To move is to remember. Our history is held in our bodies, the pain, the grief, the joy, the journey. The Memorial Dance project has been brilliantly interpreted by Bristol based visual artist Bólárìnwá now visible across Bristol.
Billboards and street posters have gone up around Bristol marking Pan African Season which runs through BHM October until the end of Kwanzaa on January 1st.
The Decolonising Memory Project co led by Cleo Lake and Dr Jessica Moody began along with Kwesi Johnson, as a memorial dance and augmented reality APP but a more recent strand has involved a collaboration between dancers and musicians to create an original piece of accompanying music for the dance. Enlisting Bristol music veterans Clive Smith of AS IT IS TV, as well as Stephen ‘Blaggy’ Blagrove (musical director) and Richard Davis both original members of the African drumming and dance company Ekome, founded in Bristol in 1976.
The music has been mixed and produced by dancehall and bass music experimental artist Yuseemi and will hopefully be released later in the year to coincide with Kwanzaa.
However, having recently shot the music video, a decision to further expand the project to include a visual artist. As Cleo explains:
“The ambition of the project first and foremost was to create a memorial dance for Bristol and beyond that charted the African descent journey. Having learnt dances from places like Ghana and Togo that documented and archived the stories of their migration from Israel, Egypt, Mali and an eventual settle in Ghana etc, I often felt left out of the story given that the migration continued. In my family case the migration was to Jamaica and then I was born in Bristol UK.
So, the ambition was to create a dance that spoke to all of that and also served as a sort of a lament or tribute to our ancestors. At the same time it is also something that is open to everyone at all to learn and join in with. Afterall folk dances should evolve and talk about now as well as the past.”
Principal dancers Cleo Lake, Latisha Cesar and Penny-Marie collaborated with musicians to go through a process of making the music for the dance. Prior to that we had been using The Revolutionaries Kunte Kinte Dub, to perform the dance. However, once the music was made and a music video planned, it dawned on us that we might need a strong visual to further get the message across and attract even more interest. Around that time Cleo happened upon an exhibition by Bristol based artist Bólárìnwá at the then Artspace Lifespace run Vestibules. Impressed with that exhibition, we decided to commission Bola to create an original work which he has titled “A Pan African Descent Journey.”
Creative street advertising specialists BUILDHOLLYWOOD came alongside to collaborate on a street poster and billboard presence of Bola’s artwork which has been amazing. We are grateful for all of the efforts of our sponsors, funders, participants and contributing artists.
“The Pan African Descent Journey invites the public into a vibrant, living portrait of Africa seen through the eyes of its own people. For too long, our story has been framed by foreign gazes, but this work stands as a testament to the enduring spirit of the African renaissance. It is not a fleeting moment, but a continuous dawn—an ever-present, ever-flowing celebration of Africa’s greatness, unfolding in the now and reaching toward the future.
As an artist, seeing my work on a billboard not only amplifies my voice as an individual but, more importantly, reinforces my passion for using art as a medium to represent marginalised stories in society.” Bólárìnwá
We were very fortunate that both the Futures Festival and the Being Human Festival supported us to make the video, partly commission the artwork and stage an event on November 9th at Trinity.
Have you seen them? Please take a photo and tag us.
