Certain Blacks presents Black Athena Festival featuring performance, sound and dance. Featuring artists from the UK and beyond, Black Athena Festival fosters innovative international collaborations while platforming bold new work. The festival opens at Rich Mix on 13 March 2026, and runs with events also at The Place, until 18 April 2026.

The festival reflects on inherited cultural narratives and the importance of recognising difference within contemporary UK society.

“Who decides what is considered culture? Is it contemporary ballet, dance, and music? Is it based on the ideas of ‘cultured’ men such as Shakespeare and the empires, kings and queens he wrote about? Or the themes of The Age Of Enlightenment that have been championed by Western civilisation? Black Athena challenges perceived ideas of culture. This festival presents work that highlights modern cultures and challenges norms.”
Clive Lyttle, Certain Blacks Artistic Director

Queer Highlight Of Black Athena Festival:

STÙRM by Livia Kojo Alour at Rich Mix

Wednesday 18 March, 7:30 pm, 60mins, £15/12

Stúrm fuses live art with sound and is one of the shows being staged at Certain Blacks Black Athena Festival, which runs at Rich Mix and The Place.

Livia Kojo Alour is an award-winning Nigerian – German-born queer poet, writer, musician, and theatremaker based in London.

STÙRM is a live-art concert that explores climate anxiety and collective healing through an Afro-futuristic lens, as experienced by Black people living in the diaspora.

Drawing on the healing properties of sound frequencies, Livia Kojo Alour fuses orchestral music, vocals, spoken word, and visuals into a futuristic garden of her imagination.

This performance is both a call to action and a contemplative experience; the show introduces rest as anti-capitalist resistance.

Buy STÙRM tickets now.

Black Athena Festival Programme:

The Science of Dub at Rich Mix

Friday 13 March, 7:30pm, £15/12

Immersive sound and performance event The Science of Dub, devised and led by Tony T with a full live band alongside ambient-dub pioneer Greg Hunter and esteemed producer and mix maestro Scientist, in an exclusive London appearance. This event will explore dub as both a cultural art form and a live mixing performance, using a Dolby Atmos/Sony 360/Ambisonic setup to offer the audience an unprecedented dub experience: spatial, three-dimensional, and dynamically shaped in real time.

+ Friday 13 March, 11am – 4pm, Rich Mix – The Science of Dub Workshop £30

Graffiti Bodies XV by Dam Van Huynh at Rich Mix

Saturday 14 March, 7:30 pm, 90mins, £15/12

Graffiti Bodies XV by Dam Van Huynh offers a sensory explosion of dance, sound art, poetry, sculpture, and visual imagery, in collaboration with the prolific, multifaceted vocal and movement artist Elaine Mitchener. A new Certain Blacks commission, this work is inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1981 painting La Hara, an artwork that addressed police brutality. Graffiti Bodies XV reflects on themes of marginalisation.

Waterside by Kininso Creative at Rich Mix

Friday 20 March, 7:30pm, 90 min, £15/12

Nigerian theatre company Kininso Creative presents Waterside, a story of two friends on a journey of discovery, delving into totemism, community, and the realities young people face in the Niger Delta. Combining clowning, rhetoric and contemporary African theatre practices, Waterside is an emotional and magical journey into tradition, family and fate.

Rising Mirrors / Miroirs en ascension / Kitalatala ya ntombua at Rich Mix

Saturday 21 March, 7:30pm, £15/12

Certain Blacks join forces with Senegal’s Kimpavita Festival, created by Collektif Sankarista – a pan-African, feminist, eco-responsible initiative. From the UK, Pid’or Tampa will create a new, movement-based work with Senegalese dance artist Dominica Maboudou aka ‘Candela’ on Saturday 21 March. Titled Rising Mirrors / Miroirs en ascension / Kitalatala ya ntombua, this cross-cultural collaboration will be presented in both Senegal and the UK in 2026, the culmination of a British Council-funded project, with further details to be announced.

RONiN by Yukiko Masui at The Place

Friday 17 & 18 April, 7.30pm, 60 mins, £20/16

Black Athena Festival culminates at The Place with RONiN on 17 and 18 April, Yukiko Masui’s anime-infused dance/theatre piece following a fearless swordfighter. Inspired by the legacy of Japan’s masterless samurai, the piece travels through Japan’s four seasons through interactive projections that mirror the heroine’s self-discovery.