ESME BENJAMIN
CREATIVE
About
Re-defining the borderland from a perceived place of burden to a place of possibility
Esme Benjamin is a researcher and movement artist exploring the body as an archive. Esme uses their Practice of Disorder to investigate how borderland bodies can express and create new formations of identity on their own terms. Through performance-making, teaching and research they are interested in how the personal, social, creative and theoretical meet. Esme's work explores queerness and heritage through contemporary African and European dance, Somatics, mark-making and poetry (also influenced by their love for Clowning).
Esme received a BA (hons) in Dance Theatre from London Studio Centre and an MA in Dance and Somatic Wellbeing from UCLAN. As well as creating their own work, Esme is currently associate artist for, Movement Angol under the direction of Black British Dance Pioneer Francis Angol and Babel Theatre.
MALmovement
Esme's artistic work is conducted through MALmovement - a collective of creative artists and researchers with an interest in disruptive practices, delivering community workshops and creating live-performance.
MAL explores existence as borderland bodies, investigating the contiguity of movement, poetry and mark-making as a borderland in itself. The collective is committed to pushing boundaries and the possibilities of the body, language and performance, to redefine the borderland from a perceived place of burden to a place of possibility.
Collaborators
Viviana Rocha
Nafisah Baba