Impasse: A dance running nowhere and getting somewhere
History is a desolate wasteland for two black men trying to escape, in Mufutau Yusuf’s duet.
Project Arts Centre - Space Upstairs, Dublin Dance Festival
★★★☆☆
What does an Irish dance that’s not about white people look like? In 2022, Nigerian-Irish choreographer Mufutau Yusuf premiered his debut dance Òwe, a solo wherein the dancer was seen scanning strips of camera film, and digging through an archive documenting Yoruba culture. Having left Lagos for Meath when he was nine-years-old, Yusuf seemed to be trying to reanimate his body with the rhythms and music of his youth, to trigger his muscle memory, and get back to that culture that was left behind.
If Òwe saw Yusuf stranded in a black void that eventually filled with the vibrant colour of Nigerian life and visual culture, the world of his new duet Impasse is desolate: a cold white plain that extends to a wall as cragged as an iceberg. Bleakly, as a conceit for black African bodies navigating a white West, the choreographer has chosen a frozen wasteland.