Asha danced and choreographed while pregnant. Scenes from her life were played out on stage in the autobiographical piece “Know Thyself”. Her dancers were hardworking Miami Dade students. They performed aspects of Asha’s story to her own live rapping that flowed seamlessly into Stephen Marley’s “Now I know”. Michelle Murray’s piece, “Unearthed”, featured Asha with a belly as heavy and round as the earth itself, dancing several solos. Her role emerged throughout rehearsals via the practice of Ancestral Dance Movement Memory. Asha came to embody a maternal figure, as she herself went through the gestation stage of motherhood.
She danced almost until the moment of the birth of her fourth child and third son, affectionately referred to with the moniker, “Earth”, by her students and mentor alike.
Labor lasted for over twenty-four hours, before Asha would finally deliver her son naturally into a water bath, thanks to her midwife, Sheila, and the members of her family who provided support and encouragement for as many hours as their eyes would stay open.
