TOUR READY SHOWS

The Accused

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An exiled African sto­ry­teller loses his mem­ory; he has no name, no past. Sto­ries flow by at seem­ingly dis­con­nected tan­gents. Still he can­not find him­self, but accu­sa­tions bring unex­pected truths.

The Accused is a mul­ti­me­dia dance per­for­mance that explores what the con­di­tions of exile and deten­tion might mean for migrants as well as host cit­i­zens. What do host cit­i­zens have in com­mon with ‘out­siders’? How do we arrive at belong­ing? The piece is inspired by a true account of stow­aways being thrown over­board; it presents a story about dreams of a life left behind and a life longed for. Prior to the per­for­mance, the audi­ence is invited to inter­act with var­i­ous front of house instal­la­tions. In this set­ting they have a chance to tell their own sto­ries, which are later fed into the live performance.

The Accused was devel­oped with sup­port from Birm­ing­ham Rep The­atre. Our chal­lenge was to unearth an inno­v­a­tive dias­poric form, anchored in clas­si­cal African per­for­mance. We are pleased to have worked on the devel­op­men­tal process with Gail Par­nel, Artis­tic Direc­tor of African Cul­tural Exchange, and Lola Adodo, Artis­tic Direc­tor of NewS­copes Dance The­atre. The show has been invited to the Inau­gural Scat­tered Seeds Fes­ti­val and to South Africa by Aubery Sekhabi, Artis­tic Direc­tor of The State The­atre in Pretoria.

“As the piece drew to a close you felt, even with it’s rough edges, that you had been part of a pow­er­ful and intel­li­gent the­atri­cal expe­ri­ence which had pro­vided an insight into lives usu­ally made invis­i­ble by craven polit­i­cal sound bites and heart­less tabloid head­lines.”
Per­vaiz Khan, Insti­tute for Race Relations

DURATION: 1 hour 30 min­utes –
2 hours, includ­ing front of
house inter­ac­tions
STYLE: Con­tem­po­rary dance,
the­atre
SCALE: Small to middle

Con­cept and writ­ing:
Patrice Naiambana
Chore­og­ra­phy: Harold George
Per­formed by: Patrice Naiambana, Harold George, Leonora Sta­ple­ton, Gaël Rave­dovitz
Visu­als: Derek Nis­bet (Talk­ing Birds), Anwa Essien, Matthew Kris­hanu
Sound: Juwon Ogungbe