OMOS is a joyful expression of Black British queer creative existence.
It is a short film whose language is performance: drag, dance, song, spoken word poetry, music. It takes place in a forest, with the final act in a castle. By setting it in this sylvan idyll, it juxtaposes, and at the same time challenges the assumptions that presume a juxtaposition of, artforms which originate in Black and queer experience. Those communities are typically associated with urban centres, indeed the very word ‘urban’ has come to be a generically wooly stand-in for, and frequently a cloaked perjorative for, Black. As are words like ‘contemporary’ and ‘modern’ when used to describe queer lives, relationships and culture, despite queer people existing for as long as there have been people. So by setting it in this seemingly ancient and quintessentially British forest, OMOS insists on the belonging of Black queer persons to this place, that any contrast is in your eye, not in their presence.
It starts with a beautiful dance performed by Divine Tasinda who then wanders through the forest, happening up the others, who join this journey towards the castle. The director, Rhys Hollis, described it like The Wizard of Oz, but watching it, I thought it looked more like a pilgrimage. Like Chaucer, with each person telling their own story, then continuing together on this shared journey. Especially when it ends in this vaulted castle hall with the performers singing together in exhultation. It is a hallelujah, not in worship of another, but a joy at their own existence, something which has been subject to such violence, silence, and erasure, which now shouts out in defiant survival, reclamation, and life-affirming creativity, I am here!
There is background to the film, which adds interesting context, but is not necessary to know to enjoy it. It is set in Puck’s Glen and Stirling Castle. In 1594, a performance was put on in Stirling Castle for King James VI, due to feature a lion. But as fear of the lion spread, they decided to switch it out, and instead an unnamed Black man pulled a chariot through the hall. The incident was said to have inspired the inclusion of the part of the Lion in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and it is from that play that the forest gets its name, Puck’s Glen. OMOS was originally drawn from the line in Shakespeare’s play, “O monstrous! O strange!” but has come to stand for Our Movement Our Stories. The performers in OMOS are part of that long legacy of Black artists in Scotland, a Black Scottish history that goes untold.
Such a beautiful, interesting and joyful film.