Migration Matters Festival Closing

Event Venue

Time 17:30 Tickets £5/£3/Free

SHU Performance Lab

Opening with a voice note of the artist’s mother reflecting on overwork, xenophobia & cultural invisibility through the semiotics of the snake and ingrained tendency of Hek Fu 吃苦 (transl.: eating bitterness)… the song of the declining dialect of Toisanese forms the background to which the duo onstage perform a repetitious choreography suspended between work and ritual.

Movement eventually departs into sensuous animalism, exploring what liberatory potential is there when we learn from & embody more than being human. Wearing sculptural costuming illuminated by light, and shifting form with the dancer’s movements, the performance projects transformational imaginings of cultural & futuristic hybridity.

Content Warning: this work contains flashing lights, smoke & some swearing)

Dance 12+

From the Daughter of a Dictator

Yasmeen Audisho Ghrawi

Time 19:00

Event Venue Makerspace at Portland Works

/‘jes.mɪən/ /’aʊdiʃəʊ/ /’ʁrɑː.wiː/ lived and cautiously thrived in a dictatorship for almost two decades.

‘From The Daughter Of A Dictator’ is a one-person show exploring the personal journey of migration from Baghdad to Beirut to Berlin to Britain.

There still lives the belief, a false one perhaps, that the UK, Europe, “the West” are the final bastions of human rights. But what if these illusory safe shores of democracy are in danger of disappearing. What if living in a democracy is becoming no different than living in a dictatorship. Where do we go then?

Content Warnings: Mention of Violence, war, trauma.

12+ Theatre

4Samba

4Samba brings all the fun and authenticity of Brazil’s musical legacy to the Migration Matters festival. With powerful and versatile percussion, we make people of all ages dance to the warm rhythm of the tropics.

Ando Glaso Collective

Bringing together some of the best musicians from Scotland’s Romanian, Polish, Slovak, Czech and Hungarian Roma communities, they truly represent the vibrant and often invisible cultural heritage of Scotland’s Roma people.

TootArd

Providing the inspiration for ‘Migrant Birds’, the recent album from TootArd, the band’s new sound is a captivating and nostalgiainspired homage to the era of synthedout Arabic disco pop. While inspired by the pioneering musicians that electrified contemporary Arabic music with synthesiszers and electric guitars, the 80s, with glittering, carefree vibe may be the catalyst, but the real roots of the music run deeper.