Shake it like Nina Simone Feat. Antoinette Gomis & Doreen Ndagire 10-11 May 2017

Programme

This year, Urban Connection continues its activism theme. Last year, FATTA! Feat Cleo and Juck put the spotlight on the consent debate. This year, we highlight a topic that is often overshadowed by both feminism and anti-racism: colourism.

We present a full evening based on the life and work of Nina Simone - a manifestation of the equality of all bodies, the right to free expression and the equal value of all. Soul and jazz icon Nina Simone is known for her distinctive voice and her commitment to civil rights. One of the greatest of our time, still comforting and inspiring. The evening starts with French street legend Antoinette Gomisand continues with a musical cavalcade of live music where Nina Simone is honoured again with the help of the soloist. Doreen Ndagire, Joanna Sekitoleko on choir and jazz musicians John Bjurström, drums, Tomas Sjödell, double bass and Björn Eriksson, conductor and pianist.

"She does not know
Her beauty
She thinks her brown body
Has no glory.
If she could dance
Naked,
Under palm trees
And see her image in the river
She would know.
But there are no palm trees
On the street,
And dishwater gives back no images."

The poem is William Waring Cuney's poem 'No Images' performed by Nina Simone in 1966. A poem about the black woman's struggle to be proud of her body. Always being told that she is not good enough. When one of the best street dancers in France.., Antoinette Gomis, heard the song "Images" for the first time, she decided to create a solo with the same title.

The song's themes are still a reality for millions of people 50 years later. Today, new elements have been added: hypersexualisation, the pursuit of the eternally young body - in a way a denial of what our old heroines fought for. This is the core of "Images": how do we value the female heritage?