Font size
Letter spacing
Line height
Highlight titles
Hide images
Reading mask
Highlight links
Black cursor
White cursor
High contrast
Soft contrast
Black and white
Audio Description

Disenfranchised Grief

A dance film by Diana Amma-Gyankoma Abankwah

This 2.5-min long original bilingual dance film tackles the themes of disenfranchised grief, family estrangement, mental illness and the aftermath of life as a suicide loss survivor. It is choreographed, produced and performed by Diana Amma Gyankoma, with the artist’s own vocals inspired by ‘The Sound of Silence’ melody. It is dedicated to her sister, Maria Abankwah-Larsen, who lost her life to suicide in July 2024.

By Diana Amma-Gyankoma Abankwah

About Diana Amma Gyankoma Abankwah | The Psyber Giantess

Born and raised in Botswana, Diana Amma Gyankoma Abankwah is a Ugandan-Ghanaian interdisciplinary performance artist, dance maker, musician and writer based in Stoke-on-Trent where she emigrated from Rwanda in 2022.

Diana’s practice is an experimental blend of live performance art that combines experimental cross-genre dance improvisation (influenced by tribal fusion, amapiano dance, and Bharatnatyam) and music as the primary forms of storytelling.  She also fuses voice; physical theatre; drag; immersive technologies; and social commentary on generational trauma, spirituality and repressed queerness. Her work seeks to challenge and resist current portrayals and restrictions on Black African identity and performance art.

She has performed her solo afro-psychedelic live-art performance titled Trance-fixed in Wonderland: Stranger Than Psy-Fi — for Stoke-on-Trent Pride, Ensemble Festival in London, and Let’s Dance International Frontiers 2024 as artist-in-residence with Serendipity UK Institute for Black Arts and Heritage. 

You can find more of Diana’s work on Instagram and YouTube.

Related

Grief + joy befriend

AJ Venturini explores how grief and joy are deeply interconnected in the process of personal transformation and collective liberation

 red book sits on paving stone and grass. Cover has colourful round drawing in the centre. Title Tending Grief above it with underneath: Embodied rituals for holding our sorrow and growing cultures of care in community. Camille Sapara Barton. Image has orange filter on it

Why we need grief in our social movements

The Dagara people see regular grief tending as necessary for the health of the community. Why don’t we do the same? asks Camille Sapara Baron in this excerpt from their book Tending Grief

 Orangey-brown housing estate against a grey sky

Community grieving in the endz

Sara Bafo shares her reflections on grief and healing in the endz

 Illustration of an open lighter with a flame coming out, set against more flames with the words 'somos fuego' on top all in black and white

Somos fuego: Amulets from the Locus* project

Amulets made by participants of the Locus* art workshop with Nada Colectivo

 Shadows of flowers and leaves with bright white sun streaks on a brown wall

Convalescence

Poetry and free writing exploration of convalescence by Saskia Horton