What is Less Talking?
Informal notes on Less Talking events organised during Summer 2022
Less Talking is my greatest work yet because it is a fantastic translation from theory to practice. In this piece, I will explain some of its theories, but simply put the Less Talking ethos is togetherness and reflection. It frequently uses music to instil this ethos, but it is not fixed to this or any of its other features. The features of each event are purely functional tools to achieve the Less Talking ethos. I explain this in detail in the follow-up to this piece, ‘Less Talking is nothing’. But I will use this piece as a Less Talking gallery, explaining the experience and construction of each night. There were two events that specifically utilised the Less Talking label (Less Talking Brighton and Gabriel Dedji presents… Tamilore Awosile at Crouch End) and I organised two other events that embodied the Less Talking ethos (The Books Dem Rooftop cookout and The Black Head Students’ Network Talent Show).
The Books Dem Rooftop Cookout at On.Road- 5th August 2022
The Books Dem is a creative agency which is run by me and my two friends, Nadia and Dejuan. We celebrate diverse areas of Afro-Caribbean diaspora cultures- from black surrealist art to UK sound system culture- through events that intermesh spoken word poetry, live music performances and interactive workshops. We also host workshops and talks for organisations that want to work and contribute towards black culture.
For our 5th August event, we took over a venue named On.Road in Shoreditch, which is used for youth-centred creative projects. I wrote on this in an earlier piece which you can read here, but there are certain features which I would like to highlight as they helped to contribute to the ethos of togetherness.
The space- On.Road felt like a home[1]. It is a three-story building with living rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a garden. As a result, many people commented that it felt like a house party- that we were welcoming them into our home. Even the workshop, which was held in a meeting room on the top floor felt safe because of its enclosed and separate nature.
In the making of Less Talking, I became fixated with the idea of stages. I don’t like them. They pedestalise human beings and force us to think of others as greater than us purely because they are on there. They also create a separation between those on the stage and those in the audience. At this event, all musicians performed in a living room space standing within the audience who were crowded around them, so there was no hierarchy between performers and the audience. This created a feeling of togetherness because the performers were not distant idols as they typically are at concerts; they were friends amongst friends.
The workshops- Interactive workshops are The Books Dem’s most valuable tools because they allow new ideas to synthesise through dialogue and shared experiences. At this event we held a black surrealist art workshop where the audience were able to critically engage with philosophical theories and compare them with their own work and life experiences. This allowed us to develop a conversation around blackness and how we perceive of human beings more generally.
The relaxed and informative nature of the workshop was described as therapeutic by many.
The community- Community exists organically at The Books Dem. Nearly everyone who comes to our events has a personal connection to me, Dejuan or Nadia, so it really is a gathering of friends.
Not only does it exist organically but it creates new relationships too. I met one of my closest collaborators, Tuff Luv- a rap group- when they did their first ever performance at our first Books Dem event at Soho House Shoreditch in May and I know many other people who have developed similar connections from our nights.
Less Talking Brighton- 12th August 2022
Less Talking Brighton was a multi-sensory experience which used visual art, live music and DJ sets to instil togetherness and reflection.
Each piece of art was chosen specifically to reflect a message of togetherness or reflection (I’ll do a separate piece on the art at Less Talking). The guest performers, Prpl.e and Maviis, were chosen because they perform very interactively, using call-and-response structures in their songs. Maviis specifically dances with the audience and speaks to them throughout his set. Both artists’ music has a focus on emotions or togetherness.
My set was tailored to instil reflection. Most of it was instrumental so it pushes people to feel the music rather than interpret any lyrics. A lot of it was improvised as well, so the music was an expression of our emotions at that moment and in interacting with us, listening attentively to each piece, the audience were embedded within our feelings.
The venue was designed perfectly for Less Talking because it had:
A disco ball- Disco balls are staples in venues where dancing is the focus and where everyone’s united focus is to be at one with the music. So culturally it embodies a sense of togetherness. Disco balls are also perfect because they reflect everything in the room, so everything is presented as one when it is reflected from a disco ball. This is the Less Talking ethos.
A balcony with a great view- Good views are great ways to bring people together. It is rare to meet someone who does not enjoy seeing a nice view and people tend to gravitate towards them when the weather is nice, so Soho House Brighton’s balcony view was perfect for bringing people together.
Balconies are also great spaces for quiet contemplation, offering those present the opportunity to reflect on their surroundings, themselves, the art etc. throughout the night.
No stage- Soho House Brighton is another space without a heightened stage, so the performers were at the same level at the audience, allowing them to engage with each other on an equal level. Maviis used the space excellently and spoke to the audience throughout his performance, dancing beside them, passing them the microphone to sing his songs with him. He was truly at one with the audience as performers should be.
Other features which I incorporated into Less Talking Brighton were:
Jenga “Existence precedes essence”- Jenga is a game of individualism in which players pit their interests against each other, knowing that this will lead to a collapse. The often ignored key to doing well at Jenga is to work collectively. If each player acts with the intention to make the game easier for the other, the structure stands for longer. This represents togetherness in society in two specific ways.
It responds to policy. The sociological approach known as the public health method, which I have long been an advocate for, shows us how a key solution to societal problems is to understand society a whole unit and to respond comprehensively to its problems rather than individualising pieces of it and picking at them separately as one would do in Jenga. This view of society as one whole unit showcases the togetherness of the Less Talking Ethos. This method of comprehensive solutions requires different parts of society’s governance- i.e. hospitals, local authorities, schools and families- to work together rather than alone, so this is another way in which society needs togetherness.
It also responds to the fixation on individuals to focus on things that separate them rather than things that draw them together. Players picking at pieces of the Jenga tower to amass for themselves is much like how individuals in society draw at characteristic features- their race, their gender, their tastes in music, their fashion sense etc.- as ways to hyper define themselves. There is nothing wrong with finding your own identity and some of these features are heavily politicised to the extent that individuals cannot escape the reality of these characteristics. But the movement of society towards the war-ground of identity politics is a dangerous one that has been caused by this hyper definition. Philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre state that ‘existence precedes essence’ as a way to preach the values of such hyper self-definition, but given the dangers of polarisation and discord that we have in our society today, how valuable can this concept really be?
Interviewing the audience- I walked through the audience at Less Talking, asking the audience a simple question: ‘how do you feel right now?’. It caught most people off-guard, but as I picked people at random and passed the microphone to them, they were forced to think contemplating on how the experience made them feel.
Gabriel Dedji presents… Tamilore Awosile at Crouch End- 20th August 2022
‘Gabriel Dedji presents…’ was a live jazz soirée headlined by Tamilore Awosile at Crouch End Soho House. We brought together family and friends in the cosy café-like venue to share our work and I adapted the Less Talking model to suit the intimate nature of this event:
Makeshift box “Pentecost”- Rather than asking the audience how they felt verbally, I asked them to write down their feelings on small notes and place them into a box that I made. This forced them to reflect more deeply on their thoughts and feelings in regard to the show and it allowed them the space to express exactly how they had been touched/what they had been touched by.
I also promised the audience that I had larger plans for the notes in the box, which I will share in coming weeks. You’ll understand why I have labelled this feature Pentecost eventually.
It was interesting to see that many of the notes expressed similar feelings. Many of them expressed joy at the feeling of seeing their family and friends excel and contemplation at the ideas of the music and poetry that had been performed.
No art- Visual art is great at instilling self-reflection, but this didn’t necessarily suit the venue which caters to intimate seated events rather than open galleries for people to explore. Additionally, art can often be a private experience. Although Less Talking Brighton used art in a way to promote togetherness and engineered it as part of the audience’s collective experience, the experience of art is very subjective, causing individuals to prioritise their own experience over others.
By taking art away, the audience only had one thing to focus on- the music- so they were sharing in one collective experience throughout.
No stage- Once again, there was no stage at this event and because the venue had a strong café/ lounge vibe where the audience were very close to the stage, the performance felt very conversational: the performers and the audience were both feeding off each other’s expression.
Jenga- There was also Jenga at Crouch End, which suited this event greatly because it is a game for small crowds like the one that was there.
The DJ- Tamilore invited his friend DJ Dan Dans to this event, who played a mixture of highlife and afrobeats. DJ Dan Dans was an amazing DJ and since the audience were largely West Africans, her music choice brought people together through shared culture.
Tamilore- I cannot solely take credit for the success of this event. Tamilore was an instrumental part of making it a great night and bringing a great audience.
His performance style particularly invoked a strong style of togetherness as he invited taught the audience the lyrics to his songs and invited them to sing along, making them a part of his performance too.
Black Head Students’ Network Talent Show at Brixton Soho House- 31st August 2022
The Black Head Students’ Network is a student leadership organisation, which was created by Tamilore Awosile in 2018 to create a community of opportunities and support for black student leaders across the UK. We currently have around 150 members in our network, who live across the world. At the beginning of this year, I took over as President of the network (Tamilore still advises the network as a chair). The talent show was an initiative that I was passionate about from the beginning of my tenure because it would be our first in person event since the pandemic, allowing community to realise itself more tangibly; and it would allow members to express themselves freely, not restricting them to the box of black excellence, which typically accommodates for corporate and academic achievements only.
This was a very relaxed event in which many members met each other for the first time. It was a comfortable space where people shared their poetry, their music and other works, but it was mainly a space for meeting new people and facilitating connections.
Read the follow up to this piece: “Less Talking is nothing” here
[1] I have been thinking specifically of how the architecture of spaces communicates with Less Talking for a while. Architecture as a practice is a reflection of society as a whole, so how can I use or engage with the design of spaces to amplify this ethos?