Yinka Esi Graves undertook a residency at Dance4’s iC4C as part of Horizon – Performance Created in England, and invited a live audience in the studio to witness her sharing that was streamed to an international delegation of industry professionals.

If you’re interested in experimental Flamenco, live music, navigating invisibility of women of African descent and being close to the early workings of creation by participating through witnessing the development of a new work, then Yinka and collaborators would love for you to join us for this special opportunity.

The Disappearing Act was a work in progress, and Yinka Esi Graves will be sharing the results of this initial week-long residency in three parts. The second part being the focus of this residency, where the dancer, [inspired by the famous black 19th Century trapeze artist Miss La La (depicted by Edgar Degas)] proposes an experiment through which to explore the ways in which women of African descent today navigate hypervisibility and invisibility.

Celebrating our use of shapeshifting and camouflage tactics as ways of survival in hostile environments, and questioning how insidious these can become when we learn to see ourselves through these detached optics.

Credits

Concept, Choreography and Dance: Yinka Esi Graves
Guitarist and Music: Raúl Cantizano
Drummer and poet: Remi Graves
Singer: Rosario Heredia
Filming: Miguel Angel Rosales

About Horizon

Horizon – Performance Created in England programme, is a vibrant new showcase connected to this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe taking place from 16 August with a public programme from the week of 23 August across locations in England and virtually. Commissioned by Arts Council England, the Horizon showcase is being delivered by a consortium made up of Battersea Arts Centre, Dance4, Fierce, GIFT, MAYK and Transform.

Nine new, tour-ready, performance works are to be presented in a range of digital settings, alongside seven new projects, supported as part of a ‘residency’ programme, which enables artists to play with new performance ideas across a range of formats and genres. The works across both the residencies and live performance strands celebrate artists who are working across performance disciplines and currently based in England – all born out of a new approach to build deep and sustainable collaborations internationally.