*Photo credit: Claire Leach

Fred Waine from Unhinged Music joined Jeanefer Jean-Charles MBE for her performance of Patois at Brighton Festival in May 2024.

He wrote:

"Along with a sizeable audience seated on the floor and benches on Brighton’s pedestrian boardwalk, opposite the Victorian-era Metropole Hotel, I find myself before a low stage, adorned only with a pair of flags and several stacks of tartan suitcases, all coloured in vivid blue, yellow and black. The sense of removal to an exotic destination is therefore present even before the five-strong dance troupe emerge through the crowd, announcing that ‘we’re off to Saint Lucia’, the eastern Caribbean island whose national colours are represented onstage. The dancers’ cheery, childlike tone, exaggerated movement and breaking of the fourth wall contrast the serious, academic tenor that the piece’s title and description might have suggested (and delight the numerous families in the audience).

Read the full review here.