Black Holes – Seke Chimutengwende & Alexandrina Hemsley |

Next Stages Bursary Artists: Seke Chimutengwende & Alexandrina Hemsley

Between 2017 and 2018 Chisenhale Dance Space, Cambridge Junction and The Place are supporting the development of a new work by CDS Artist Member Alexandrina Hemsley and Seke Chimutengwende as part of CDS’ Next Stages project.

About the work in development:

Black Holes A short afrofuturist history of the universe. Join us as we retell the history of the universe; from the big bang through to the universe’s death. Orbiting this initial site of birth/ destruction and framing history as one long disaster movie, we’ll race our way through everything that has every happened. Black Holes funks up alternatives, asking the big questions on a small/ short scale: How did it all start? Where did it all go wrong? How will it all end? Could we save the universe from eating itself alive?

The work was kindly supported by Camden People’s Theatre‘s seed commissions for artists from a BAME background and Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts in 2016. Additional support from The Yard Theatre.

About the artists:

Seke Chimutengwende works in dance as a performer, choreographer and teacher. He has performed for companies such as DV8 Physical Theatre and Lost Dog and has performed his own solo improvisation work internationally since 2006. He performs ensemble improvisation with Neat Timothy and teaches improvisation internationally. For his company Seke Chimutengwende & Friends he has choreographed four works: Mr Lawrence, The Time Travel Piece (for The Place Prize), 45 Dances for The People of Ham and King Arthur which premiered at The Yard Theatre in June 2015.

Alexandrina Hemsley’s practice is collaborative and frequently interdisciplinary which she sees as a way of keeping knowing active and open. The work she make aims to reclaim and celebrate her identities as a mixed-race woman & tries to engage with the various cultural frameworks that mark her body on her own terms. Alexandrina is one part of duo Project O with Jamila Johnson-Small who have presented work at South Bank Centre, Somerset House, British Dance Edition, British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015, Sadler’s Wells WildCard amongst others. Her most recent works – Bounty Bars and Oreo Cookies and Project O’s Voodoo have explored her experiences as a mixed race woman within a sense of non-linear time. In doing so, she has found a sense of freedom from the burden of assumptions placed on her body – Black Holes continues this investigation.