During the last week of January, art and policy engaged in a particularly salient dance in Denmark. Last week, the Danish Parliament passed a law allowing authorities to seize assets from refugees in an effort to curb rising pressures of migration. Three days later, Corpus, an experimental company within the Danish Royal Ballet, debuted a piece called Uropa, starring six asylum seekers in a deeply moving representation of their experiences. Named after a hybrid of the Danish word for instability (uro), and Europe, the multimedia work explores the diverse stories of the ballet's asylum seeking artists, who come from Syria, Pakistan, Eritrea, Myanmar, and Uganda, and their hopes for the future.

 

"I dream to have a life again, to experience my humanity," says

music professor Salam Susu. Susu left Homs, Syria last August and received news that she'd been granted asylum in Denmark during a dress rehearsal for Uropa. "It's incredible. I start to experience my skills in the real world among people who really start to know who I am. I'm, like, stepping on stairs to dream."