Last year, the Roundhouse put out an open call to young BME performers identifying as female. Nine “femmes of colour” were chosen to work with the Australian collective Hot Brown Honey, known for producing fiercely edgy shows. The result is Hive City Legacy, a cumbersome title for a fast, furious blast of beatboxing, body-popping, hip-hop, breakdance, mime, burlesque, aerial acrobatics and spoken word, boldly directed by Lisa Fa’alafi.
The show is composed of vignettes structured around a single day, from a morning commute to an office party. Its exploration of Britishness is both original and political, particularly in its intersections with race, sexuality and the male gaze.
A flag with the St George’s cross is unravelled from one of the boxes piled at the back of the set in the shape of a mini cityscape. The scene segues into a posh rap by a pink-haired performer (played by Krystal Dockery) who announces her double-barrelled name in perfectly modulated RP and sings: “Welcome, you’re in England now … Any mention of slavery is a criminal act. You don’t know how you got here.”
Another performer, enraged by the predatory, fetishising gaze of a white man on a tube carriage, bellows: “I’m paralysed as you dress me in a grass skirt … I am not your piece of meat.”
Moments of burlesque feed into the show’s pastiche and sharp-eyed satire: the troupe twerks energetically, their movements obscenely exaggerated and openly lascivious to send up the stereotype of the hyper-sexualised black woman. There are gurning faces and twisted limbs alongside lyrics that drip with irony: “It’s OK to twerk as long as you are twerking for Jesus.”
Farrell Cox plays the lead role of a wide-eyed observer. Her movements are poised, balletic, at odds with the troupe’s synchronised dances, which are raw and rough around the edges.
Mental health is a potent theme; an aerial performance characterises the anguish of a lost soul saved by the love of a stranger in an exquisitely romantic moment. The most powerful scene features the spasmodic juddering of a dancer whose movements are cut up by a flashing light to mirror her inner breakdown. It is a harrowing moment and a switch back to an upbeat register does not quite dispel the mood, though we are lifted in a joyous finale. The troupe’s unflinching address of prejudice against young non-white women is refreshing to see on a mainstream stage – as is the strength found in the collective hive.
- At the Roundhouse, London, until 21 July
