If we can dance
50 minutes 2013
Munster Express Newspaper
Liam Murphy 27th January 2013
“…a powerful expression of the human and family spirit…”
If We Can Dance, a fine example of social ‘verite’ with a purpose to show life in a
‘no woman’s land’ between Serbia and Macedonia. A squalid collection of shanty squats, sticks and wooden posts, plastic sheeting, and decomposing carpet remnants, that was ‘refuge’ to 300,000 souls fleeing from ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the late nineties.
The film is stark in its representation of the way people caught up in the ethnic politics, are driven out of regions or killed for wanting to stay in their homes. This physical and spiritual dispossession was harrowing at times, although no actual violence was filmed. But there was that menace, and oppression where there were no phones, no emails, no passports. Milosevic and people like him took over the Government, and became judge, jury and executioner.
The film looked at the survivors from 14 villages near Prishtina, where life was almost primitive, with women getting up at four and five in the morning, to gather sticks to light fires and prepare whatever food was available. This way of life was re-enforced by mothers and grandmothers. Cleary filmed women activists trying to restore hope and dignity, singing of songs of homeland, and encouraging people to dance.
Central to this was Lana, an activist, artist and folksinger; Cuca, a medical student, and Igballe, a community activist who burned with a zeal for Kosovo and dance as a way of reigniting the human spirit. She got groups of mostly women and girls to sing, clap and dance, and bit by bit, the mood changed, and the small group became an open air concert for thousands who waved and sang and danced. As the camera panned from the makeshift stage out over a sea of heads, hands and faces, it reminded me of the surge of transformative dance in, Dancing at Lughnasa. If we can dance is documentary which is a powerful expression of the human and family spirit.