06/16/2021

Daniel Bailey envisions community healing and Black utopia in Black Exodus

Creative activist and West End performer Daniel Bailey envisions what the Black community might look like if separated from the structures of racism.

“Who could the black community become when separated from the structure of racism?” questions creative activist Daniel Bailey. In his hybrid documentary, Black Exodus, the writer, filmmaker and The Palace Of The Dogs founder explores how the Black community can draw from their past to create a better future via a transformative process of healing. “Black Exodus is a visualisation of what the black community looks separated from the structure of racism,” explains Bailey, “exploring what the black community needs to do in order to achieve healing and a utopia/community strong enough to combat its internal issues. It’s aim is to empower the black community and encourage them to imagine a world where they become their own standard of beauty and aspirations, using the richness and pain of their past to engineer their futures.”

Shifting between narration from Kelechi Okafor, Andre Bright, Jarel Robinson-Brown and Cherrelle Skeete, and a wide repertoire of movement representing different themes and styles, including spirituality, queerness and mortality, Black Exodus represents a multidisciplinary investigation into the micro and macro cultures of the Black diaspora. Bailey continues: “creative activists, who are on the front line of the pursuit, imagine what and how we can achieve this black utopia, focusing on topics around healing, the role of men and women in the community, ancestry, faith and spirituality, the acceptance of black queerness in the community and death and rebirth.”

“Centred around Caribbean culture and its connection to its African origin; a combination of dancehall, afro, contemporary dance and vogueing have merged to create a vocabulary that represents the vernacular of this community, using the pain of their history and richness of their culture to forge a oasis of healing.” Featuring an original soundtrack from Cyrus Brandon, the film moves through a variety of distinct moods and scenarios, a reflections of the intricacies of the Black diasporic experience.