SHEBA Soul Ensemble are bringing a unique one-off double bill production of Cry of my Roots/SOLD to the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre.

The first of this distinctive double bill by Sheba Soul Ensemble is Cry of my Roots. Duet Josiane Antourel and Yna Boulangé revisit an original work Cry of my Roots, based on the work of the late Martinique choreographer Jean-François Colombo, and create an hour long show that combines dance, video and theatre.

The piece is a visual poem dedicated to Haiti, reflecting the morphology of the Caribbean woman and evoking the struggles, revolts and pains of the island, which stands up against itself in a hostile social and political system.

Cry of my Roots was performed at the festival The Cultural Nights of Rivière-Pilote, at Tropiques Atrium National Scene in Martinique and the Tout-Monde Festival in Miami, in 2018. The show will tour to L’ Artchipel in Guadeloupe in May 2019 before coming to the Bristol Old Vic and Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre this June.

Somerset County Gazette:

The second piece of the evening, SOLD, tells the forgotten story staged to give one woman’s first-hand account of slavery at the height of the slave trade.

This historic piece of theatre dramatises the first account of female enslavement in the British West Indies. We often think of slavery as an American experience, with hearing stories of the deep south, and forget that Britain in fact played a major role.

SOLD uses the words and experiences of Mary Prince who was born into slavery in the British West Indies and worked tirelessly there before being taken in her last years to the UK.

Her story, originally published by the anti-slavery movement of the 1800s, was popular in its day, contributing enormously to the ending of slavery, but has long been forgotten and is rarely referenced or known.

Amantha Edmead, who wrote the show, said: “Mary’s story is one of the unassuming heroine. She had strength and resilience to stay alive through the horrors of British chattel slavery, to fall in love, work for her freedom and share her story to help bring slavery to an end.”

This unique double bill will be coming to Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre on June 24 at 7:30pm and tickets are available from tacchi-morris.com