built of floating seeds
Electric Pink Voices
Written in collaboration with Electric Pink Voices, Michael Betteridge and mandla
Electric Pink Voices is an LGBTQ+ choir based in Blackpool, celebrating music, creativity and connection. They worked with mandla, a Zimbabwean-born, agender and queer writer, performer, curator, dramaturg and occasional producer to co-create a new song, in collaboration with composer Michael Betteridge, and captured this in a music video.
The video shows the choir members on the sea front in Blackpool, before the singers dance and perform together in a musical cabaret in vibrant costume. The kaleidoscope imagery in the text is brought to life in the video as the visuals shift and change in bright colours.
built of floating seeds
our coterie is built of floating seeds
we gently rustle in the breeze
filling the air with colourful petals,
like butterflies catching the light.
landing in the safe arms of an unconditional love
that tastes like a metallic electric shock,
blossoming in the depths of springtime days
incensed by long lost memories of years gone by.
through attempts to silence,
we bloom
through fading lipstick
and cracked make-up
we smile
we smile
dancing on a firepit
of fear and shame
stomping out the embers with
bravery and self-preservation
we smile
we smile
adorned in a bulletproof vest
made of powerful pansies and
filled to the brim with
lavender menacing sappho’s violets,
eccentric oscar’s gang of green carnations
festoon over love-in-a-mist brogues
chasing the-bush in a flabbergasted haze,
kiss-me-twice-before-i-rise
on my spiky rosebush spine
we cannot be contained to only one name
lgbtq++-supercalafragalistic-expialidocius-
don’t you dare endeavour to define us!
our coterie is built of floating seeds
that fly high ‘til they become stardust.
through attempts to silence,
we bloom
through fading lipstick
and cracked make-up
we smile
we smile
dancing on a firepit
of fear and shame
stomping out the embers with
bravery and self-preservation
we smile
we smile
in blissful harmony,
we build a kaleidoscopic library
to immortalise our memories;
even the ones yet to come.
hand in hand,
we walk through words that speak
the hunger in our hearts into existence.
defiantly, we endlessly archive
clandestine historic trysts
for they are so easily hidden
if not vociferously shouted and screamed
from generation to generation.
through attempts to silence,
we bloom
through fading lipstick
and cracked makeup
we smile
we smile
dancing on a firepit
of fear and shame
stomping out the embers with
bravery and self-preservation
we smile
we smile
​
Creative Team Credits
Composer, Michael Betteridge
Writer, mandla
Movement Director, Ruth Jones
Filmmaker, Luca Rudlin
Sound Engineer, Johnny Woodhead
Creative Producer, Holly Hunter