Collabo

Yesterday night, my friend invited me to celebrate 10yrs of East London Dance at Stratford Circus event, 'Collabo'. It was an evening of live interpretations, collaborations, hybrids and even Jade Hackett's brilliant #dancemarch film. It explored everything from deepest fears, to passing stories through generations and a brilliant duet 'Musiac' in which the dancers seemed to transform into music themselves.



It was a night that gave voice to what dance can do, that inspired energy and expression and even left me attempting to express myself as I got back to a lamplit flat. Here's the nonsense that tumbled out my brain...

Underground
Does it ever feel like, the world's run rife with pain,

And whe'er you look you see the city's blood freeze cold again,

And savaged saints are running wild, tear strips from one another,

Friends turn on friends in protest of their hate upon 'the other'?

Do you ever see a world beyond the smog that skies may shatter,

A world where lives are precious metal, raised above the chatter?

The noise of man so in demand so overwhelming and

The sand of time, runs right through hands clutched hold of distant foreign lands

Is this sensational idea worth man's life or two?

A man pry eyed, widening divides, that trap me against you,

Rhythm ensues, power rises, within this golden Trojan,

Be not mistook, for where you look, I stand among the chosen

We spill our blood at money men on glass eyed plinths of steel,

Ask, arms outstretched if a greed-filled globe can be a beast less real,

We plead our dreams are silent in a city bright with flame

Of innocence shunned and blunted, among corrupted ideas of fame

Well amongst our concrete shields I raise my arms, as my heart wrote,

I clear my throat for this heist of heaven, of words aloft, afloat,

And biceps scarred, release themselves from tension, hate and noise.

I hear the cherubs sing and men on men retreat their poise

My poison slain, heart beats again, its hands pummel at my breast,

And now this smothered city sick of noise begins its rest,

For a world brimmed bold with pain regains the love it once did feel,

For moments shared with people, nothing cold, no lies, just real.

Tamed tentacled technology weeps, as man's flawed fingertips

Take hold of wonder, taste their tears and brandish softened lips,

We, the shadows, the mirrors of time, claim silence as our own,

We clasp our hands, signal the strays and dance our reflections home, 

The gales of gluttony whisper as they seek the sense of sound,

As stifled sobs much louder burst, erupt through cracking ground,

On this our night, this concrete cave fills dark with echoes of life,

Breeding deep within the city sick. Calling always to you, and to I.


We forget ourselves too often in a world consumed by social media, by money, by fabricated versions of ourselves. I didn't realise how angry I was at how it stifles us until I wrote this. I might not be able to dance but you don't need to, to be inspired by an event like Collabo. Here's to 10 years and gone and the many more to come!