In Let’s Dance in the City – London, choreographer, performer and curator Jade Hackett explores her personal definition of home in a new film created in collaboration with Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.
Gazing out of the window onto the grey concrete jungle of her dwelling in the capital, Jade begins to long for her mother’s back garden. An oasis of calm where family BBQs fill the air with the smell of jerk, neighbours pass Jamaican breadfruit over the garden fence and 80s vinyl records pulse with the vibrations of the African diaspora. This is the first place that Jade and her friends began to create dance and movement together, a safe space in which they could truly express themselves.
“As London’s high rises are continuously growing higher and higher, this little patch of land, tucked away in England’s capital will always be, home.”
Dance-maker Jade was the associate choreographer on Get Up Stand Up: The Bob Marley Musical, Sylvia at the Old Vic and Black Boys at the Apollo Theatre. No stranger to being on screen, she also appeared in StreetDance 3D: The Movie and in advertising campaigns for ASOS and Adidas.
About Let's Dance in the City
Let’s Dance in the City is an initiative that encourages artists to take ownership of public spaces, whether they are structures of power, places to gather or historic landmarks to create a series of innovative dance films. The initiative forms part of the Black Dance Digital Revolution, led by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage in collaboration with regional partners Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Dance City and Dance Umbrella. The project seeks to push the boundaries of how dance is created, documented and shared. The project will culminate in Digital BlackCentric Week, 6-12 November 2023, an online sharing of cutting-edge development, conversation and new work that utilises technology as a creative tool.
For Let’s Dance in the City 2023, Dancers respond to the energy of Leeds, Leicester, Newcastle and London. Working alongside filmmaker Cayla Mae Simpson, who has collaborated closely with each artist, to creatively help draw out the dance heritage of each place.
About the artist +
Credit Camilla Greenwood
Jade Hackett is an experienced choreographer, dancer and actor whose dance theatre productions have included: The Pied Piper, Boy Blue Entertainment, Theatre Royal Stratford East 2006 (playing Da Brat); Blaze, the international tour, Berlin and Dubai tour; Into the Hoodz, ZooNation Dance Company, London and UK tour in 2016 (playing Zapunzel); The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, ZooNation Dance Company, Roundhouse 2016-2017 (playing Queen of Hearts and Cheshire Cat); Some Like it Hip Hop, ZooNation Dance Company, The Peacock Theatre 2019 (playing Kerry).
Her theatre work has included: Hex, National Theatre; associate choreographer for Get Up Stand Up: The Bob Marley West End Musical; Sylvia: The Old Vic; Nine Night, written by Natasha Gordon, Trafalgar Studios, 2019 (playing Aunty Maggie and Lorraine); Black Boys at Apollo Theatre.
Black Digital Dance Revolution +
Digital BlackCentric week is part of the Black Digital Dance Revolution. Black Dance Digital Revolution is a nationally significant project working with regional partners; Serendipity (Leicester), Northern School of Contemporary Dance (Leeds), Dance City (Newcastle), Dance Umbrella (London) and beyond. It draws on the dance heritage of these four cities to develop a programme of digital and physical work including dance films, workshops and artist led residencies. Black Digital Dance Revolution explores how digital technologies can be integrated to push the boundaries of how artistic work is created, documented and shared, building stronger relationships and networks across organisations in the UK dance sector and establishing a living legacy for Black dance.
Credits +
- Pawlet Brookes
Creative Producer - Jade Hackett, Jennifer Grey
Dancers and Choreographers - Cayla Mae Simpson
Filmmaker - David Ashani Bennie
Drone Cinematography - Georgina Payne
Digital Innovation Project Manager - Amy Grain, Ashly Stanly, Heather Saunders, Lauren Eaton, Benoy Mathews
Researchers - For the Love of You (Pt. 1 & 2) by The Isley Brothers
Music
Commissioned by
Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage as part of the Black Digital Dance Revolution
Black Digital Dance Revolution Partners
Dance City
Dance Umbrella
Northern School of Contemporary Dance
Funders
Arts Council England
National Lottery Heritage Fund
Leicester City Council
Freelands Foundation
Access +
Captioned
No audio description available.
Language: English
A film with spoken narration at the beginning. The rest of the action is set to the song For the Love of You (Pt. 1 & 2) by The Isley Brothers.
The film begins with the camera slowly moving down the road of a London residential street with terraced houses. Jade Hackett emerges from one of the cars, dressed in a blue dress and head wrap. The camera follows her into her mother’s back garden. Her mother is tending to the garden, wearing a patterned multi-coloured dress with a tiger print head scarf and glasses on her face. Whilst her mother tends to the garden, Jade dances around it. Jade and her mother then come together to dance before eating slices of cantaloupe melon and holding bunches of lavender. The film ends with a drone shot of them sitting on a picnic blanket talking to one another.
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