A naked black man hangs onto another man next to a laundry bag.

Impasse

Mufutau Yusuf

Impasse is a physical exploration into the diasporic experience, particularly the Black African diaspora. It questions what it means to be a diasporic entity, how you inhabit spaces in which your existence is not clearly marked, and how memory becomes critical to your identity. It’s also an attempt to understand the nuances and complexities around the autonomy of Black bodies, in and out of western space.

Choreographer Mufutau Yusuf

Performers Lukah Katangila, Mufutau Yusuf

Costume Design Alison Brown

Composition & Sound Tom Lake, Mick Donohoe

Lighting Design Matt Burke

Prop Design Maryam Yusuf

Text Ikenna Anyabuike

Rehearsal Assistant Rima Baransi

Production Manager - Lisa Mahony

Stage manager/Set Consultant Lisa Krugel

Co-production Liz Roche Company

Photographer Romain Tissot

  • Ragged black and grey textile with sashiko stitching.
  • Masquerade costume in motion, made from stacked laundry bags.
  • Patterned, stitched textiles.
  • Patterned, stitched, patchwork textiles.
  • Man dancing with one arm and one leg in the air.
  • Layered textile including sashiko stitching.
  • Drawing of masquerade costume design.
  • Stitched recycled textile.
  • Masquerade costume in huddled position with stacked laundry bags at an angle.
  • Man dancing with his hands in the air.

When we enter, what looks like a pile of plastic laundry bags is lying onstage, stacked on top of ceremonial cloth strips. It turns out there’s a dancer inside them, who rises up as if part deity, dancing to upbeat drums, staring us down, turning the bags into regal robes. It’s a gorgeous, surrealist opening, recasting objects associated with homelessness and migration as magisterial.

— The List

It begins with a piece of magical stagecraft. A sculpture made of those checked bags that people on the move pack all their possessions into is on one side of the stage; suddenly it begins to move, sliding across the space until a pair of red-fringed legs emerge and begin a ritualistic dance like a river god come to life.

— The Guardian

Alison Brown’s Laundry Bag God costume elevates Mufutau’s figure further into the metaphysical realm of half human half signifier being as he battles invisible antagonists on his journey.

— Joyzine: John Clay