Featured image and gallery: Molly Goble

Manchester Metropolitan University’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence festival continued with a passionate reading from award-winning choreopoet and researcher, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa.

Day five of the 16-day series saw Kinshasa bring her unique fusion of dance and poetry to campus, delivering an emotional tribute to the generations of women who shaped her life, as part of the ongoing campaign to spotlight and combat gender-based violence.

Kinshasa shared passionate pieces of poetry from her live literature show Cane Corn & Gully, which was adapted from her highly acclaimed debut poetry collection. Through her work, she explores the often-overlooked histories of Barbadian women, channeling their resilience and resistance into poetry and dance.

“She’s doing a maverick piece of work,” said poet and senior lecturer, Malika Booker, introducing the event. “She’s doing what I call, archival poetic excavation. She’s one of the most mesmerising people, who puts their whole world and their whole heart into their performance.”

Kinshasa opened the event by reflecting on the women in her family, describing how their lives and struggles defined her version of activism: “When I thought about this event, I thought, ‘how do I open up the space?’ I think that to ensure I capture the essence of my book, I thought it might be kind and disruptive to introduce some members of my family. The women I came from.”

Exploring the generations of women in her family, Kinshasa shared stories from her great grandmother, her grandmother and her mother. Speaking proudly of her great grandmother, she said: “This wonderful woman cut cane, and after school the children in the community would travel to her house and she would make them fishcakes. Not everyone can do this. So she was the best, obviously. Every woman in my family who can make fishcakes is the best.”

Kinshasa added: “I once found a police report in my own family archives. My grandmother was a great cook too, and she was cooking for something like the salvation army. She was told whilst she was cooking that she shouldn’t be putting her hands into the food because she should not be serving white people with her black hands.

“My grandmother chased this white woman down the street with a knife. The police were called, my grandmother was called into question and she told them exactly what happened. That’s the kind of woman my grandmother was.”

Kinshasa also spoke about her mother, who she dedicated her performance to, and how she truly embodied activism: “My mother is a complicated, strong, soft, beautiful woman. She raised me single handedly, and she co founded a black Saturday school. Whilst doing this, she also founded a single black mothers organisation. She was the true meaning of the word activist. She was active in the community. She is an activist. These are the women I came from.”

Kinshasa went on to speak about how, growing up, she always felt her purpose was to make a change, to use her voice to speak up and to use her presence to take up space. She said: “I always felt it was my life’s purpose, to make that hyper-invisible, visible. To make the invisible, visible and bring these two opposing sides of the spectrum into the forefront and into centre stage.”

The notion of dance and the power that it holds for many women was also spoken about in a passionate and inspirational way. Kinshasa said: “Then comes the dance. Then comes this moment at 14 years old, where I learn how to weave my body in a way that is not just copying. And I begin to notice, especially [when watching] the music videos, and I’m thinking this is not just a sexual experience, this is spiritual. This is not just prayer, this is communication. This is not just speaking, this is activism. This is visibility, this is fighting, this is power.”

Kinshasa added: “Sometimes I see these women, using their backsides. Using the very part of their anatomy that has been colonised. Breaking against the fences, in carnival, in Notting Hill. Showing their tongues, showing their chests to the police officers. And I don’t think people understand what these dances are.”

Following this, Kinshasa told the audience how she wants to interlink dance and poetry, and to tell a story through dance and spoken word: “I decided that, when I discovered poetry, that maybe now I finally have a bridge. To bridge the abstract to the forefront and then came Cane Corn & Gully”. 

Performing a reading from her book, she added: “I realised being able to speak through movement is as much inheritance as it is talent. I immediately browsed through every description I could find of an enslaved person at two o’clock in the morning. I discovered the enslaved was speaking constantly. One woman shook her head whilst gagged with iron. Another made circles with her arms in the cane fields as sun rinses heat over her, with her baby wrapped around her back, and, after being flogged to the ground, another woman beat to the ground with the rhythm of her own.”

“These fleeting descriptions are of course obscured beneath a colonial gaze, however I’m certain if I just focus on the fundamental actions I can loosen the gaze whose teeth marks can be found on my own anatomy.”

Throughout the reading, projector slides charted a diagram of the dances, highlighting her journey of discovery. Kinshasa said: “I decided to embody as much as I could to write my nation back into history. The work is dangerous, writing into history is like feeding unknown seeds while attempting to control the rate of their growth. Sometimes when I dance I inhale the language of my ancestors’ captures and they become mine.”

The reading concluded with a dance performance from Kinshasa, which embodied each of the women that raised her. Every movement in her dance was purposeful with each step steeped in the weight of her ancestor’s legacy. Audience members watched on as the dance became a ‘conversation’ between her and all those that had come before, a living embodiment to voices once thought forgotten. The room was silenced by her strength, passion and commitment to her performance. 

English with Creative Writing student Emily Donoher has attended several events as part of this year’s campaign. She said: “It feels like a safe space. Everyone is coming together for the same reason, and it’s lovely because you know that no one is coming for any reason other than to hear amazing poetry and [it feels like] we all have this thing in common, in one way or another.”

Speaking after the event, MA Publishing student at Manchester Met, Anastazyia Olizyk, added: “I loved it. I found it incredibly interesting. This event has made me want to read more of Safiya’s work and to venture into other spaces.”

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Festival runs from 25th November to 10th December, 2024. For more information and tickets, visit mmu.ac.uk/news-and-events.