immigration

Journey of a Refugee, Stanley Arts

by Laura Kressly

In the Stanley Arts bar, Kassi, Ali, and Daphne hype up the audience for the arrival of a group of refugees. They’ve organised a welcoming party but plans change when only one person, Zain, arrives. He’s initially unenthusiastic about being the centre of attention. With some coaxing after hiding the main performance space, he shares his journey from Sudan using puppetry, dance, and narration. The promenade family show is inclusively crafted with striking design, but doesn’t romanticise his journey or patronise family audiences.

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Feature | “This show is a process, rather than an outcome” Led by the Wind by Kiki Ye

by Luisa De la Concha Montes

Led by the Wind is a queer story that follows K (Kiki Ye), a young woman from Fuyang, China living in the United Kingdom. She has been convinced by her family back home to go on a blind date with Bryan (He Zhang), who, according to her family’s standards, is the perfect husband material. As their relationship progresses K starts zoning out, sinking deeper into beautiful dreamscapes with Windy (Vivi Wei), a mysterious woman that represents K’s deepest queer desires. In order to unveil the process of writing this piece, and to deconstruct the complexity of K’s character, I caught up with director Kiki Ye.

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OommoO, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

Lula Mebrahtu inhabits multiple worlds: the UK, Eritrea, the present and her ancestors’ past. To construct this show she draws on traditional dance, contemporary British club culture, and Afro-futurism to create a unique dramaturgy that seeks to capture the experience of living across multiple cultures.

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A Little Killing Hurts No One, Brighton Fringe

by Luisa De la Concha Montes

Mustafa Algiyadi’s stand-up comedy show is a breath of fresh air. He knows better than to try to convince his audience that the stereotypes they hold about Arabs are wrong. So instead, he does the unexpected, turning the show around, making his listeners the victims of his jokes.

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In the Sh*t, Brighton Fringe

by Luisa De la Concha Montes

This stand-up comedy double-act features Jamie Lerner and Mariah Girouard, two Americans living in Barcelona. The act starts with Mariah, who tells us about her disastrous dating experiences, her crack-ridden town in the US, and how cats and women have more in common that we may think. Her delivery is confident, balancing dark jokes with silly remarks in natural way.

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Five Years With the White Man, VAULT Festival

by Zahid Fayyaz

This a one-man show, with the aid of props and sound design, ostensibly tells the story of ABC Merriman-Labor, an African satirist who wrote a scathing story of a Black man living in London after coming from Sierra Leone. This particular production, however, jumps around in time to tell the story of the production of the play from the perspective of the actor as well, and how the play’s subject of ABC’s forbidden love for his friend John Roberts mirrors the actor’s own relationship with Alfred, the shows own writer.

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Dark Matter, VAULT Festival

by Laura Kressly

In the most supportive of circumstances, grief can feel insurmountable. It’s even harder for a young queer Londoner whose family is in Zimbabwe. How does Takura ensure her Mbuya is mourned properly and what is her relationship to her ancestors, anyway? In a space somewhere between clubbing, Co-star, quantum physics and ancient rituals, she improvises building a bridge to the ancestral plane. A vulnerable and exposing struggle with borders and contrasting cultural norms, this is a considered reflection on how we deal with a loved one’s death.

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Liv Ello: Swarm, VAULT Festival

by Diana Miranda

Laughter is an infiltration strategy, and Liv Ello surely knows it. Part heavy-handed satire, part side-splitting clown show, this is a highly confrontational solo piece. The show uses humour to break down barriers and get audiences to face difficult topics around migration, politics and compassion.

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