(Vatican Radio) Two professional dancers put their Christian faith and talent together
to found a dance company, Without Words Movement, dedicated to the abolition of sex
trafficking worldwide. Only one year later, Mikaela Clark and Mackenzie Clevenger
Valley brought their choreography, A Broken Road, from Cleveland, Ohio, in the United
States, to the streets and stages of Bucharest, Romania, and Rome, Italy.
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Clark
and Valley organized flash mobs on busy streets and public squares, as well as performances
in subway stations and on stage. The response, they said, was very positive.
“Many women (who) are trafficked from Romania, from Eastern European countries,
end up in Western European countries. So, many of the women here in the streets in
Rome, for instance, are actually from Romania,” said Valley, explaining why these
two cities in particular.
“We created a piece about the broken road that these
women are unfortunately travelling,” she continued. “Often these women feel that the
only choice is death or that this road leads to death. But with our hope in Jesus,
we wanted to show freedom and perseverance and a hope for change and a hope for good.”
Clark
said they saw many “different faces of sex trafficking” during their two-week tour.
While dreams of a better life or romance may trick some women into being trafficked,
and social ills, such as poverty and lack of education, seem to perpetuate the problem,
Clark said the “common denominator… is that people need to be loved”.
“Ultimately,
there’s a need to be loved… this need to love and to be loved,” she said. “And the
only thing that we have found that can (meet this need) is Jesus Christ.”
The
two dancers shared how Without Words Movement began. “We actually had no intention
of starting a dance company,” Valley recalled. “(But) through prayer, we began to
feel God’s heart for the broken and lost, especially those affected by this issue.
And so it was really God challenging us to bring the kingdom of God through what we
do best, which is dance and choreography.”
Dance, said Clark, is an effective
way to raise awareness about this difficult issue because it “has a way of going past
the intellect and really connecting to the heart and the emotion of people”.
In
addition, Clark continued, “we would like to use our bodies as a redemptive and freeing
method for these women and men”, whose bodies “have been abused through these acts
of injustice”.
“We feel that as dancers we can use our bodies to speak for
those who have no voice.”