Quilan "Cue" Arnold/ onCUE Chronicles

I dance to deepen my relationship to spirituality, corporeality, and humanity; responding to the
inquiry, ‘How do I become a better human through this rigorous and rewarding dialogue with
my body?’ I choose to specifically study Street/Club Dance (SCD) forms to appreciate and
adopt how Afro-Usonians (U.S. Citizens derived from enslaved Africans) have held on to joy
and creativity in the midst of oppressive trauma. My teachers have entrusted me with an
opportunity to channel our communal spirit towards positively impacting our society’s current
issues. I honor this gift by developing a choreographic storytelling entity that deepens my
relationship to self, my ethnic kin, our culture, and humanity at large. This choreographic
storytelling entity is called onCUE Chronicles (oCC).

The oCC system is one that focuses on performers, process, and product in three specific
ways. Firstly, performers are students of, and collaborators on, a dynamic approach to improve
our vulnerability in choreographic expression. This approach, called Searching for a True Move
(SFTAM), is created from the belief that improving vulnerability within performers leads to more
heart-shifting storytelling. Performers’ co-creation of this approach develops unity amongst
collaborators; which is the second aspect of the oCC system. Lastly, the performers combine
the SFATM approach with their community to create stories that centralize marginalized
demographics. These stories serve to empower audiences towards living lives that elevate
oppressed beings within our society.

“We’re grappling with a problem that constantly emerges in history. You have a few people who
are crusaders in the right direction (and) a few people who are crusaders in the wrong direction.
The vast majority are out there in the middle somewhere… (being) passive adherence to the
status quo. I think the job for the creative minority is to work on this large group towards the
legitimate and just demands of the (oppressed)” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
As a creative minority committed to Dr. King’s call, I must use my dance practice to work on
the apathy that lives within myself. SFATM is the process of doing this work in community;
serving as a foundation for heart-shifting kinesthetic storytelling that may inspire others to
follow Dr. King’s call as well.