[Music] [Music] [Music] Washed away.

I feel lost at times.

I feel like I'm in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by water.

And I can't drink For so long.

My mother, my proud Mexican mother raised m But I have never known my father with skin like mine and hair like mine.

There's a side of me I don't know.

I don't know where I belong.

I have lived all my life listening to musical sounds, foreign to the rhythms, calling to my heart.

The sounds of the drum or calling.

How should I respond?

In a place where there's an empty sound?

Who should I listen to?

I have lost clarity.

In a place where there is no light.

My identity has been buried.

How can I ask myself, Can a flower grow in dead grass?

Can it bloom without water?

You see, you move differently when youre thirsty.

when if part of you is not being nurtured.

I'm not free because I'm not fully me.

[Music] I hear the sound of the drum in the distance, but when I try to move closer, it seems as though the sound grows weaker with every step for [Music] I feel like I'm in search for others who share my story, who also have a connection to that starting place.

I'm at constant battle with myself, knowing only part of my history and my place in this world.

You see, you don't move the same when a part of you feels confined restricted.

lost.

I live between two worlds, trying to understand how to embody both.

Who are the teachers to guide me To teach, who to trust and bring to life That spirit inside my very being Who will teach me to trust my voice?

The ancient rhythms I hear, the way my body beckons me to move and all the fragments of myself.

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Why do I play herana?

Makes me feel like the name , ”a merry sound ” and I always want to share her with the world.

And she spoke of nature and natures talking through her And she nourished my child through her sound.

And my herana is just an extension of my body.

I feel many souls, both ancestors and women and men who were doing this to music before I came to this world.

Body means life, knowledge, hope, faith and community.

West African dance has become a part of my self-expression, something that has been important to a people's culture.

It made me part of a larger group of people that were doing the same thing that I was doing where I could see myself in them.

When I dance, I feel good about myself.

I'm from Benin, West Africa, and from the Yoruba culture.

The way I like going to express your spirit, your culture is by dancing or singing, or playing music, dancing with me and my body is connecting to my ancestors.

When I dance, I celebrate my culture and my ancestors and I want to honor them.

The drum allows me to speak what's in my soul.

So the drum is an extension of my body.

In a sense, it's an extension of me.

Drumming is never done... Isolated.

It's done in community.

Drumming makes me feel connected.

Drumming gives me purpose.

You don't move the same thirsty.

I live between two worlds, trying to understand how to embody both and trying to be free of the burden of being one thing or another.

[Music] [Music] I see through the music my invisible self freedom.

I hear this stories and weave them together through my voice and my body.

I begin to see myself again.

Maybe there's a way to fill a cultural enlightenment to feel alive in this body through the music and dance in this complicated history, to feel awake.

You can't suffocate a sound that's meant to be heard.

As I reached for the heights of my sexuality, my spirit, my mind, my soul, I can't help but feel more and more visible to myself, visible to my family visable to my ancestors.

my spiritual self and body has been understanding my physical in nature.

My relationship to the wind, to the grass, to the energy.

I am still in process of rediscovering the woman within my body, the power in my hair texture and the shade of my skin, the curve in my body and the flow in my limbs.

I am in the process of allowing my multiple selves to find full expression through dance and laughter, through tears and sweat.

I define myself because I can hear the sound of my Afro Mexican people.

A language once foreign to my heart is becoming more present.

I can feel the rhythm.

I can hear its song.

I might not have known my father.

I might struggle to understand his absence, but I can always find myself over again in my community, in storytelling and in dance.

I know my mother's rich cultural heritage where I can embrace both stories slowly becoming one.

When the drum calls an expression awaits.

What response will the drama unfold in your presence?

So home here at Balboa Park and.

I just took a West African dance class with Amanesia, and I had an incredible time.

The whole time I just felt so unapologetic the way that I was moving my arms, throwing my hands back and everything.

It really was an incredible experience.