As you may remember we announced back in Oct 16 that Yorkshire Dance supported Akeim Toussaint Buck in achieving his first successful Grants for the Arts application for Windows of Displacement, an autobiographically sourced solo blending dance, song and spoken word to explore personal narratives, ancestral memory and the shifting (and increasingly urgent) politics surrounding the movement of people.

Windows of Displacement (WoD) is commissioned by Yorkshire Dance Amplified and we are delighted to say that the work is already reaching above and beyond its initial plans for this current project period.

During its development Windows of Displacement has been presented to promoters and audiences across Yorkshire as well as London and Hertfordshire in a total of seven sharings.

We are delighted that Akeim was furthermore successful in his application to Northern Connections which will now enable him to spend additional time on the creation of the work with further input by collaborators and mentors, developing a 2nd and short version of the work. This will be presented for the first time as part of the Northern Connections Triple Bill at NSCD’s Riley Theatre on Thurs 27 April.

Additionally, Yorkshire Dance is supporting Akeim to present the short version of WoD as part of Northern Platforms, our joint initiative of five dance agencies from Scotland and north of England to increase the visibility of dance artists and companies outside their respective regions. Window of Displacement will receive an outing at Dance City’s Public Announcement event and at Manchester’s Turn platform at Contact Theatre.

The show is tour ready from end of April and is receiving it’s first full outing at West Yorkshire Playhouse on 20 & 21 June, fittingly as part of Refugee week with an accompanying programme of talks and workshops.

On another new exciting development, we are supporting Akeim through Young at Arts, a consortium project led by Yorkshire Dance to tackle loneliness and social isolation in older people. Akeim will co-design and deliver his artist-led project ‘Red, Gold, Green & Blues: re-imagining ‘The Blues Party’. Working with acclaimed local poet, Sai Murray, they will deliver the project in Chapeltown in summer/autumn 2017, focusing on reminiscence work around the Blues party and engaging the local community in dance, music and oral history.