Sometime in 2021 (the covid years), I was changing my instagram @ and thought of blemmefatale and have used it since. Like Black Femme Fatale. Fast forward to March 2020, I won the History Shaper Fund to do I’NA SUIT YOU, a historical research and theatre-making project to creatively engage and teach a group of young Caribbean teenagers empowering them to make a play and produce an e-book. The research centered around the origins, development, assimilation and appropriation of Jamaican Patois in the diaspora with a focus on London. 

 

The play I’NA SUIT YOU was performed at Streatham Space Project on 7th - 9th September 2023. 

 

The e-book “I’NA SUIT YOU: what do a group of London yutes know about Jamaican Patois” will be presented at Pop Brixton on Wednesday 1st November 2023 in celebration of Black History Month. 

 

This amazing summer of learning, translating, collaborating saw our team of amazing Caribbean creatives who have put in so much effort, time and lived experiences to make this experience happen. We are incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to create and demonstrate how we can reach our mother tongue.

 

We held our first workshop on Tuesday 25th July 2023. The collective were led by the talented Olivia Fraser on a film shoot for the film “ODE TO PATOIS”. The film celebrated patois and showcased lovely grillz from Milk and Honey. This was a beautiful natural collaboration that came to be from Twitter. 

 

We had our first history lessons on Thursday 3rd August 2023 led virtually by Liz Millman and Natalie Fagan-Brown from Jamaica History Links. We dived into the origins of Patois and the various languages shaping it. 

 

On Friday 4th August 2023, we were joined by Rayon Johnson who delivered a dub-poetry workshop. This is where we saw the start of poems and themes that ended up in the final performance. 

 

Curmiah St Catherine (dramaturg), led the collective on Monday 7th August 2023 in a creative writing workshop. Looking into where our stories fit into the history of Patois, the session unlocked poems like LORD KITCHENER and CREOLE INFANCY.  We were joined by Liz Millman and Natalie Fagan-Brown in person hailing from the Midlands and North Wales.

 

We went into rehearsal from Monday 21st August at Streatham Space Project roughly around 11 - 4pm a day. We should have shorter rehearsal days. We only had two weeks of rehearsal. I would have loved longer but time constraints (we needed to do the first show on Miss Lou’s birthday) and availability made the situation. 

 

Curmiah pieced together poems, research and a story plan to produce a first day of rehearsals script. The team spent the first week fleshing out the script more and finding their characters in the story. 

 

The team spent the second week learning lines, dancing, drumming, eating, teching, promoting and getting ready for performing and speaking Jamaican Patois on stage. 

 

The team went back to school on Monday 4th September and we regrouped for our dress rehearsal on Wednesday 6th September 2023 which Kelis Graham photographed. 

 

Our first show was on Thursday 7th September 2023 - Miss Louise Bennett-Coverley’s heavenly birthday. Founder of Cold Islander, Tamera Heron, led a Q&A with Lamesha Ruddock, Creative Director of BLEMME FATALE PRODUCTIONS, who was joined by the young collective.

 

On Friday 8th and 9th September 2023, we added in Q&As for the audience to ask the young collective about their cultural journey and experience on the project.

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I invited the young collective to GOD FORGIVE US, WE HAVE BURNT A SAINT which Freya attended. A first look into what kind of shows the production company makes!

On Wednesday 27th September 2023, I took my collective and fellow BLEMME FATALES to see the Effect at the National Theatre. Thank you to the team and Paapa Essiedu for sorting this out! We left the show feeling electric and in awe of such compelling performances. Our larger than life laughter, our ad libs of “cacca faat” forever immortalised in this recorded performance for the National Theatre archive.