Manifested Destiny
Manifested Destiny, choreographed by Charly & Eriel Santagado, is mignolo dance’s first evening length work. The piece explores American culture through the lens of great American literature across recent history. From Walt Whitman to Claudia Rankine, from Langston Hughes to John Steinbeck to Amy Tan, Manifested Destiny calls upon the work of 13 American writers with a wide range of backgrounds and styles. Over the course of the evening, the perspectives of these authors are examined chronologically through precise, language-inspired choreography that highlights how they clash and coincide. The piece opens and closes with a movement translation of To Elsie, William Carlos Williams' harrowing poem about the plight of America.
The choreography, a collaboration between Charly & Eriel Santagado and the ensemble of dancers showcased the tremendous technique of everyone involved in the performance. Each dancer represented a different author whose words served as the blueprint for the piece’s movement vocabulary. As they effortlessly traversed both high and low levels with phrases that used every inch of the “stage,” it was clear that each movement was intentional from a roll in the spine to a small hand gesture to a mischievous smile.
I particularly enjoyed the way that the dancers stayed in character throughout the entirety of the performance, even during group work. The intersectional identities of the authors they represented played a fundamental role in how they presented themselves, and how they were received by the other cast members. I interpreted these meaningful interactions to be reflexive of the varied American experience; even when they were all sharing the same space, their experiences were not uniform and some dancers had more power and influence than others.
Pearl Street Parking Deck, Metuchen, NJ, 2020
