Within Us is a piece about relationships choreographed and danced by Ssenyonga Oscar. It’s a piece that brings out a more tender side of the dancer, while maintaining the standard of performance art beyond pure dance. It begins with the dancer laying on the floor with a female mannequin and its various parts upstage. The first movements are clearly the dancer remembering the touch of that woman, who is now just a shadow, during happier times. The track playing is an acoustic love song. The pieces of the mannequin laying on the floor project the pieces of the past as the dancer reminisces.

As the dancer moves to an upright position, we are shifted from remembering to an attempted reconstructing of the love they once shared, as the dancer attempts to assemble the deconstructed mannequin. The soundtrack switches to live spoken word, which hits home the point as it paints an audio picture of the situation.
The next segment shows us the response of the woman. The soundtrack changes to a haunting female spoken work, effectively shifting the mood and painting a picture of the two sides that there are to every story. The struggle of two trying to become one is reflected in the variety of movement—from stagnation to fighting, static to vibrant, as we journey with them. The true intertwining of sound and movement, as well as the fusion of different styles, brings out the kaleidoscope of emotions in any relationship.


The music and words then cut out completely, leaving the audience with only a soundtrack of vigorous breathing, though the movements would appear to be anything but a struggle, rather a natural outpouring of the dancer’s heart.
Suddenly and effortlessly, as rope is whipped out of seemingly nowhere, as the soundtrack changes to an a acapella hymn for a stark contrast with the morbid symbol of the rope. The rope takes on a life of its own as it moves from punishing the dancer to punishing the female, until the female spoken word returns in objection. Finally, the two—dancer and mannequin—end together on the floor, expressing the sentiment that no one escapes a failed relationship unscathed.