Grin, a visceral performance of sound, visuals and choreography which subverts hyper sexualised notions of African and Caribbean dance. Grin is a masquerade of dance sculptures where body and costume are accompanied by a pulsating sound score. Research into community-building, refusals, friendship, support and networks of care grounds the development of Grin, which both holds and is held by a cohort of friends, including but not restricted to artists and choreographers Mele Broomes, Divine Tasinda and Levent Nyembo. Grin’s significant focus on black love and other experiences of interiority feels essential in considering how we can build empathy and reconstitute networks of solidarity. Structured around generosity and care for audiences and corps, its score resists falling into the realm of a passive spectacle. Instead tensions related to ideas of generosity embedded within performance practices are questioned alongside moments of refusal from the corps. Conversations with Grin’s director and choreographer Mele Broomes are punctuated with expressions of hope - hope that the performance can expand collective dreaming, hope that the work can be generous and caring to both audience and artists and hope that the work can prompt a greater critique into solidarity and anti blackness. These hopes are manifested amply in our multiple experiences of Grin.

Words of Alberta Whittle