Tramway Performance Now Commission
ASHANTI HARRIS
(Scotland)
WALKING WITH THE ANCESTORS IN JOY AND HEALING
SAT 28 OCTOBER 2023
15:00 - 16:00 (60 mins)* This show is reserved for Black People & People of colour (BPOC) only
17:00 - 18:00 (60 mins)* This performance is open to all
£12 - £8 (Concessions)
Tramway (Directions)
What to Expect: Audiences are invited to participate in individual solo tasks and move in the space. This may feel like a guided workshop, audiences are invited to do as much or as little as they feel comfortable. At times audiences are invited to listen with their eyes closed. Contains salt, santo palo/ incense, haze.
You will be asked to remove your bags and coats as part of the experience. The Artist, Tramway and Take Me Somewhere are unable to take responsibility for the safety of your items but will provide a designated area to store them.
ACCESS: S / AD (Festival Access Page).
A visual description introduction to the space is available, please arrive 15 minutes prior to your performance to access this at the Tramway box office. Seats are available for those who need them and you will be invited to let us know any access requirements on booking.
Walking with the Ancestors is an interactive, reparative reading, guiding the audience on an imagined procession in joy and healing. Shifting between collaged narratives centred in Black histories, descriptions of real and imagined spaces, movement provocations and guided body awareness exercises, this performance ritual invites the audience to consider the many layers of narratives which intersect and overlap with their own experiences and to move with them, inviting joyful possibilities for collective healing.
*Note on POC Only Booking: The first performance (3-4pm) is for people who are Black and People of Colour (BPOC) only. This is to provide a safe space for BPOC to explore their ancestral heritage without the presence of the white gaze and its associations with white supremacy. The intention behind a closed performance is to ensure that the invited group feel comfortable and supported to attend. By booking this performance you are confirming that you have heritage within the Global Majority (who are from the Caribbean, African, South Asian, South East Asian, North Africa and Middle East, Latinx, First Nation and Indigenous people diasporas). If this does not apply to you you can book into the second performance (5-6pm) which is open to all.
Ashanti Harris is a multi-disciplinary artist and researcher. Working with dance, performance, facilitation, sound, installation and writing, Ashanti’s work disrupts historical narratives and reimagines them from a Caribbean diasporic perspective. Recent commissions and exhibitions include: Jerwood Staging Series 2022, Jerwood Arts, London (2022); Dancing a Peripheral Quadrille, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh (2022), An Exercise in Exorcism, GoMA, Glasgow (2021) Opening Night, Timehri Film Festival, Georgetown (2021), JUMBIES, Glasgow International, Glasgow (2021); This Woman’s Work, Third Horizon Film Festival, Miami (2021)
Show Credits:
Lead Artist and Performer: Ashanti Harris
Soundscape Composition: Andrei Van Wyk
Performers: Hamshya Rajkumar, KJ Clarke-Davis
Contributing Artist: Sabrina Henry
Creative Eye and Movement Direction: Mele Broomes
Lighting Design and Lighting Operator: Michaella Fee
Creative Producer: Rhea Lewis
Production Stage Manager and Fabrication Assistant: Zephyr Liddell
Development credits: A Tramway Performance Now Commission with support from Creative Scotland & The Work Room.
Photos: An Exercise in Exorcism, performed by Ashanti Harris, Jessica Paris & KJ Clarke Davis, 2021. Image by Gavin McCourt
