I joined the Merchant City Festival team this year as part of a Glasgow Life development programme for up-and-coming producers. We’ve been developing a community engagement programme, reaching out to various community centres around Glasgow, since April.
The idea was to work with participants preparing a performance for this year’s Merchant City Festival, using street arts as a medium, incorporating street dance and graffiti. It has been an interesting journey to see how presenting a new art form has engaged participants in different ways.
I’ve been involved in the dance community in Glasgow for years and have seen how much dance can help to transform people's lives. To come in as a new producer for the Merchant City Festival and develop a programme based on dance has reinforced my belief that moving and connecting to our bodies is really important. Most of the time, we are stuck in our heads, and we forget the body has its own rhythm and language and can even help channel and release emotions if we take the time to let this happen. But more importantly, this year's programme has reminded me that dance is a powerful social tool; it gets people to meet, move, have fun, and share quality moments together.
A few years ago, I joined the AKO Dance Company who specialised in dancehall and Afro styles and started training under director Divine Tasinda. In 2020, I started working as company manager for the street dance collective Three60, and since then I have managed various projects and performances across Scotland. This year, I’ve taken on more producing roles and have worked alongside Claricia Parinussa and Zoe Charlery (ID.Y) to produce the Three60 World's Evolution show in Tramway as part of the DIG22 Festival. I also recently started working as a workshop coordinator for Mele Broome’s program Body Remedy.
This year, I’m so excited for the community programme participants. I’m delighted that we were able to engage people in our dance workshops and have them try some dance styles and activities that were new. The goal was always to have people feel like they were part of the festival, not just an audience. I’m also excited that through the performances, we have represented something different, telling our stories as well as the story of the Merchant City neighbourhood and what it was built on.
My goal was to provide a platform where people can meet and express themselves, tell their stories, celebrate their uniqueness, and feel like they are being seen and heard. I would like people to have looked at these performances and see something they haven't seen before.
As people walked and danced through the streets of Merchant City, I also hope they remembered the story of this neighbourhood and were able to reclaim the freedom that was once taken away from them. Ultimately, I just wish we can all learn to connect with ourselves and with one another and understand that we are all the same!
The iconic Merchant City Festival welcomed over 75,000 attendees to the city centre for a weekend of music, art and culinary delights between 28th July until Sunday 31st July. For more information on future events, visit: https://www.merchantcityfestival.com
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