Work must be done by those living today in order to make way for future generations, according to Camille Weanquoi, who spoke at the University of Rhode Island on Tuesday, March 26 ahead of the performance of her dance, “The Way Forward.”
What it means to be an ancestor can depend on the culture and demographic in the U.S., according to the choreographer, educator and advocate for the arts. In Weanquoi’s words, the definition of an ancestor is someone who was part of a person’s bloodline or community who has passed on and is honored.
The lecture was called How to Be a Good Ancestor: Civically Sound and Rooted in Community. Within the talk, Weanquoi showed a clip from the choreography her dance company would be showcasing the next day. It showed the dancers speaking to their ancestors while performing.
The talk took place in the Higgins Welcome Center in the Hope Room and lasted for one hour and 16 minutes with every seat filled.
The first thing to becoming a good ancestor is to ask who the ancestors are, Weanquoi said. In her personal life, she had started writing down names of her ancestors and processing them, because she said that growing up as an African American, the connection to her bloodline was severed.
To find her ancestor’s names, she used ancestry.com. It was an opportunity to go and find the ancestors she didn’t have a lot of information about, Weanquoi said. She knew her grandparents, who were from North Carolina and South Carolina, but as she started to research more, she found other names, like Mildred and Marguerite.
“That took me on a journey of asking questions and trying to catalog for these characters in my story in order for me to understand who I am,” Weanquoi said.
The journey for finding her past came from the idea that ancestry shapes identity, Weanquoi said. For anyone who wants to take the same journey, they have to consider different ways on how to bring their ancestors’ stories forward.
In her spiritual practice, Weanquoi believes there are seven generations before the current one and seven generations after. The seven generations before lay the foundation and groundwork for stories. Then, it’s the current generations’ job to carry the stories forward for the next seven generations to come.
“When we’re talking about stories, what do they look like?” Weanquoi said. “How do we play a major role in that?”
When talking about being a good ancestor in reference to community, it means “I’m here because you’re here,” Weanquoi said. This goes back to the idea of storytelling.
“When we don’t share who we are and we don’t center ourselves in our stories, we often forget the humanity of other cultures,” Weanquoi said.
As artists, writers, painters, actors and dancers, it is current generations’ job to honor the stories of ancestors, Weanquoi said. For her, she makes sure that her stories are rooted in African American traditions and cultures. These stories connect to her, honor, uplift and humanize Black people’s culture.
When stories are told from person to person, they become connected, Weanquoi said. They open a perspective people didn’t understand before, and create a shared responsibility to each other.
“It also opens communities eyes to some similarities and differences everyone can talk about,” Weanquoi said.
Some ancestors don’t have the greatest stories as they can be unpleasant, Weanquoi said. If they are, descendants have to consider what parts are good, bad or indifferent, with authenticity, transparency and tough love. To be rooted in community and civically sound, people have to share stories, even difficult ones.
“As you’re sitting here thinking about your ancestors, the people who’ve come before you, your story and their story, I want to charge you with thinking about what they endured,” Weanquoi said. “Their history, their experiences during the time that they were alive.”
Generations must consider the experiences from ancestors’ stories that need to be left behind, Weanquoi said. In order to not repeat these events, knowledge must be carried forward to bring qualities that will allow the next generation to thrive and grow. It’s about being a spirit of discernment, according to Weanquoi.
“It’s when we get to stand in the space of the ancestor in the here and now when we start to step into what [an ancestor] will be in this moment,” Weanquoi said. “We carry their dreams, failures, successes and hopes.”
The performance at URI of “The Way Forward” can be found on the URI Center for the Humanities’ Youtube channel. Weanquoi can also be found on Instagram at @camilleweanquoi.