“Free embarks on a powerful quest for a place of no limitations on people’s way of life and way of being. You will be invited to sing: “take me to a place where I am free, leave the people dem so they can see.”
The dancers move to the Nyabinghi rhythms, vibrating their bodies. Free combines the worlds of Reggae Dub Culture and Contemporary Dance to immerse audiences in the unwavering pursuit of freedom. Celebrating Reggae’s global injection that has ignited revolutions all over the world since the 1960s.
An immersive performance accompanied by original music with strong reggae and hints of jazz influences written and performed by Buck and The Magnificence in the Reggae Dub style, interwoven with the storytelling nature of Akeim Toussaint Buck and Toussaint To Move’s world.”
Where: Sadler’s Wells East
When: 6-8 Nov
Ticket link: https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/toussaint-to-move-free/
Akeim Toussaint Buck tells us more about Free and what inspires and drives his work and collaborations.
Free is an immersive performance at Sadler’s Wells East with original music in the Reggae Dub style. Can you tell me something about how the piece has been created and developed?
The show has been created and developed from a grounded place, stepping into the unknown, trusting the process and belief in the almighty and with an unwavering capability to believe in an idea.
In 2013 I was in my second year at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, and I realised, due to the lack of representation in a module on the course and my own personal life, that I am not from this country.
I say this because for a school to be in Chapeltown, Leeds and not acknowledge sound system culture or reggae as a valid art form or artistic movement to show as an example for students exploring Ideas In Arts from 1900s to current felt very disconnected and disheartening.
I was born in Jamaica and moved to England at the age of 10. For those first 10 years of my life, the reality I experienced informs the essence of who I currently am and that directly impacts the way I make work.
I made a version of Free for the assessment of that module I had at the time at NSCD. I don’t remember the grade I received, it’s not important but I do remember one of the lecturer’s inability to accept that this work of art came from me and my culture. I recall the question: “Which part of this is you?”
I didn’t see anyone who was reinventing dadaism or surrealism getting such interrogations and it’s simply because what I did and what I do is not centralised whole heartedly by the European canon, it is part of the African Diasporic canon which European institutions have a reputation of not fully comprehending. So that’s how the essence of the work came to be.
When I started writing the lyrics: “Take me to a place where I am free” I wasn’t only speaking on the fact I was studying for my Life In The UK test and felt ridiculous knowing that a lot of my UK born and bred friends wouldn’t have a clue about anything in this test. Tommy and all his friends wouldn’t know a thing in the test.
I was not eligible for student finance at the time so paid my own way through University with some private help and working after school and on the weekends. Big love to my mum also for working two jobs to get me through. I left NSCD knowing I put the work in and looks like I’m receiving the fruits of my labour.
All of the above experiences combined with the refining of my own artistic process inspired by my research of Bob Marley and the incredible book by Kwame Dawes, Lyrical Genius. Became the seed of why Free needed to be made for me and by me personally.
Fast forward to January 2022. After my sold-out Wild Card: Radical Visions at Sadler’s Wells, a conversation was put into action about supporting my next idea. Free was always in my cards waiting in the shadows for its time so I presented the idea and straight away Sir Alistair Spalding was interested.
Since then, I realised the fact that all my work has been interrogating and displaying freedom in one way or another. From the age of 6 in the playground at Lucea Prep Primary School in Hanover, Jamaica, I asked my classmates:
“Why does the bell go and then we go outside? Why does the bell go and then we go back inside? Why does the bell have this power?”
I didn’t play. I sat around contemplating life and its injustices. That’s the spiritual essence of developing this work, living truly in this place of questioning power and the world we currently inhabit.
The material manifestation of this project had to be done in 3 phases to utilise the original commission from Sadler’s Wells and to give myself time to truly live and love a process. Big thanks to my producer at the time João Maio for devising this plan with me.
First, we wrote and recorded the music because the music is the heartbeat of the show so that has to come first and it was cheaper to do it like that. I have been writing songs for years so that wasn’t so hard.
All the songs are written using the tropes I found in reading Kwame Dawes’ Lyrical Genius as he deconstructed Marley’s song writing processes. I saw this as a blueprint for how to write the music for this show specifically and took it a step further by making the songs connect, creating a sense of a story and creating an album.
Getting a group of musicians together for a week to record, that was a challenge and in the same breath some sort of divine gift. When you live in Leeds and you’re an artist, there is a level of exposure you are constantly having with musicians as this small city holds Leeds Music College, that continuously churns out talented musicians that I have been blessed to me in my life.
Azizi Cole, Owen Burns, Jeff Gordan, Joseph Tesafaye, Joel Stedman, Otis Jones and Shaun Williams assembled like some magnificent musical avengers and together we recorded a collection of music that we are all super proud of. It was organic and just flowed because I already did a lot of groundwork by myself, in writing and organising the basic song structure.
Phase 2 we continued curating events to gain momentum with audiences and create discussions around what freedom means to people.
There were film screenings of some of my work created in collaboration with Filmmaker Ashley Karrell, this included Displaced, Reckoning and Negus and short work in progress performances of a future work like Negus Genesis.
After we delivered something to audiences, we would then have discussions around freedom that would take place at Deda Derby and Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds etc.
The first physical R&D took place in this phase also, experiencing how music and dance communicates with each other.
Then the hunt to find more commissioning money and support. Thanks to ARC for the Making New Work Commission and commissioning from the Transform Festival in Leeds. Big thanks to Bradford Art Centre, formerly Kala Sangem and Bradford 2025 for programming and supporting the work from the early stages as well.
All this enabled phase 3 and the snowball effect that has been in motion since June this year. We give thanks to Arts Council England who have funded my work for years and the joys of delegation.
I received a vision for the set to emulate a soundsystem but not an actual one. Robyn Hughes with her set designing expertise for festivals and TV, came through and delivered.
The idea of the decor of the space started to develop too, so Scenographer Rhian Kempadoo-Millar who specialises in Carnival attire came through and smashed it. Dramaturgy support from Anthony Ekundayo Lennon and Louise Katerega has been invaluable.
The accumulation of exploring ideas with professional performers and students has also been incredible. Special thanks to Phoenix Dance Theatre, Dance United Yorkshire and Laban Trinity as I’ve had some time to explore ideas with dancers in each of these companies and institutes.
It has truly been artistically nourishing for me as I love to work with a diverse pool of artists. After auditions and different R&Ds the main performers of this work became: Francesca Matthys, Aline Some, Jemima Tawose, Tony John Belfon Kaaba and Marcio Inacio, special shout out to Maisha Kungu and Jeremiah Olusola.
This moment is self-defining; this is where I finally get to bring something together that represents how I was feeling then and how I am feeling now. Something that represents my wider pool of my creative practices.
This is me as a curator, choreographer, director and a singer songwriter. I just want people to feel the absolute grandness of what we are aiming for and beyond.
My daughter at the age of 3, sang the chorus for one of the songs. She came down the stairs and repeated 3 times: “You will not destroy me” and that is how the writing for one of the songs, “Conquering Lion” started. It’s all organic and family driven, with the motivation of getting the message across.
The show celebrates resistance, rhythm and the radical joy of freedom. What might audiences expect when they engage with Free?
For me, sometimes, to sit in a theatre and feel so many emotions is a bit of an emotional stagnation. Expect to be moved and to move when you come to experience Free.
Notice I’m not saying to see Free, because this is not about just being a spectator who receives the art. Nah you are the art too. The invitation is not only to witness but to partake, we are on a night out together.
Art for me is about igniting – so prepare to be ignited. Art for me is about truth- so expect that too. Expect the unexpected and more. So far, people have cried, laughed and danced the night away.
I had the lads from the Sun Inn in Stockton come enjoy the show at the ARC in Stockton on September 6 and they loved it, seriously – I was told it’s the best thing they’ve ever seen.
How did Toussaint to Move start? What’s been the highlight of its work so far?
Toussaint To Move started with the creation of my first work. This was a solo work called Windows Of Displacement commission by Transform Festival, Yorkshire Dance and Barnsley Civic back in 2015/2016 and premiered at Leeds Playhouse in 2017.
This work unpacked my experience of becoming a British Citizen, whilst unpacking the relationship between colony and post-colony whilst being incredibly entertaining and educating.
I recall a performance in Doncaster where a white British man chased me to the train station to simply say thank you because he now understood why so much suffering was taking place and why he has privilege and why the Commonwealth exists and how it exists.
Imagine not knowing the Governor General in Jamaica represents the Crown so an aspect of the Jamaican government is monitored by England. So don’t tell me to leave your country when your country is still in my country. Educate yourself to free yourself and free the world.
In 2022, Radical Visions was another highlight as my first solo curated event. First kicking off in January in London, where we took over Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis for two nights programming FUBUNATION’s Black Is Gold, Alethia Antonia’s Inscribed In Me and the premiere of my film Displaced which was a directing collaboration with Ashley Karrell and the cinematic reimagining of Windows Of Displacement.
Another part of the format was to commission 3 Spoken Word artists to write and perform new works inspired by the theme of the event: “What is your Radical Vision?” We had master of ceremony Mr Muti Mutivation and a line of drummers and live musicians.
The premise of this event is in creating a sense of an ecosystem that is fed by the responses to Radical Visions as a starting point, the poets’ performance is responded to by the musicians and myself improvising a dance in the foyer of Lilian Baylis during the interval.
The success of this event was tested again as we executed another sold out incarnation of it later that same year in Leeds at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, this time programming Gerad Martin Dance and Sonny Nwachukwu’s Saturn Returns.
We commissioned 3 Leeds based spoken word artists this time and had a new band with some of the musicians I recorded the Free album with.
My network is an extension of brilliance that shows up for when the stars align and they are taken care of, I am so blessed for this.
I’ve had so many people thank me for these incarnations of my work and that has been the highlight. To know that I leave audiences satisfied, curious and transformed is the testament and purpose of the work I do.
Your own movement interests are very wide-ranging. Do you find it inspiring to mix styles and build partnerships in developing the shows?
I find it inspiring and necessary to have a range of movement interests and to practice having an open body because I’m a storyteller who uses the body to tell stories. It comes with the job, in my opinion, and it’s not just the movement. I am a singer songwriter and a self-published poet, a film director and a composer.
For me it’s about communication and being multidisciplinary is like being multilingual so I can reach the people. I have spent time learning different styles of dance from all over the world. I freestyle to see how it can be integrated into how I dance.
I don’t like to say I dance this or that style. I just dance and whatever you see you see, it doesn’t faze me, I am simply a conduit of feelings to express through whatever artform I decide today or whatever dance style or physical texture as I like to refer to it.
In terms of building partnerships, whatever you want to do on a large scale you need partnerships, you need to be able to communicate your idea and get people on your wavelength. If they’re not there then that’s okay, next!!!
I’ve spoken to so many spaces in getting this idea to fruition, not just because of some personal intention to get this work out there but because of how we get the job done. Free the way I want it, couldn’t be made with a camera in my bedroom and an Only-Fans account.
This is just how it is in the industry and if you work in this sector, you know partnerships are everything. The bit I find most inspiring is making the show, being in the studio with collaborators, and getting in the groove of creating, living in my body and mind, manifesting this thing.
But before one gets there I have to chat to many different moving plates and get the money to pay myself and my team, the application needs to be written. It is a partnership, the producers I work with and the performers I decide to work with values have to align. The fund raising and pitching is draining sometimes but necessary.
When someone doesn’t see the vision and you as an artist are convinced, they are really missing a great opportunity, It can feel very deflating. So, no I am not inspired by that bit directly however I have learnt to turn rejections into fuel to keep going, that is an ongoing process.
What’s next for Free after London?
After London, Free goes back up north to Bradford Arts Centre on November 21st. Then after that, the world. I really want Free to go out in the world and then I want to create a bigger scale version of it for the West End.
Dream big or don’t dream at all. God willing.