Melanin Box Festival at Theatre Peckham this summer

A festival of black British creatives is back this summer at Theatre Peckham on August 4-5.

Melanin Box Festival sold out at the Bussey Building in 2015 on its debut with performance art, offering the very best new talent across theatre, film, music and dance.

Its focus is to increase visibility and artistic opportunities for BME creatives in the UK, while highlighting depictions of black people beyond preconceptions.

It was created and curated by collaborative arts duo initiative.dkf, whose vision statement is to “normalize black British narratives and atypical storytelling”.

MBF want to bridge the gap, break down stereotypes and bring the many diverse black British experiences and subcultures to light.

Its 2015 three-day debut was the first of its kind to provide such a platform for BME creatives to showcase their work at that level.

Its participants have now gone on to achieve greatness in their arenas, including Seraphina Beh, Kayode Ewumi and 2015 Synergy award winner Tobi Bamtefa.

Now supported by the Arts Council England, this year’s festival is spread over two days of competition and celebration.

It aims to discover new narratives and ways to tell old ones through performances by emerging musicians, poetry, comedy and much more.

Laurence Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Bola Agbaje is one of the confirmed acts.

There will be a screening of The Right Choice by award-winning director Tomisin Adepeju, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, as well as powerhouse vocalist Ruth Brown, semi-finalist from the first series of BBC One’s The Voice.

Also confirmed are award-winning poet Yomi Sode and rising British soul star Kadeem Tyrell.

The competition element of Melanin Box will run across both days of the event, with day one focusing on the Pandora Award Competition, where the winning theatre piece is awarded a £400 development bursary and staging, while day two is all about the Synergy Competition for actors, with professional masterclasses.

Melanin Box Festival 2018 takes place on August 4-5 at Theatre Peckham. Advanced tickets are available at https://mbf18.eventbrite.co.uk.