The movement is more than a moment

This dance film features Black women across the world dancing to a jazz melody as a spoken-word poet delivers searing lyrics. 

As jessica Care moore narrates her poem We Want Our Bodies Back, a desperate ritual for growth, understanding, and silence comes to bear. Women are given center stage, and they move in aggressive, sometimes-lilting, unapologetic modernity, moving in between sensual and combative and balletic within seconds. The women on the screen, b-girl Manuela, Axelle ‘Ebony’ Munezero, and Nafisah Baba respond to the poem, channeling the power and nascent understanding of the pain in the verse through their movement. 

The film is a moving, relentless reminder of the misogynoir that has encoded itself into the systems of control within our world. It is also a reclamation of those acts and an acceptance of them. The film is angry, but the fires fuel the dance. The Black women taking the space are not being burned by their emotions, but are a part of the wildfire itself.  

Commissioned by Sadler's Wells’ Digital Stage and Breakin’ Conversation, the piece was made in collaboration with director Jonzi D. It was created during lockdown and filmed remotely in Canada, Germany, and England. Author jessica Care moore said: “This exquisite collaboration has moved me to tears more than once. I am honored to see my poem come to life through the bodies of genius women & this multi-disciplinary, visionary team of artists. Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor…we embody these women, we tell their stories.”