“Am I filming from love or am I filming from fear?” This is the question that London-based filmmaker, storyteller and integrative coach, Maleena Pone, was constantly asking herself when filming her debut Channel 4 documentary Saving Mum: Our Family Secret.

What if dance could dismantle oppression? Artists Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira have spent years collaborating and developing choreographic methods to challenge the very structures that constrain bodies through race, sexuality, and gender. Their latest work, “Repertório No. 1”, interrogates the widespread societal violence enacted on black bodies and imagines how to create a future where the body can become a space of protection against the mechanisms of brutality.

Africa has made waves in society by presenting a rejection to woke culture and binary thinking, which has echoed globally as seen in ITV, BBC Radio One, BBC Radio 4, BBC Sounds, and acclaimed podcasts such as Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO and The Jordan B Peterson podcast.

It is an afternoon in London as Africa jolts her infectious smile over Zoom, and the warmest inviting “Hello darling!” as she opens up to talk about how society is constantly decentering human authenticity by enforcing collective thinking and rigid societal standards.

Ahead of presenting the Spring 2024 iteration of Out, an award-winning performance celebrating queerness through dancehall, the transdisciplinary experience-maker Ray Young speaks to us about the creative approach of their dynamic duet piece that celebrates how queerness intersects Black and Caribbean communities alongside confronting how homophobia and transphobia may haunts them.

Bringing together installation, performance and drawing ‘Their mouths were full of bumblebees but it was me who was pollinated’ is a multidisciplinary exhibition that investigates the significance of rave culture and how it fosters an environment for gay men of Arabic heritage and beyond.

Kokoroko is a Jazz Afrobeat fusion band that bridges a cross-cultural and generational gap. Their concoction of afro-swing takes the seeds of an era gone to plant something anew.

Katayoun Jalilipour is a writer, performer and lecturer that knows all about putting on a performance.

THIIIRD Magazine speaks to singer song-writer Ruth B about spending alone time to actualise passions and sense of self during lockdown.