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“All of this was a bit scary at first,” Patel say
s. “I feel like most of us hadn’t known what we were getting into. But just being able to come in and actually collaborate, we’ve been able to make something huge in the little time we’ve had.” Once a brief break is taken, the cast regroups in the middle of the room, standing motionless. A minimalistic hammering beat begins to play from the stereo, and the creative director Yami “Rowdy” Lofvenberg instruct everybody to walk in slow motion. They advance towards what will be the front of stage, as one performer, Deborah Dickenson breaks away. She wanders through this crowd quickly, her arms outstretched and the palms of her hands open, like a mime asking a question loudly. Lofvenberg tells Dicknson to look into the solemn and still faces of her castmates. Dickenson complies, inspecting their features frantically and up-close. “Don’t play it for laughs,” comes the voice of Lofvenberg. Dickenson’s pulls back, now adopting a character who appears lost and alone. She continues her search in their eyes. “I’m looking into their faces for people like me,” Dickenson says, reflecting on her performance later. “It’s about who I can relate to?” After a minute or so of searching, Lofvenberg calls loudly for the performers to invert the scenario. Now, Dickenson is suddenly swarmed by the others. They shuffle around her rapidly, altering the directions of their orbit at random, while she drags her feet in the direction of a double-framed wooden antique mirror propped up to one side. The scene started as what seemed to be an elaborate exercise to awaken certain emotions. Bit-by-bit however, something meaningful unfolded, fully formed. Lofvenberg willed her performers into becoming an alienating spectacle, a lonesome crowd of people, together but separate, preoccupied by their own personal daily routines. As they go deeper, the piece becomes a mute waltz of people blind to one another, manoeuvring around other bodies as if they are inanimate objects in motion. The sheer pace of an idea coming to fruition is magic to observe. Where it ends up would almost seem to suggest that this idea had been in the works for days. Dickenson laughs, saying the entire routine was conceived in that very moment. “Rowdy just flung that on us today,” she says while on a break, out in the courtyard. “I’d normally overthink things,” Patel says. “My work is normally like a lot more slowed down.” Tatiana Santos, a dancer and dance facilitator at Tallaght Community Arts centre says the speed at which Hot Brown Honey operates caught her by surprise. “They have this methodology of how they make things come, and they come straight away. They encourage us not to think too much,” she says. “Just write it down on paper and do it.” Developing ideas on the spot at this rate is almost ideal, Dickenson adds. 18 “I wasn’t expecting to have much to say in the creative side. With me, it’s always been about getting confidence. If I am doing something and someone else doesn’t speak, naturally I assume I’m wrong.” “Here, I’m not really looking for the approval of others, so if I genuinely think what I do is okay, it’s good because I can just go with it. It’s challenged me, and given me the opportunity to progress my ideas, and to listen to everybody else’s ones.” Deborah Dickenson is a student of drama in the UK and a volunteer for a youth theatre group. She had been involved in the performing arts since she was a child. She sang, danced and acted, before later branching out into filmmaking in 2019, writing and performing in the short film, Reflections. As she explains her life in the arts however, her feeling was that she was always someone on the outside, growing up around friends who were predominantly white. Hive City Legacy, she says, provided her the opportunity to be among others who could relate to her experience as a black woman. “We don’t really get opportunities to be in the company of many people with colour,” she says. “We don’t get the opportunity to talk about these issues…” “And to tell our stories”, Venus Patel chimes in. “Because it’s always being overshadowed by other people.” “It can be lonely as a black person or a person of colour,” Santos says. “When we get the chance to share our experiences here, we don’t have to explain too much. That’s comforting, not having to explain yourself all the time.” Delving into experiences of racism and bigotry, Santos notes does still have its toll. “At the end of the day, we are throwing our personal stories in here, and these are sometimes bad experiences. So, an aspect of the process is paying attention to our mental health.” “We’d do check-ins to see how everyone else is feeling,” Dickenson adds. “Everyone is considerate of our minds as we go through this.” What inspires the material often comes from places of pain and anger, the trio explain. Still, as they come together to explore these experiences, spirits are nothing if not high. There is laughter. Joy springs from their rage. After a lunchtime tea break, the cast all proceed towards the linoleum floor to carry on until the evening. At their feet are scripts, loose sheets, folders and notepads. They pick up on building out the “How Irish Are You” sketch. “We’ve a very exotic, tribal African woman,” says Santos, trial running a new joke as Patel’s assisting presenter. Her voice is over-the-top and chirpy to the point of being utterly oblivious. “She’s in the audience, people! Can you spot her?” “We’re rising,” the cast sing on the track ‘Joyous Rage. “But there’s change to make. Fair Shake, wouldn’t that be great?” ● Venus Patel Hive City Legacy: Dublin Chapter is on the Project Arts Centre (Space Upstairs) from September 9 to 17, €14-18