Zinzi Minott

Zinzi Minott’s new solo dance work What Kind of Slave Would I be? (WKOSWIB? pronounced nWIK-uooh-IB?)

Whist walking through an exhibition of Tudor portraits Minott took the invitation from the exhibition to think back and historicize herself - and she imagined a slave. Running through sugar cane, chopping in the burning sun, killing the master, being raped by the master, jumping ship and being sold up the river.

There was no two ways about it, her grandparents landing here as part of the Windrush generation guaranteed - she’d be a slave.

Realising having to a think that far back is to have ask “What Kind of Slave Would I be?” It is to WKOSWIB.

Throughout her research as Artist-in-residence at British Library within the archives Minott has pondered this question, and this body of work is the result thus far.

To ask “What kind of slave would I be?" is to ask who would they have been - to turn slaves into people, politicise the act of remembering. It is an act of temporal trickery. It is an act of memory. It is a sign of temporal respect.

What Kind of Slave Would I Be is a piece of time travel, death, body as machine, base-line and sci- fi.

Afro-Futurism invites us to imagine new futures for ourselves – this piece is an invitation to look back and fantasise when we realise we cannot.