Danced Testimonies of the Traumas of Migration

Abstract

This chapter examines the way two interdisciplinary works that combine film and dance — Meredith Monk’s film Ellis Island (1981) and Isaac Julien’s installation Western Union: Small Boats (2007) — explore the lingering after-effects of the experience of migration. Ellis Island was filmed in the former immigrant reception centre in New York harbour and takes as its premise a spectral archaeology. It asks: what ghostly traces of the migrant origins of the families of many of today’s US citizens might such an archaeology uncover? Western Union: Small Boats is a multi-screen video installation occupying three rooms, made in collaboration with choreographer Russell Maliphant. Filmed at locations in Sicily, its subject is the plight of clandestine sub-Saharan African migrants, thousands of whom sail in small boats across the Mediterranean in desperate attempts to enter the European Union. Both works were closely connected with live theatrical performances during which some of the film footage was projected. US citizens, with the exception of Native Americans, are all descended from migrants, many of whom entered the country through Ellis Island. Sicily has a long history of migration including Phoenician, Carthaginian, Greek and Islamic settlers who, over the centuries, ruled Sicily.