Hope 4 Justice
We are getting loud / We have woken up / The future is coming from all of us / We are powerful together / We are enough/ This is our home / So let us move from here to hope / For a new Lewisham
Involving over 1,000 young people, including students from 27 local schools, Hope 4 Justice wove together music, choreography and spoken word in two mass protest performances about the climate emergency. Created and produced by Trinity Laban in collaboration with leading artists and local young people, the socially-engaged project was a key part of the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture 2022 celebrations and was performed in Mountsfield Park on Saturday 18 June 2022.
Hope 4 Justice performance
An urgent and powerful call to action on the climate emergency, Hope 4 Justice highlights issues such as air quality, the ‘throw-away’ culture, housing inequality through compelling, multi-layered performances of music, dance and spoken word.
A thousand-strong choir of primary school children sung a series of newly composed songs by Mercury Prize nominated composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist ESKA, imploring their communities to take action.
100 young dancers, including members of Bellingham Dances and Trinity Laban‘s Youth Dance Company, performed choreography led by Lead Choreographer and Trinity Laban alum, Sarah Golding, and Associate Choreographer Waddah Sinada, exploring their connection to the climate emergency.
Local teenagers contributed spoken word interludes, mentored by writer and former Young Poet Laureate for London Cecilia Knapp, questioning how we want the world to be in the future.
late night
you let your dome roam
trapped in your phone
alone
think about the zones of waste
how distasteful
how are we so wasteful
Hope 4 Justice was the culmination of over a year-long engagement by Trinity Laban’s Children and Young People and Public Engagement programmes, which are committed to engaging with the local community by delivering high-quality artistic experiences and providing study and career pathways for children and young people across Lewisham, particularly those from diverse backgrounds, including low socio-economic groups, ethnic minorities, and other underrepresented groups.
For the project, we worked in partnership with Lewisham Music to deliver in-school music training.
“The pollution is getting worse everyday, every minute, every second. Aren’t you ashamed that the first person to die of pollution was a little girl from Lewisham, who was just like me? The songs that we will sing show that we care, we care about Lewisham.”
Zahra, Brindishe Manor student
Hope 4 Justice EP
On the eleventh anniversary of the death of Lewisham resident Ella Roberta Adoo Kissi Debrah who died aged nine after a fatal asthma attack, ‘Air’ from the forthcoming Hope 4 Justice EP is released on all major streaming platforms. Ella was the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on their death certificate. ‘Air’ is a powerful dedication to Ella, with lyrics written by Mercury Prize nominee ESKA and Young People’s Poet Laureate for London Cecilia Knapp, the children’s voices boldly asserting “I’ve got the right to breathe in my own city’s streets.”
To commemorate the Hope 4 Justice project, five songs composed by Mercury Prize nominated artist ESKA have been recorded at Trinity Laban with John Stainer Community Primary School Choir and students from the TL Jazz Department and will be shared as an EP on 8 March.
The Hope 4 Justice EP also features tracks Building (Foundations), Future Culture, New Legacy and Waste.
Listen to the Hope 4 Justice EP (including a limited edition CD version here).
The Creative Team
Sarah Golding, Lead Choreographer
Sarah Golding graduated with a BA (Hons) in Dance Theatre at Trinity Laban in 2012, before joining Transitions Dance Company and completing an MA in Dance Performance in 2013.
She has danced works by Colin Poole and Alesandra Seutin and performed for three years with Lîla Dance in The Deluge. Sarah has performed and movement directed for the Royal Court in The Internet is Serious Business, and Primetime, directed by Hamish Pirie.
In 2017, she joined the West End cast of STOMP at the Ambassadors Theatre.
ESKA, Composer
Zimbabwean-born and Lewisham-raised, ESKA is a vocalist, composer, choral director, actor and producer, whose genre-hopping career has included collaborations with a host of internationally acclaimed artists including the likes of Grace Jones, Zero 7, UNKLE, Tony Allen and designer Rick Owens, as well as choral directing for the likes of Matthew Herbert and Bobby McFerrin. Alongside making international festival appearances, ESKA has had her own sold-out performances at Southbank Centre and The Roundhouse. Her self-titled debut album was Mercury Prize nominated and she is currently working on her follow-up album alongside composing her first opera, commissioned by the Royal Opera House.
ESKA is an Alum of both Blackheath Conservatoire and Tomorrow’s Warriors. She continued to work in music whilst studying for a Maths degree, eventually completing her MSc Econ (Statistics) at the London School of Economics followed by a PGCE (Secondary) at the Institute of Education.
Hannah Gittos, Director
Hannah is a multidisciplinary director, actor, writer and dramaturg, born and raised in Lewisham.
As a director her credits include critically acclaimed The Burning Tower in association with Bush theatre, the multi award winning Womanz, Guinea Pigs by Dare Aiyegbayo and Kidocracy by Keith Farnan. She has worked extensively for the Lyric Hammersmith including on their ground-breaking START programmes and has delivered theatre projects for the NYT, Roundhouse and in both Rochester and Feltham Young Offenders Institutes.
As a performer, she has worked with the National Theatre Studio, Young Vic Theatre, award-winning physical theatre company Tangled Feet and The Work Theatre Collective. She is a founding member of the 5* sketch group, Comedy Bitch and took her first solo show, The Clown, T & Me to the Edinburgh Festival in 2017.
She was the assistant head for BRIT KIDS at the BRIT School of Performing Arts and an associate lecturer at Chichester University. She trained at The Manchester School of Theatre at the world- renowned École Philippe Gaulier.
Waddah Sinada, Associate Choreographer
Originally born in Sudan, Waddah Sinada is a London based dance artist and choreographer, integrating himself in street and hip hop styles along side community led collectives.
Over the course of the last few years Waddah has been working independently teaching, directing and choreographing to further nurture and develop his voice as a young and emerging choreographer, and is co-artistic director of Fubunation.
Cecilia Knapp, Writer & Narrator
Cecilia Knapp is a poet, playwright and novelist and the Young People’s Laureate for London 2020/2021.
Commissions include The Tate, The BBC and The Guardian and she has written for The Huffington Post, The Independent, and The Stage. She has written commissioned poetry for Vogue and been featured in British Vogue as one of the UK’s young writers to watch.
She is the winner of the 2021 Ruth Rendell award and has been shortlisted for the Rebecca Swift Women’s prize and the Outspoken poetry prize.
Additional Creatives
Dance Artists: Damien Anyasi; Blue Makwana; Chloe Stone
Dance Assistants: Kira Brown; Ebony Robinson; Holly Smith; Vivian Triant
Vocal Tutors: Alice Grant, Clare Caddick, Emily Coates
Vocal Assistants: Ellie Bingham, Caterina Carvalho, Georgina Innes-Myers, Nikita Roberts, Nathan Stubbings
“Through this project I’ve got a profound sense of what this subject matter is doing to young people, what they’re grappling with. This is their life on the line. It’s an incredible opportunity to stand in solidarity with them. It’s potent, it’s powerful. It’s important.”
Co-creators
Dancers
- Trinity Laban Youth Dance Company
- Bellingham Dances
- Deptford Green School Students
- St Matthew Academy Students
Choir
- Beecroft Garden Primary School
- Brent Knoll Primary School
- Brindishe Green Primary School
- Brindishe Manor Primary School
- Dalmain Primary School
- Deptford Park Primary School
- Eliot Bank Primary School
- Gordonbrock Primary School
- Grinling Gibbons Primary School
- Horniman Primary School
- John Ball Primary School
- John Stainer Primary School
- Kender Primary School
- Perrymount Primary School
- Rushey Green Primary School
- St James Hatcham Primary School
- St Stephens Primary School
- St William of York Primary School
- St Winifreds Primary School
- Stillness Infants Primary School
- Tidemill Primary School
- Torridon Primary School
- Trinity Primary School
- All Saints Primary School
“Exploring these songs and their meanings has been a good way for the students at my school to understand what is going on in our borough. I feel privileged to be part of this performance and to know that these songs were written for us. The fact that small children like us can make such a change is wonderful.”
Floss, Brindishe Manor student
Musicians
- Trinity Laban Brass & Wind
- South London Samba
Spoken Word
- Edie Baggot
- Dylan Lewis-Gallego
- Charlotte David
- Hannah Hirson
- Rofeda Bougaga
- Shawyan Street
- Kallai Smith-Honorin
“As a community we can make a change. Let’s take action and look to the future – it’s not too late.”
Mae, Brindishe Manor student
Hope 4 Justice was created and produced by Trinity Laban for We Are Lewisham, and is a co-commission with The Albany. It was part of a wider programme of climate emergency artworks commissioned for We Are Lewisham, the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture for 2022. Special thanks to ESKA, choreographer Sarah Golding, writer Cecilia Knapp and all the wonderful students, musicians and dancers involved.
Hope 4 Justice is supported by Arts Council England, Open Hand, Trinity Laban and the Albany for We Are Lewisham, the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture.