SONYA LINDFORS & WORKING GROUP (Finland/Cameroon)
ONE DROP
SAT 28 OCTOBER 2023 - 19:00 - 21:00
£15 - £10 (Concessions)
Tramway (Directions)
Content note: Fake blood and references to racism including institutional racism. Haze, flashing lights, loud music.
ONE DROP, a new performance by Sonya Lindfors & working group, is a speculative summoning, a decolonial dream, an autopsy of the Western stage and an operetta. Defying definition and belonging to multiple categories, the work dives into the poetics and politics of relations, creating a performance that reignites connections lost or forgotten. The title of the work refers to two separate concepts, the one drop rhythm which is a reggae style drum beat as well as to the one drop rule of the Race Separation Act, created in the United States in the early 1900s, according to which a single drop of ‘Black blood’ made a person ‘Black’ despite their appearance. Through its multiple starting points, the work interrogates the ghosts of the Western stage and its entanglements and relationships to capitalism, coloniality and modernity.
Award winning Cameroonian-Finnish choreographer and artistic director Sonya Lindfors creates important work exploring power, representation and Black body politics. She is the Artistic Director and founding member of UrbanApa, an interdisciplinary and counter hegemonic arts community that offers a platform for new ideas and feminist art practices.
Directing, choreography and concept Sonya Lindfors
Working group Antonia Atarah, Hamis Ahmed, Geoffrey Erista, Nori Kin, Isabella Shaw, Mariama Slåttøy, Alma Bø Gettachew, Erno Aaltonen, Jussi Matikainen, Sanna Levo, Angel Emmanuel, Aino Koski, Janina Salmela, Divine Tasinda and Sonya Lindfors.
Contributors to the process Ornilia Ubisse, Judith Arupa, Alen Nsambu, Johanna Karlberg, Jaakko Pallasvuo
Production UTT ry and Sonya Lindfors
Co-production Zodiak - center for new dance, Goethe-Institut (International Coproduction Fund), Big Pulse Dance Alliance (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), Dance Umbrella, Julidans, Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Apap - FEMINIST FUTURES (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union)
Residencies Tanzfabrik berlin, KWP Kunstenwerkplaats, Buda Kortrijk, Beursschouwburg
Supported by Koneen Säätiö, Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Alfred Kordelinin säätiö, Nordic Culture Point
Photos: Tuukka Ervasti