Neville Sigauke and I finally managed to have a live conversation! This episode is a catch up from our last interview in 2018. Neville is a Rapper and Artist who was born and raised in different parts of Zimbabwe and now lives in South Africa. Growing up in different...
#16: Anna-Liisa Donatella:
#16: Anna-Liisa-Donatella
Anna-Liisa Donatella has always been connected to arts: singing, making music, dancing. She’s practicing and teaching Yoga, and is involved in several pre-dominantely female empowerment projects.
She was into choirs from a very young age. At first, she was told she didn’t have much of a voice and was not allowed to join the local choir. But she didn’t allow that to crush her vocal confidence, so she kept auditioning and eventually got in to the Cathedral girls choir in Winchester. She has since joined and led many more choirs and got a Gospel Mentorship.
The school of knowmads has changed her life. It’s for “lost birds” and she lost her voice there. She started dancing and had the opportunity to dance in front of the whole school and there she started to reinvent herself. Her alter ego – the fairy – made her dance through an old trauma and it made her realize how healing dancing and art is. This is the film Anna-Liisa talks about in the Interview – created and performed by her. It’s a performance about a healing journey, a transformation of pain into power.
Still on her healing journey she went to Trinidad and Tobago with her Gospel mentor. All of sudden she found herself in the jungle as part of her mentor’s family with her mentor’s father slowly passing away. The atmosphere there allowed her to just sit there and sing along to the piano, no matter what would actually come out – whispers or silent songs.
Over time she found her voice appearing again and she now wants to help others who have experienced the same thing. When I asked her if she could share with us the music she sang in Trinidad, something magical happened. Anna-Liisa has since published her song not only for the podcast, but also shared it with the whole world, video and all. She also plans to do more music and two choir projects. I’ll share any news with you guys!
Her blog ‘How to be happy’ contains musings, stories, pastoral philosophy, resonant thoughts, diary writing (journal) recommendations and tools for your own process, ideas in collision with facts, pitches and gestures, loving words and non-sensical pieces that she have thought about and enjoyed. An assortment of sensations to try and answer this one question: “how to be happy, indeed.”
Other links:
Virtual choir by Eric Whitacre
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