Calm Roots

Alex Rita debuts Calm Roots in her hometown of Copenhagen joined by longtime collaborator, poet and artist, Rohan Ayinde, and choreographer, dancer and educator Marie Kaae.

Doors: 21:00
Finish: 01:00
TICKETS: https://ra.co/events/2554343
120 kr.

PLEASE NOTE:
- Bring your own blankets/pillow for extra comfort
- This gathering is centred around communal listening.
- Please put your phone on silent

ABOUT

CALM ROOTS is the ongoing practice of London-based multidisciplinary artist, DJ and creative director Alex Rita. What began as a regular two-hour NTS Radio session exploring the meditative corners of her record collection has organically expanded into CALM ROOTS LIVE, bringing the practice into physical space through DJ sets, live performance and collaborations with invited artists.

Within CALM ROOTS LIVE, Alex has developed an ongoing collaborative conversation with longterm friend, artist and poet Rohan Ayinde. Bringing Alex’s meditative selections into conversation with Rohan’s poetry and voice, together they build shifting sonic landscapes that move between music, language and pause. Grounded in a shared desire to dream the world otherwise, their sets become sites for journeying through ideas that are black, feminist, collective and introspective.

Calm Roots has also presented commissions for Lisson Gallery (OJAS/Devon Turnbull: HiFi Listening Room Dream No. 1), Royal Academy Of Arts (Music for Kerry James Marshall), Tate Modern, White Cube and We Out Here Festival, as well as collaborations with Carlos Niño, Nala Sinephro, Saul Williams, sound therapist Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne and on this occasion, longtime friend an co-creator, Rohan Ayinde.

ROHAN AYINDE (he/they) is an anadisciplinary artist and poet working across film, performance, poetry, installation and sound. Through an entanglement with the phenomenon of the black hole, his practice attempts to excavate an architecture of ideology through the analytical framework of black feminist thought. Using language as a starting point, Ayinde’s work seeks to translate and construct landscapes built from freedoms best described by writers like Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Lola Olufemi, Edouard Glissant and Fred Moten.

Ayinde is one half of the collaborative duo i.as.in.we with Yewande YoYo Odunubi. Together they have presented work at the Barbican, Whitechapel Gallery’s London Open Live (2025), Bastard Festival (Trondheim), Art + Public Life (Chicago). Ayinde also has a shared practice with friend and filmmaker, Tayo Rapoport. Their debut work, iwoyi: within the echo, was commissioned for Beyond The Bassline: 500 Years of Black British History at The British Library (2024) and they were finalists for the 2024 CIRCA Prize. Their most recent commission, ęmí: freedomsong, premiered as a special project at 1-54 African Contemporary Art Fair (2025) followed by three sold out live performances at The Barbican Centre (2026)

MARIE KAAE (she/her) is a Kurdish, Cameroonian and Danish choreographer, dancer and educator with over 25 years of experience in the field of performing arts with a background in social science and a passion for poetry. Rooted in the culture and technique of House Dance, she extends into performing arts and choreographic works with a womanist take on modern afrodiasporic expressions celebrating both the grit & grace.

Her Dance practice is informed by disciplined training, historically rooted knowledge & a decade of prioritising to dance in the context of club culture, moving for the love of music and in pursuit of liberation. Her work evolves around the essential relation between music and dance, and topics concerned with truth, soul & healing.

Kaae has been a longtime advocate for the inclusion of street- & club genres in the arts, acted as curator of the professional training program in DANSEHALLERNE and taught at The Danish Performing Arts School (DDSKS). She is a two-time winner of the prestigious battle HOUSE DANCE FOREVER (2015) and frequently travels to perform, teach and judge around the world. She has founded multiple events and clubnights, such as WHOLY SHIT and ALL WE NEED in Copenhagen, and TAP WATER JAM in Paris, providing essential platforms for culture and arts to flourish on the grassroots level.