Gabri Christa, "ANOTHER BUILDING dancing: Making Quarantine and Savoneta"
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Quarantine

Situated on a hill overlooking the sea, the building in which Quarantine takes place originally housed (or quarantined) enslaved Africans who survived the trip from Africa but were too sick to continue on to other places. After their recovery, most traveled on to their final destination on one of the other islands—or to any part of the rest of the Americas.

At the start of the film, a young man visits the abandoned building, literally feeling the space by resting his head on the door. Through dance, he uses his body to possess the space, asking it to accept him. He communicates with the spirits of his ancestors in movement, wanting acceptance for his male/female dichotomy (he wears a skirt and dances). His dance combines white Western movements with contemporary black American (hip-hop) culture. During his dance, an elder observes the young man, who remains unaware of the onlooker's presence. Perhaps the elder is the father—or is he an older version of the young man dancing, looking back on his life and wishing he could/did dance that freely? The subtext here is the issue of what a macho Caribbean/African male can and cannot do—dancing in skirts does not make the cut. At the end, however, we become aware that the old man, like the younger one, actually longs to dance freely in a skirt. Just when he shows signs of disapproval (by throwing the younger man a pair of pants), we find him wearing a skirt, dancing happily and finally liberated.

This context—that a man might long to dance freely—is based entirely on the story of my father, who plays the old man in the film. My dad passed on to me his love of dance, and he is on many levels a sensitive and feminine man—yet also very heterosexual. He always wanted to be a dancer but never became one because of his upbringing and society.

Throughout the film, the abandoned building triggers and empowers the growth of the two men. The history the young man feels by touching and becoming one with the building, and by confronting and possessing the building with his dance, comes to life for him.

I, too, believe (and feel) that life still exists inside those buildings.

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