Alexandrina Hemsley and Jamila Johnson-Small Present Project O

An explosive choreographic exploration of sexuality and race at Brighton’s The Nightingale Theatre

O is a 50-minute romp through the politics of identity driven by basslines, paper signs and deftly thrown shapes. In the words of the artists: “Imagine Angela Carter sitting down to tea with Yellowman in the jungle”.

Well, having watched some brief footage online I could immediately see where they were coming from Billed as a show born from the humour and the horror of assumptions placed on bodies reduced to singular identities such as ‘black’, ‘mixed’ or ‘female’, O negotiates the inescapable sexualisation of the body, through multiple positions and numerous wigs.

Project O is a collaboration between Alexandrina Hemsley and Jamila Johnson-Small that aims to comment on the general fallout from being black, mixed and female and making visible positions of otherness, so that they will eventually no longer seem ‘other’. It is a project that tries to talk about, and make visible, the awkward stuff of everyday oppression and to move on from the shame of this by engaging with the audience, or poaching audiences, in various ways.

The dance show O was the beginning, then the publication, A Contemporary Struggle, designed and edited by the duo and co-published by Live Art Development Agency followed by performance research project from in-between spaces BYBG (Be Your Black Girlfriend).

“It was angry, and aggressive, but in this really kinda calm way that made you think they might just snap any minute and smash the place up. Powerful, fit, gorgeous, strong, angry naked women. F****** badass. The treatment of the female body, the treatment of the black female body, the sexual objectification of women. O pulls at those threads until we feel, collectively, a bit dirty.” – Meghan Vaughn

UK-based dance activists Alexandrina Hemsley and Jamila Johnson-Small unite for Project O. Both work in a diverse number of contemporary dance projects and s choreographers, they are determined to explore and present subjectivity in performance and to find varying ways to assert a strong position as women.

Their choreographic concerns are not only about craftsmanship and technical composition but engaging with and questioning the aesthetic and socio-economic environment they are placed in. They see themselves as dance makers and activists – defining ‘activist’ as the continual attempting to activate and proliferate the knowledge and/or questions their training in dance has encouraged. They are not urban, they do not do hip-hop and their potential African heritage is no business of yours.

O, Wednesday 29 January 2014, 8pm, The Nightingale Theatre, 29-30 Surrey Street, Brighton, BN1 3PA Above the Grand Central bar, opposite Brighton Station, 01273 702 563