“Offerings to the island body and water memory”

“Offerings to the island body and water memory”

In this ritual-performance, Mauritian-Canadian poet and performer Kama La Mackerel (they/them) invokes water memories: this fluidity that lives in us, that is present around us, that transforms and reshapes itself but never disappears. Water, in all its forms, in all of its courses, in all of its bodies, carries history: ecological, geological, mineral, ancestral tellings.

Through ritual, performance, movement, multilingual poetry and voice, Kama La Mackerel opens up a space where their birth-island, Mauritius, is in conversation with Gaspésie territories, where the Indian Ocean flows into the Saint Lawrence. Through this offering, the artist invites us to rethink our relationship to spirituality, ecology, history and our own bodies.

*Undergraduate and graduate students are also invited to a closed session on Thursday, Apr 11, from 11:00 – 12:30p with Kama La Mackerel to discuss their poetry collection, Zom Fam, and converse about their practice as a poet, performer, translator, and curator. Lunch will be provided. Interested students should email Dr. Neelofer Qadir at n_qadir@uncg.edu to add their name to the participants list.