One Drop, a new performance by Sonya Lindfors & working group, is a speculative summoning, a decolonial dream, an autopsy of the Western stage and an operetta.
Defying definition and belonging to multiple categories, the work dives into the poetics and politics of relations, creating a performance that reignites connections lost or forgotten.
The title of the work refers to two separate concepts – the one drop rhythm which is a reggae style drum beat as well as to the one drop rule of the Race Separation Act, created in the United States in the early 1900s, according to which a single drop of “Black blood” made a person “Black” despite their appearance. Through its multiple starting points, the work interrogates the ghosts of the Western stage and its entanglements and relationships to capitalism, coloniality and modernity.
Award winning Cameroonian-Finnish choreographer and artistic director, Sonya Lindfors creates important work exploring power, representation and Black body politics. She is the Artistic Director and founding member of UrbanApa, an interdisciplinary and counter hegemonic arts community that offers a platform for new ideas and feminist art practices.
Watch post-show talk
Sonya Lindfors in conversation with Freddie Opoku-Addaie, recorded live at Battersea Arts Centre as part of Dance Umbrella Festival 2023
Gallery
Credit Tuukka Ervasti
About the artist +
Sonya Lindfors
Sonya Lindfors is a Cameroonian-Finnish choreographer, artistic director, facilitator and educator who graduated with an MA in choreography from the University of Arts Helsinki in 2013.
She is the Artistic Director and founding member of UrbanApa, an interdisciplinary and counter hegemonic arts community that offers a platform for new ideas and feminist art practices. UrbanApa hosts workshops, festivals, labs, mentoring and publications among other things.
Lindfors makes her own and collaborative productions, curated programmes and performative actions. Her performance works have been shown and supported by Beursschouwburg, Kampnagel, Spring Utrecht, CODA – festival, Black Box Theater Oslo, Zodiak – Centre for New Dance among others. She is a member of Miracle Workers Collective which represented Finland at the 58th Venice Biennale.
Lindfors’ recent works We Should All Be Dreaming, Soft Variations Online and camouflage centre around questions of Blackness and Black body politics, representation and power structures. In all her positions she pursues creating and facilitating anti-racist and feminist platforms, using festivals, performances, publications or workshops to operate as the site of empowerment and radical collective dreaming.
Lindfors has been awarded several prizes, including the international Live Art Anti Prize 2018 and the State Prize for Public Information in 2022.
Cast & Creative +
- Sonya Lindfors
Direction, Choreography & Concept - Divine Tasinda, Isabella Shaw, Marlon Moilanen, Leo Ikhilor, Miranda Chambers, Selina Jones, Sonya Lindfors
Performers - Antonia Atarah, Hamis Ahmed, Geoffrey Erista, Nori Kin, Isabella Shaw, Mariama Slåttøy, Alma Bø Gettachew, Erno Aaltonen, Jussi Matikainen, Sanna Levo, Angel Emmanuel, Aino Koski, Janina Salmela, Sonya Lindfors
Working Group - Aino Koski
Set Design - Jussi Matikainen
Sound Design - Erno Aaltonen
Light Design - Sanna Levo
Costume Design - Janina Salmela
Choreographer’s Assistant - Angel Emmanuel
Costume Assistant - Timo Tikka
Sound Design Assistant - Elina Tuomisto
Seamstress - Alen Nsambu, Ornilia Ubisse, Judith Arupa, Johanna Karlberg, Jaakko Pallasvuo
Contributors to process - Sonya Lindfors
Libretto - Sonya Lindfors & working group
Other texts - Tuukka Ervasti
Photography
Credits +
Residencies
Tanzfabrik berlin, KWP Kunstenwerkplaats, Buda Kortrijk, Beursschouwburg
Supported by
Koneen Säätiö, Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Alfred Kordelinin säätiö, Nordic Culture Point
Production
UTT ry and Sonya Lindfors
Co-production
Zodiak – center for new dance, Goethe-Institut (International Co-production Fund), Big Pulse Dance Alliance (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), Dance Umbrella, Julidans, Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Apap – FEMINIST FUTURES (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European
Union)
Presented in partnership with Battersea Arts Centre. Supported by the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland.
Venue & Access +
Post-show talk on 19 Oct for Black and Global Majority Audiences +
Date: Thursday 19 October
Time: 21:00-21:45 (+ 15 minutes open space)
Location: Members Bar at Battersea Arts Centre
What is the event?
The post-show conversation is for Black and Global Majority audience members who attend the show on Thursday 19th. It is a space for dialogue and to discuss the themes of the piece with choreographer Sonya Lindfors, and will be facilitated by Dawn Estefan.
The objective of this discussion is:
• to create connections between local Black and Global Majority audience members
• to have the possibility to discuss the themes of the show in relation to lived experience, in safe, facilitated environment
Who can attend?
This post-show conversation has been created to make space specifically for Black and Global Majority* identifying audience members, although no one will be turned away. We will be led by each audience member to self-identify but we do ask our non-Black or Global Majority audience to consider attending the post-show discussion on Friday 20 October, which will be open to all audience members, so that we can create a space which is supportive to the objective of the event.
*We define Global Majority as a collective term that first and foremost speaks to and encourages those so-called to think of themselves as belonging to the global majority. It refers to people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’. Since Black, indigenous, and people of colour represent over 80% of the world’s population, this wording points out the demographic inaccuracy of the euphemism “minority”.
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