The dancers in Matsena Productions’ Shades of Blue are constantly under siege. Spotlights search the stage, guns are pulled, there’s a perpetual sense of anxiety and relentless pressure. They’re even attacked by the mechanics of the theatre, a curtain that rises only a metre, bodies confined on the ground below; a lighting rig that plummets, flooring the dancers beneath. They are literally oppressed by the structures around them.
There’s no obfuscation about the subject matter in this powerful piece by brothers Anthony and Kel Matsena, born in Zimbabwe, raised in Wales. Shades of Blue is an extension of work they made during lockdown in response to police brutality, Black Lives Matter and, no doubt, their own life experience.
