Spirits of the Black Meridian

Summer 2025

Oct 27

Written By Nicholas Rice

This immersive and interactive promenade performance brings to life the hidden stories of Black people in Greenwich, Southeast London, uncovering their influence on British culture, cities, and world views.

A new promenade, immersive and interactive outdoor drama created by leading diverse artists, based on original archival research.
Spirits of the Black Meridian brings to life the hidden, diverse pioneering stories of those global majority pioneers from the 18thC to present day whose lives and contribution reshaped our culture, landscape, cities & world view forever.
Lines of longitude, also called meridians, are imaginary lines that divide the Earth. They run north to south from pole to pole, but they measure the distance east or west. The prime meridian, which runs through Greenwich, England, has a longitude of 0 degrees. It divides the Earth into the eastern and western hemispheres.
In 1884 an international conference chose a line that ran through the telescope at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The decision recognised that the Thames estuary, Greenwich and the docks as the centre of global maritime power and trading routes.
That Empire wrapped itself around the globe, carving out new shipping lanes, linking colonial possessions and raw materials with manufacture at home. In the 18th and 19th centuries merchant shipping moved goods – and people – in and out of Britain. The Thames went out to the world, but it was also the conduit that brought people to us.
Spirits of the Black Meridian sees Dervish bring diverse voices of Longitude to life, and connects them in a series of conversations through time and space using the imaginative playground of theatre.
Working with renowned Black archivist S. I. Martin and a diverse team of creatives, the work seeks to map onto the landscape and buildings, sculpted to project imperial power, the submerged voices that once walked this plot of land - the enslaved, freeman and women, the local working class, sailors, adventurers, political agitators, the destitute, and the ‘colonial subjects’ who came and settled in the UK.
Dervish’s 2025 production connects us today to the historical movements and unrepresented people whose impact and agency shaped the society, the culture, architecture and public spaces of the world we inhabit.
Follow the route of this production with our interactive map and get to know the historical characters and events featured.
View map
Hassan Mahamdallie – Director and Playwright
SI Martin – Historian and Cultural Advisor
Rachana Jadhav – Award-winning Theatre Designer
Jeanefer Jean-Charles – Choreographer and Movement Director
Isobel Hawson – Producer
Cheng Qian – Assistant Producer
Mohammed Ali / Soul City Arts – Outdoor Specialist
Josh Garner / Inon Productions – Film, Animation and Projection Specialist
Awate Abdalla – Acclaimed Eritrean Rapper and Composer
‘That was completely epic. Huge congratulations on your amazing show. Wonderful storytelling and such clever use of the buildings’.
Bradley Hemmings: Greenwich and Docklands Festival
‘A tremendous production. I get a shivery feeling thinking back on the show. There was such a powerful feeling of psychogeography about it. The way that the performers just quietly appeared in my peripheral vision at the start, gave me a visceral sense that Spirits of the Black Meridian have always been there’.
Errol Francis - Culture&
“An incandescent example of theatre as revolutionary act”.
Review by Naomi Foyle Writers Mosaic
Audience Members
‘Extraordinary site-specific, immersive theatre. Highly recommended’.
‘Such poetic writing and strong acting, which was so powerful in that backdrop with a beautiful sunset’.
‘Emotional, timely & urgent work! Seeing Black elders projected onto the walls of a former imperial palace was so powerful. I also thought the actors moved around the grounds seamlessly - like ghosts they seemed to just fade out/in as if out of nowhere’.
The Premiere of the film of the film Spirits of the Black Meridian, Bathway Theatre, University of Greenwich, London SE18 6QX, 2 July 2026
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