Friday night and Brighton Dome had been transformed into a multi-coloured, multi-dimensional sci-fi womb.
A welcome and much-needed Brighton Festival event celebrating the other and a freshness in seeing a much younger and more diverse crowd. The concert hall was decorated with UV lights, balloons, visuals and live DJ sets.
Short live performances were peppered throughout the night, with avant-garde choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe taking his expressive dance to the audience standing area; Rachel Young’s hypnotic performance incorporating a strong afro-futurist aesthetic; and Lasana Shabazz’s short but fierce dance piece.
New Orleans headliner Big Freedia took to the stage in a frenzy, properly kicking things off for the whole night with her special gender-bending hip-hop brand of bounce music. More than just performing, Freedia is also her own MC, channelling the spirit of the night through audience participation, many who would then come on stage to celebrate in a ceremony of twerking.
Freedia ran through the hits such as Y’all Get Back Now and Gin In My System, her latest single Rent as well as merging Beyonce’s Formation and Adele’s Hello, later ending her set humbly and appreciatively walking into the crowd saying thank you to as many audience members as she could whilst singing the classic My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion.
The night itself felt like the beginning of something bigger. The joys and beauties of diversity in all its forms is so rarely seen nor expressed. Having this paralleled with Big Freedia’s headline performance, an artist who is beginning to be heard in the mainstream but so rarely seen, is a sign of greater things to come.
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