When I began imagining the video for Awakening Dance, I knew I had to return to my hometown — Cartagena de Indias. It is the place where I first understood what dance truly means. My culture, my ancestry, gave me that gift long before I ever called myself an artist.

I didn’t want choreography. I didn’t want perfection. I wanted something real — something that felt like earth, like memory, like roots, like the warmth of the people who shape us. I wanted to capture what connection looks like when it lives in the body: connection to ancestry, to loved ones, to spirit.

For me, Awakening Dance is about remembering that dance was never just performance. Our ancestors danced in ceremony, in ritual, in community. They danced to honor the divine. They danced before battle. They danced as a way of life, something woven into the rhythm of everyday existence.

It is still that way for me.

So I chose to include the women who have danced beside me through my life.

My Aunt Carmen who is 82 years old now and is an amazing dancer and who has been a mother to me, she carries a love that feels like home itself.
Maira, her lifelong friend, showed me that family is built through devotion and presence.
My cousin Nereida taught me resilience — how strength can be gentle and enduring.
And Nacira, my best friend since birth, my soul sister, my mirror — a bond that feels written long before we arrived here.

You will also see the Palenqueras — the iconic Afro-Colombian women of San Basilio de Palenque, the first free African town in the Americas. With their vibrant dresses and fruit-filled baskets, they carry generations of courage, dignity, and cultural survival. Their presence reminds us that history lives in color, in rhythm, and in the way we move.

As we danced, it stopped feeling like filming and started feeling like remembering — like we were part of something ancient and alive, a sacred chain of women bound by love and destiny.

That is the spirit of Awakening Dance.

The awakened woman who honors her history.
Who listens to her elders.
Who walks with Mother Earth.
Who moves with the wind, the drum, the flute, the gaita.

Because dancing is more than movement.
It is liberation.
It is remembrance.
It is awakening.

This video is our story — a prayer in motion and a celebration of the love that carries us forward.

Stay inspired.

Viviana