We sat down for an exclusive interview with Clive Lyttle, Artistic Director and Founder of Certain Blacks. They return with Black Athena Festival, a cross-disciplinary programme bringing together artists who push beyond conventional art forms.
This festival runs between RichMix and the Place between March and April – Tickets here
How does the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s ethos behind Certain Blacks continue to inform your curatorial and political thinking today?
The ideas I took from The Art Ensemble of Chicago have been about Black political resistance and pride through art, freedom and excellence. We have been lucky enough to work with LT Beauchamp known as Chicago Beau who played on the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s album Certain Blacks, which we are named after, and we also worked with artists form Chicago’s The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musician collective with the Katalyst Conversation. The idea that “Certain Blacks do what they want to”, lyrics from the album, struck me and allowed us to develop our curatorial practice.
What does engaging with Martin Bernal’s Black Athena offer contemporary audiences that more familiar cultural histories do not?
Exploring the idea of alternatives to the current cultural thinking. The festival includes pieces that are based on music and movement and not just the spoken words of Shakespeare or moods cast by Chekov. The festival includes a new commission via Kimpavita Festival in Dakar called Rising Mirrors / Miroirs en ascension / Kitalatala ya ntombua exploring the experiences of Congolese women who refuse to be subdued. The festival also contains the work Graffiti Bodies XV inspired by the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1981 painting La Hara plus Ronin looking at duel heritage through dance and marital arts. All of these works challenge traditional narratives within debates around culture and the nature of civilisation.
As part of tour partnership with Kimpa Vita in Dakar, I got to visit The Island of Goree off the coast of Senegal. This was a slave island from which my ancestors were shipped across the Atlantic as property. The ideas of “The Enlightenment” are central in allowing the slave trade to depict Black people as “Uncivilised”. Africa was often seen as the dark continent but when you visit, there are thriving countries and civilisations that span thousands of years and this festival has allowed us to touch upon these differing civilisations within Africa and in the case of Ronin, Japan.
How has your background in outdoor events and contemporary circus shaped your ideas around access and who art is for?
Working in Circus and Outdoor arts provides a platform of knowledge non-verbal performance. I’m a musician by practice and have also worked in theatre and dance. Circus allows me to look beyond forms where knowledge of language is important in understanding text-based theatre. When you work with Chekov you’re hearing words and looking for meanings which may be hidden, and you need an understanding of the language it is performed in. However, Circus and Outdoor arts are international. I’ve recently visited Tiawan, Japan and Senegal to see new shows with no understanding of Chinese, Japanese or French (Senegal). Certain Blacks is a member of Circostrada a European network for outdoor arts and circus and this enables us to meet, and work with, artists across Europe and internationally!! However, I’m now determined to improve my very bad French!!
Why is it important for Black Athena Festival to foreground difference rather than consensus in today’s UK cultural landscape?
It is the difference that makes the UK so culturally interesting. Black music and dance is now central to UK life, but we live in a current world of “Reform”, which to me, challenges the notion of being British. I was born in Lewisham Hospital just like the actor Delroy Lindo. This is where my mother worked as a midwife for most of her life and it’s the hospital where she died. We need to champion difference and creativity and showcase what cultural difference has bought to the UK over the past centuries.
What made Dam Van Huynh and Elaine Mitchener’s Graffiti Bodies XV feel central to this edition of the festival?
The work of Dam Van Huynh and Elaine Mitchener are part of the ongoing dialogue of what work can be made by diverse artists and it challenges the ideas of Black Dance, music creation and performance. I saw Van Huynh’s work Moving Eastman at the Barbican last year which highlights the work of composer Julius Eastman. This was shown through music and movement so I wanted to work with the company.
When moving work “from the margins to the mainstream,” how do you avoid losing what makes it radical?
Artists we’ve worked with have resulted in Certain Blacks commissions such as Sadiq Ali’s Tell Me And Crying in the Wilderness – Best Friends have gone on to take centre stage at The Place and Park Theatres. Similarly, Holy Dirt from Thirunarayan Productions, directed by David Glass is a Certain Blacks commission which has just been commissioned by Without Walls and will be at the Brighton Festival shows how the work we support can appear on mainstream stages and festivals and move “from the margins to the mainstream”