West African history reclaimed: “from studied spectacle to livingness”.
No Dance, No Palaver is a series of three videos by which Onyeka Igwe takes the colonial history of West Africa into her own hands (sometimes literally). The series is centred on the Aba Women’s War of 1929, the first major anti-colonial uprising in Nigeria. In the first film, Her Name in My Mouth, Onyeka explores the colonial archive, reclaiming it and embodying its imagery by incorporating it into modern dress. In Sitting on a Man, two contemporary dancers draw on the archive and their own experiences to invoke the Aba women’s practice of protesting men through dance. In the final film, Specialised Technique, Onyeka contrasts the calculated style of the colonial footage with a modern perspective on representation, infusing the old footage with life and respect.
Onyeka Igwe is an artist and filmmaker from London, UK. She exposes and explores new narratives through the use of dance, voice, text and archival material.
As part of ‘We Love You’, a multidisciplinary programme on love beyond the romantic and the self - sep oct nov dec 2019.
UK, 2017-18, 20’, English spoken, no titles
Loops every 30’
