Words by Francesca Matthys.
“Reggae is an art form that touches everyone” says Jamaican born multidisciplinary artist Akeim Toussaint Buck. Buck is in the midst of choreographing and touring his latest dance theatre production Free to tour across West Yorkshire, with a three night run at Sadler’s Wells East in London this November.
Free embarks on a powerful quest for a place of no limitations on people’s way of life and way of being. We sing: “take me to a place where I am free, leave the people dem so they can see.” An immersive performance accompanied by original music with strong reggae and hints of jazz influences written and performed by ‘Buck and The Magnificence’, held together by the storytelling nature of Toussaint To Move’s world. Gather, skank and lively up yourself, till we are all Free.
It’s been a couple of months of being immersed in the world of Free as a performer myself and the richness of this world is palpable. Buck’s sonic and choreographic world creates space for a diverse collective of artists from the African and Caribbean Diaspora to be thoroughly inspired by his research, allowing an autonomy of their own lived experiences within this.
Although reggae emerged in 1960s Jamaica, its many elements find roots in Africa. For Buck, it was important for this iteration of Free to have a cast with diverse connections to both African and Caribbean heritages, directly honouring Jamaica’s motto ‘out of many one people’.
Buck goes on to share his reverence for Alvin Ailey’s expression of Blood Memories within his work; used to describe a collection of memories and experiences from one’s early life or ancestral lineage, that inform creative practice and in this case choreography or movement impulses. “People of African descent, when we are researching our movements sometimes touch on traditional movements that you never learnt in an educational context or maybe not even at home, but it is in you. I trust that, even if the dancer who it’s coming out of, doesn’t know…or feels uncomfortable while they are doing it, that is authentic and that happened to me in going to dub nights,when a certain song hits you a certain way…” says Buck.
This amalgamation of ancestral stories truly reflects the abundant culture within reggae itself, drawing from American soul and R&B music as well as traditional African music as a tool for resistance and to illustrate social issues. “There are reflections of resistance all over the world” says Buck and thus Free speaks to everyone.
Buck expresses that his wish for Free is for it to like reggae, become an artefact. “When, god willing, the world changes and oppressive systems are dismantled… for me as an artist I come from the school of Nina Simone where I believe I have a responsibility to speak about the society I live in.”
Birthed in 2013, and a work that Buck shares to be timeless, Free traverses an intergenerational playing field that creates space for everybody to access it from their own proximity to the culture of the work and life experience. A landscape where respected elders such as Dr H Patten, and Beverly Glean Artistic Director of IRIE! dance theatre, have infused parts of themselves into the process through mentorship and sharing of wisdom.
Free is also a vital work for the younger generations of future Black dancers who will see people that look like themselves, performing this show. “That came later in my life, to see people that look like me, dance in a show that is my culture!’’ exclaims Buck.
Free, as a trans-temporal dance theatre experience, is in dialogue with inherited wisdoms, ancestral lands, forefathers and foremothers that are vital to our current realities. Both personal and political. In fact, most Black and marginalised artists never separate the personal from the political. As the performers in Free embody deities on a spiritual quest, they land, discover, worship, conquer, march on and stand firm in the face of injustices and inequalities.
As an artist, Buck strives to make work that is accessible and relatable to a diverse audience, wishing for Free to be shared with working class audiences as well as the upper echelon who at times may be oblivious to the issues experienced on the ground.
Free encourages these expansive connections with all people, through its involvement of a community cast in each location it tours to. Thus far, generous community cast members in Stockton and Leeds have been part of not only an opportunity for community members to be immersed in the show’s vibrant world, but also serve as an extension of the work. This gives audiences members permission to truly be ‘free’ in the theatre environment.
Thus far, audiences have expressed their sense of joy and inability to stand still while experiencing Buck’s latest work. A reminder of Bob Marley’s words ‘One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.’ Through this reflection, as a work of art, Free does not negate the pain and atrocities, it acknowledges them, and in fact honors our cultural traditions as African and Caribbean diasporic people where celebration, ritual, mourning and protest are all held by our inseparable practices of ritual through music and dance.
As a South African artist myself, it is freeing to be part of a process that honors the fabric of my being. Especially in the UK where being a Black or an artist of colour is a minority experience. Buck speaks of freedom as something that is “always shifting… I have always been thinking of freedom since I was a child.” To him, freedom is “being grateful for existing in this moment and having the freedom to change.”
Change is a word that feels ever so present in this journey of freedom. How we choose to draw from our histories and combine them with our current lived realities, how we choose to rewrite narratives both of our own stories but also of conventional ways of being within the dance and theatre industries. Choosing to change our perspectives, changing habitual ways and “practicing our freedoms by using our voices” as Buck says.
With Buck’s largest scale choreographic work to date, he states that “we need not a pacifier but a medicine” that society is in grave need of sustainable healing – and that works like this open up space for these fruitful possibilities.
Free will next be performed at Sadler’s Wells East from the 6th-8th November 2025 as well as Bradford Arts Centre on the 21st November 2025. Header image by Francis Fitzgerald.