17 min
Seke Chimutengwende on storytelling, non-verbal communication, haunting and horror Listening with...
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It begins in darkness by Seke Chimutengwende is on Thursday 27th October 2022 at the Bluecoat in Liverpool.
Recommended reading:
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Walter Rodney
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Rats in the Walls - H P Lovecraft
All episodes and full transcripts: listeningwith.substack.com
Marie-Anne McQuay 0:05
Hello, you're listening with the Bluecoat in Liverpool, a series of podcasts taking the themes of our exhibition programmes as a starting point for 15 minute insights from artists, scientists, writers, educators, storytellers and more. In this episode, dance artist and choreographer Seke Chimutengwende discusses storytelling, nonverbal communication, haunting and horror.
Seke Chimutungwende 0:33
I'm Seke, I'm a choreographer, a performer, and teacher, and I live in London. I guess in terms of work, that's the main thing, the main role that I have is choreographer. I perform in other people's choreographies and performances as well. I've been involved in in dance and performance for about nearly 20 years. I don't think I really started thinking of it as a profession until I was about 18. That's when I started doing formal dance classes. And when I was 22, I went to London Contemporary Dance School and did a three year training there. After graduating, and up until now, I've studied various improvisation practices a lot. And I've performed a lot of improvisation. But yeah, I'd say a lot of my training is rooted in various improvisation practices, as well as more traditional contemporary dance / modern dance techniques.
Seke Chimutungwende 1:37
I've always worked a lot with text and language and voice work. A lot of the work that I've been involved in has sort of crossed over from dance into theatre. And I would say, that's been a big part of my practice. Growing up, I was definitely very into storytelling and mythology, fantasy, science fiction, and the sort of fantastical. And the other thing that I was really interested in as a child and growing up was history. At one point I wanted to be a history teacher. I was always reading history including world history. So both of those things have always been there. I would say I wasn't particularly interested in ghosts or horror, that's sort of something that's come much more recently, but definitely the general fantastical realm has always been an interest, as well as kind of real history. I'm not sure what I mean by that - history is history, the subject.
Seke Chimutungwende 2:43
I made a piece a few years ago called Black Holes with another choreographer. Alexandrina Hemsley. As we were researching that piece, we were very interested in Afrofuturism, and black science fiction. I've always been interested in sci fi, and I discovered the term Afrofuturism, I didn't know when it was, about seven or eight years ago. And I was really interested in that. Part of that research led me into looking at horror and black horror as a genre. Films like Get Out and books like Beloved by Toni Morrison. I was kind of intrigued by this relationship between horror and blackness. There was something very interesting about that, for me. Something that particularly resonated for me was the idea of haunting, and histories that people don't want to look at so much or acknowledge, or if they do look at them they're sort of disturbing and troubling. For me, there's a function of 'ghost' to that fear of something that might be there, as well.
Seke Chimutungwende 3:59
It's interesting, the idea of exorcism. I think, in a way, bringing something out into the open that can then help us move forward - that's definitely part of it, for me. Another part of it is more... it more just feels like a kind of inevitable sort of point of research or point of focus. It's something that I feel like I just can't really ignore. When I look at it in that way, it's not so much that I'm wanting to achieve anything through it. It's more that I just feel like "Well, as somebody who makes d
It begins in darkness by Seke Chimutengwende is on Thursday 27th October 2022 at the Bluecoat in Liverpool.
Recommended reading:
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Walter Rodney
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Rats in the Walls - H P Lovecraft
All episodes and full transcripts: listeningwith.substack.com
Marie-Anne McQuay 0:05
Hello, you're listening with the Bluecoat in Liverpool, a series of podcasts taking the themes of our exhibition programmes as a starting point for 15 minute insights from artists, scientists, writers, educators, storytellers and more. In this episode, dance artist and choreographer Seke Chimutengwende discusses storytelling, nonverbal communication, haunting and horror.
Seke Chimutungwende 0:33
I'm Seke, I'm a choreographer, a performer, and teacher, and I live in London. I guess in terms of work, that's the main thing, the main role that I have is choreographer. I perform in other people's choreographies and performances as well. I've been involved in in dance and performance for about nearly 20 years. I don't think I really started thinking of it as a profession until I was about 18. That's when I started doing formal dance classes. And when I was 22, I went to London Contemporary Dance School and did a three year training there. After graduating, and up until now, I've studied various improvisation practices a lot. And I've performed a lot of improvisation. But yeah, I'd say a lot of my training is rooted in various improvisation practices, as well as more traditional contemporary dance / modern dance techniques.
Seke Chimutungwende 1:37
I've always worked a lot with text and language and voice work. A lot of the work that I've been involved in has sort of crossed over from dance into theatre. And I would say, that's been a big part of my practice. Growing up, I was definitely very into storytelling and mythology, fantasy, science fiction, and the sort of fantastical. And the other thing that I was really interested in as a child and growing up was history. At one point I wanted to be a history teacher. I was always reading history including world history. So both of those things have always been there. I would say I wasn't particularly interested in ghosts or horror, that's sort of something that's come much more recently, but definitely the general fantastical realm has always been an interest, as well as kind of real history. I'm not sure what I mean by that - history is history, the subject.
Seke Chimutungwende 2:43
I made a piece a few years ago called Black Holes with another choreographer. Alexandrina Hemsley. As we were researching that piece, we were very interested in Afrofuturism, and black science fiction. I've always been interested in sci fi, and I discovered the term Afrofuturism, I didn't know when it was, about seven or eight years ago. And I was really interested in that. Part of that research led me into looking at horror and black horror as a genre. Films like Get Out and books like Beloved by Toni Morrison. I was kind of intrigued by this relationship between horror and blackness. There was something very interesting about that, for me. Something that particularly resonated for me was the idea of haunting, and histories that people don't want to look at so much or acknowledge, or if they do look at them they're sort of disturbing and troubling. For me, there's a function of 'ghost' to that fear of something that might be there, as well.
Seke Chimutungwende 3:59
It's interesting, the idea of exorcism. I think, in a way, bringing something out into the open that can then help us move forward - that's definitely part of it, for me. Another part of it is more... it more just feels like a kind of inevitable sort of point of research or point of focus. It's something that I feel like I just can't really ignore. When I look at it in that way, it's not so much that I'm wanting to achieve anything through it. It's more that I just feel like "Well, as somebody who makes d
17 min