Project Detail

Vagabond

Synopsis

This debut feature film, written, choreographed and directed by its leading man, the black dancer Rodrequez King-Dorset, shows a creative dance artist in the grip of a personal crisis.
The film depicts the black ghetto lives of two black boys in England in the 1980s, one a newly arrived African, the other an Afro-Caribbean, and highlights the ethnic tensions between their respective groups. The young black Briton, Lewis, (Troy John plays him as a boy) has to face scorn and misunderstanding from his father when he tries to become a professional dancer. Lewis has a close friendship with the African, Ramsey, (Andante Ajinzea) and a rewarding relationship with an Afro-Caribbean girl friend Maudi, (Naomi James). His African friend is imprisoned for a killing he was forced into in sheer self-defence, and this only adds to Lewis' confusion. He sets out creating a solo dance, which embodies some of his emotions.
The film has a predominantly black cast and was financed on a shoestring budget, largely as a result of the dedicated enthusiasm of all concerned in its making.

Details

Year: 2004
Type of film: Features
Running time: 80 min
Format: 35mm
Director: Rodreguez King-Dorset 1st Feature
Producer: Rodreguez King-Dorset, Mikkel Buda Svak
Editor: Jim Bambrick
Screenwriter: Rodreguez King-Dorset
Director of Photography: Gerry Vasbenter
Sound: Alan Hill
Composer: Wayne Ellington
Principal cast: Rodreguez King-Dorset
Contact: officeofrodreguezkingdorset@gmail.com

Genre

Black Drama

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

100% Negro Films

Rodreguez King-Dorset

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The documentary film explores an unknown chapter in post South African liberation. In 1993, Lady Anya Sainsbury, a former principal ballerina at Royal Ballet in London, met Nelson Mandela at a party in South Africa. They both agreed for her to set up a dance scholarship programme at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London, which provided 23 of South Africa’s talented young dance students between 1995 to 2003, with the opportunity to follow their dance dreams. <br /> The film highlights the personal experiences of six of those dancers that subsequently met Mandela in London at a dinner party in Lady Sainsbury’s house in 1999, they are Mandela’s Dancers. <br /> The film combines archival dance photographs and video footage spanning over fifteen years, with excerpts from the student performances and candid recollections. Mandela’s Dancers is not about the triumph of the human spirit or any other of the top 10 favourite dance clichés. It’s about something far rarer and of vastly greater significance – it’s about real life. It’s about how Nelson Mandela changed the face of contemporary dance!

Rasta

Director: Rodreguez King-Dorset

Year: 2007

Dedan Kimathi Waciuri was the senior military and spiritual leader of the Mau Mau uprising. He led the armed military struggle against the British colonial regime in Kenya in the 1950s until his capture in 1956 and execution in 1957.

Drama

The Black Dance Movement in London 1730-1850