MANIFESTO
The Artifact is a post-hip-hop company creating dance in conversation with other art forms.
At The Artifact, we create Hip Hop influenced dance theatre work that responds to the lived experience of our artists. Highlights include solo performances of "Somewhere North of Here" (a response to the UK’s Brexit vote) and "Lies My Parents Told Me" (deconstructing British working-class ideologies of gender), and a commission from Dundee Rep Theatre to create an intergenerational flashmob for a performance at Dundee’s V&A Museum. Our current work-in-progress, HERSTORY, which explores female journeys through gender violence, was developed at Hip Hop theatre development lab, Open Art Surgery, with dramaturgical support from Jonzi D (Breakin’ Convention) and Ivan Blackstock (CRXSS PLXTFXRM).
We run the Our Flow! programme across the UK. Our Flow! takes techniques in dance and spoken word and utilises them to create new performance works with frontline organisations marginalised such as survivors of gender violence, stroke survivors and young people with special educational needs. These programmes run for between 8 and 12 weeks, and are delivered in a setting familiar to the participants. These programmes have therapeutic outcomes, allowing those involved to explore difficult experience through dance and spoken word at their own pace.
Photo by Sarah Darling