Filmed in Nairobi, this portrait stars A.T. (Journal du Pôle), a queer Kenyan artist and pole dancer hitherto based in London.

Set to the lilting tones of Ella Filtzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s honeyed rasp, Bloom is a queer African pole dancer’s surreal adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, inspired by Ballet Black’s A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Filmed against a scene of glossy Anthuriums and fluorescent Birds of Paradise, prisms shift and a vibrant bouquet dissolves to reveal the portrait of an African body wreathed on a steel pole, in various states of limbo, an analogy for queerness itself. In a state of nature, pole dance, like queerness, is innocent. However, stigma attaches a perceived and misconceived immorality.

Through a system of prisms and mirrors, attention is first drawn to an Anthurium’s spike-shaped inflorescence, which bears small flowers with perfect male and female parts. Focus then shifts to a pole in perspective, superimposed against the lingering red silhouette of an Anthurium’s queer premise, with subversive effect.

Credits

Choreographed and performed — A.T. [@JournalduPole]
Summertime performed by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong © 1958 UMG Recordings, Inc.
Film editing — Tao-Anas Le Thanh
Captions — Sarya Wu

Produced by Fringe of Colour for the Fringe of Colour Films online arts festival.

Before the Applause

Listen to Briana Pegado and A.T. talk about Bloom on Fringe of Colour’s very own podcast series, available on Spotify or on your preferred platform.