★★★★ The Scotsman
Grin 2019 “Both Nyembo and Tasinda were born in the Congo but now live in Scotland, and with Broomes are questioning how their black skin and African/Caribbean movement is viewed. The show’s title refers to the need for people to smile through oppression – to pretend to be something you’re not”
★★★★ The List
Grin 2019 “drumming and dancehall rhythms shake positive vibes into the room as the dancers get more and more loose and joyful, defiantly refusing 'to be rendered abject” Dance International Glasgow 2019
The List on Grin
“Starting life as a solo, V/DA's Grin has grown into a powerful duet, challenging perceptions of African and Caribbean dance. We meet the team bringing the show to Dance International Glasgow” Dance International Glasgow 2019
★★★★ Sonic Séance The List
“V/DA show is an inventive and beautiful piece of dance theatre” Sonic Sènance Take Me Somewhere Festival 2019
The List Magazine on Sonic Séance.
V/DA's Sonic Séance 'emerges as an expression of anger against the dominance of colonialist narratives' by Deborah Chu
The Skinny - Mele Broomes on Sonic Sèance 2019
★★★★★ Broadway Baby
"Void replaces Ballard's white male protagonist with a black female one, and this shift brings the 40-year-old story right into the present day. Instead of a tragic figure trapped in the the amoral technological jungle of modernity, we see a desperate figure outside the system, trying to break in through the layers of privilege, patriarchy and institutional racism." VOID Edinburgh Fringe 2018
★★★★★ The Wee Review
“Broomes is elegant, stiff; undulating, and jagged…Hers is intelligent choreography informed of its own history and devoid of pretentiousness or self-consciousness.” VOID Edinburgh Fringe 2018
★★★★ The Guardian/Sunday Observer
"Punchy, intimate dance...Broomes has taken Ballard’s modern-day Robinson Crusoe and replaced him with a black woman, whose desperate attempts to adjust to terrifying and alien circumstances are revealed as a metaphor for the immigrant experience." VOID Edinburgh Fringe 2018
"Great credit goes to the dynamic Broomes, who generously turns herself upside down, literally and figuratively, to articulate the emergence of new ways of being, grounded in authenic experience" VOID Edinburgh Fringe 2018
★★★★ Fest Mag
"Powerful multimedia dance-theatre disturbs the senses and the status quo...Void is an inescapably powerful piece of work, both in its message and its sense-jangling form." VOID Edinburgh Fringe 2018
The List Magazine
VOID Edinburgh Fringe 2018: Into the VOID: 'Colonialism is this mental disturbance by Deborah Chu
★★★★ The Skinny
"Spiky show of arms and legs, draped with video projection, both powerful and desperate" VOID Dance International Glasgow 2017
Lorna Irvine "Grins all round, the very epitome of exuberance and black positivity." Grin Premier Tramway 2017
★★★★The Herald
"VOID assails you, unnerves you on many levels with Broomes unstintingly at the heart of the risk-taking VOID Tramway Debut 2016