal grandmother and eventually my living paternal grandmother, as you will see as you watch the performance. I initially sought to connect with Lynda by placing objets she loved on the table, lighting incense, saying prayers, and anointing myself with oil. It is she who gave me the book of Psalms. It was important to her that we memorized the Psalms. (You can hear the voice of my sister and I reciting Psalm 91 during our duet in “Yam, Potatoe an Fish!” (Of course, in 2018 I took license with the language and changed the gender of the pronouns from he to she, as that felt most accurate to whom the prayer was for)…

On this day, October 19, we take time to remember the late, great Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister and leader of the People’s Revolutionary Government from 1979-1983. On this day Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was assassinated along with several members of his cabinet at Fort Rupert in St George’s….