Yinka Esi Graves
The Disappearing Act
Exploring the diasporic roots of flamenco
How do you stay connected to a reality that appears to be lost? In The Disappearing Act, Yinka Esi Graves explores the black roots of flamenco, and her own reality as a flamenco dancer of Afro-Caribbean origin.
Inspired by 19th century circus artist Olga Brown, also known as Miss La La from a famous painting by Edgar Degas, Graves investigates camouflage as a way to be physically present in a threatening environment (crypsis), and embodies the continuous resistance against invisibility and erasure.
Using dance, live music and video, Graves creates a powerful and personal performance that takes the form of a Concert Party, a Ghanaian variety show. Accompanied by hiphop and jazz drummer Donna Thomson, flamenco singer Rosa de Algeciras and flamenco guitarist and musical explorer Raúl Cantizano this promises to become a brilliant celebration.
Since its premiere at the Nîmes Flamenco Festival (2023), The Disappearing Act has been touring leading festivals such as GREC (Barcelona), La Bâtie (Geneva), Festival d’Avignon and Tanz Im August (Berlin). Critic Claire Bishop has named it one of the ten best performances of 2024 in Artforum magazine.
Introduction - Meet the Artist
19:30 Introduction by Carlos van Tongeren: Yinka Esi Graves and the flamenco dance as decolonial praxis
22:00 Meet the artist led by Carlos van Tongeren & Ernestina van Noort
22:00 -23:30 Afterparty with DJ Jurencio
In this introduction, Carlos van Tongeren discusses how Yinka Esi Graves, along with other artists and flamenco researchers, has worked to make flamenco's African and Black heritage visible. The word "disappearance" in the title of her performance specifically refers to how the bodies of Black flamenco artists, including dancer Jacinto Padilla, who appears in a 1900 Lumière Brothers film, have sometimes been obscured in flamenco history. Carlos van Tongeren will discuss these and other examples, which have been a major source of inspiration for Yinka's work.
Following the concert, you can join an inspiring aftertalk. Carlos van Tongeren will engage in conversation with the artists and discuss how their work contributes to the discussion about flamenco's African and Black heritage, which has often been neglected in the history of this musical style.
Carlos van Tongeren is a researcher at the University of Granada and a flamenco guitarist. He previously held positions as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Spanish Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester and as Assistant Professor of Hispanistic Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen. He is the author of Rhythm and Heritage in Modern Flamenco Guitar (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and has published extensively on the connections between flamenco and the memory of the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975). His first solo album as a flamenco guitarist, Moradas, was released in 2023.
