In a multi-media solo performance ‘Memoirs of a ... Unicorn’, Marjani Forté-Saunders interweaves sound, dance, media design and to create an intimate yet universal story about lineage, warriorship, and love.

For this solo piece, the Afro-American choreographer and performer studied the life story and physical language of her father Rick Forté. She links these elements to historical moments in American history and fantastical embodiment . Forté takes her audience on a journey through time and makes multiple costume, character and identity changes without ever losing a connection with her heritage and the politics of today.  ‘Memoirs of a ... Unicorn’ links the individual and personal with the societal and collective, explores how we can build a cultural-emotional legacy and asks questions about how we identify ourselves within the spectra of blackness and gender. In this way Forté-Saunders explores the magic and resilience of the communities that helped to bring this performance to the stage.

Marjani Forté-Saunders was born in Pasadena, California but has lived and worked for a number of years in Harlem, New York. She is a choreographer, dancer, teacher, mother and community mobiliser. She frequently collaborates with her husband, composer Everett Saunders. They've recently made their collective formal as 7 Names| E+M with Memoirs of a... Unicorn marking their seventh project as a collaborative team. The duo previously worked together to create the intersectional trilogy ‘being Here ...’, on trauma, addiction and their link with systematic poverty in poor communities of color.

As part of ‘We Love You’, a multidisciplinary programme on love beyond the romantic and the self - sep oct nov dec 2019.

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