Last Yearz Interesting Negro. Image: Max Colson
It’s a little over 24 hours until Fierce present the world premiere of i ride in colour and soft focus, no longer anywhere, the new work by Last Yearz Interesting Negro, the solo project of Jamila Johnson Small. And there’s a new trailer for the occasion. Here it is:
Good isn’t it? Hopefully it will give you some sense of what you’re in for if you make it along. Jamila makes work that is deeply considered – conjuring images and feelings that linger long after the work is over – but she also creates spaces you want to be in. She’s a magnetic performer. The music is ace. Her movement is compelling. It’s meaningful and important and it’s also really cool.
“It feels like being a spectator at an achingly cool and slightly intimidating club night. The music, all original to the show, is superb… …Johnson-Small can channel the music even into her shoulder blades, and frequently does over the course of the performance, confining herself to ‘the sensual pleasure of small dances’, as it says in the programme notes. I don’t mean that to sound dismissive in any way; she’s a remarkable conduit for the music, a perpetual motion machine, and the musical frequencies travel at the speed of sound from her ankles to her neck to the tips of her fingers.” [Draff Magazine – review from Dec 2016 of an earlier version of the show]
Basically, the message is it’s going to be ace. But if you want to read more people telling you that, check out some of these other reviews, from Ramsay Burt and Tia-Monique Uzor, and these interviews with Jamila in The Fifth Sense and The Evening Standard. And visit Jamila’s blog.