Dancing, Justice and the Black Experience of Sir Steve McQueen

Sir Steven Rodney McQueen CBE

22nd December 2020

Dear Sir Steve

First let me present many congratulations on your knighthood: a well-deserved reward by Her Majesty the Queen in recognition of your extraordinary and generous contributions to World art and British culture. The summit of your achievements (for me, if not for you) was your magnificent film Twelve Years a Slave, which has been a game-changer in the understanding of social relationships in the United States, and also in the British Commonwealth.

Now I am really looking forward to see your TV series Small Axe. Reading Sean O’Hagan’s review of your series in The Guardian Weekly (which I receive in my Covid-enclosed haven in France), I am laughing through the memories of dancing in London West Indian parties during my youth. I may even have danced with your Aunt Molly at a Blues Party in West London with our Ealing neighbours Mabel and Clinton (except that most of their guests were Jamaican), swaying elbow to elbow and thigh to thigh with all the couples crushed into their modest sitting room. I have fond memories of holding fingers with unknown dance partners, dancing sensuously as reggae music drifted through the whisky-infused atmosphere while the tasty fumes of goat stew wafted in from Mabel’s kitchen.

From Lovers Rock which explores Reggae music in London during the 1970s: the second in a series of McQueen’s five films Small Axe (2020) about the Black British experience.

It is difficult to imagine such promiscuity in 2020. Even vast dance spaces are empty. I have not danced since February. We fear Covid and flee contact with people not in our bubble. Mabel’s bubbles contained 50 or 60 people crammed inside one small sitting room, and half a dozen more crammed into her kitchen.

My only problems were the tumblers filled with whisky and coke were two-thirds whisky with coke just to darken the colour; and the fact that Mabel's food never came out before 2.30 am, by which time I had sometimes surrendered and staggered into my bed next-door to recover from an exhausting week of work. I love your hilarious description of waking under a pile of visitors’ coats and jackets. So true! Happy memories.

After Ealing in the early 1970s, I spent most of my career working in West Africa fighting the abominable legacies of colonial repression.

Later I taught in Richmond, Virginia, fighting the omnipresent burdens of slavery. Solomon Northrup, of course, spent some time in a Richmond slave prison.

Lupita Nyongo received an Oscar for her interpretation of Patsey, and Chiwetel Ejiofor starred as the captured and enslaved free man Solomon Northrup in McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave.

The dancing in Virginia has been wonderful, and I have been the beneficiary of an American Celtic revival through Scottish, Irish, Appalachian and other music and dance, as well as an upsurge in interest for - and appreciation of - the West African music that provides the roots of nearly all American dance music. Through music, I have tried to help African Americans realize that they were the creators of modern Virginia, and are descended from great civilizations including the Mali Empire founded by Sunjata Keita, the real Lion King.

My experiences of rural development in Africa (and the cynicism of bilateral development agencies) might supply material for your next film series. Or indeed my experiences of Teaching Timbuktu in Virginia.

I am hugely looking forward to watching your Small Axe series. This is precisely how British culture should be presented and no one could do it better than you.

Best wishes and Merry Christmas !

Robin