Radical Visions – Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Leeds

Curator: Akeim Toussaint Buck

Radical Visions is born out of Akeim Toussaint Buck’s wild card programme at Sadlers Wells in January 2022. It gathers people together to experience live and contemporary work exploring race, ancestry and power, and showcases work from artists from global majority backgrounds.

The evening opens with live music from the “in-house band” and food provided by Walla Dolla. The plant based Caribbean food is delicious and highly recommended.

Journey to Love by Gerrard Martin Dance is then presented in the theatre space. This duet performed by Alecsander Nilsson and Gerrard Martin himself is a self-reflective journey through the trials of finding self-love. It is performed to a soundtrack provided live by Mike Scott-Harding.

The two dancers, at times, are dancing as one with flowing easy movements, and in the next moment they are involved in a violent tussle, gyrating, and grunting, pushing, pulling, and beating each other with the sheer energy of self-shaming. The story of the journey with oneself is told clearly and challenges the audience to look inside themselves and acknowledge their own journey.

Martin uses the space as a canvas, ably making the stage feel vast and yet intimate in the same moments. The simplistic lighting, however, did nothing for the piece and could have been used far more effectively to highlight the tone and movement of the dancers’ bodies.

In the break, the audience is treated to more food from Walla Dalla and a spoken word performance from some local artists accompanied by movement from Toussaint Buck himself, which culminated in a joyous dance party celebrating the Chapel Town community in all its vibrancy and diversity. The evening then moved on to a performance of Saturn Returns, written and directed by Sonny Nwachukwu and again dealing with themes of psychology, this time self-destruction and redemption.

All together the curated evening is roller-coaster. The highs are very high, filled with joy and dancing. The challenges that the performances left the audience with, the call to reflect on oneself are perhaps laid on a little too thickly, but the welcome breaks give time to take a breath between the tense atmosphere of the theatre performances. Feeling like a dance hall, community gathering filled with familiarity and love.

Reviewed on 8th October 2022.