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Rommi Smith. Photo: Lizzie Coombes.
Book tickets
Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025
Rommi Smith is honoured to present a brand new work to mark forty years since Lubaina Himid’s groundbreaking exhibition The Thin Black Line.
Inspired by a copy of Maud Sulter’s Zabat – a poetry collection gifted to her at sixteen – Smith draws a line of creative influence from Sulter’s words through Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985–2025 and into her own poetry. She will perform this new spoken word piece in collaboration with composer and musician Christella Litras (keyboard/vocals).
Light refreshments will be served.
Click here to explore the full exhibition and event programme.
Rommi Smith is honoured to present a brand new work to mark forty years since Lubaina Himid’s groundbreaking exhibition The Thin Black Line.
Inspired by a copy of Maud Sulter’s Zabat – a poetry collection gifted to her at sixteen – Smith draws a line of creative influence from Sulter’s words through Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985–2025 and into her own poetry. She will perform this new spoken word piece in collaboration with composer and musician Christella Litras (keyboard/vocals).
Light refreshments will be served.
Click here to explore the full exhibition and event programme.
Bios
Rommi Smith is a poet, playwright, performer, librettist, curator, broadcaster and academic who writes about, and in response to, visuality, art and archives. Rommi has written in response to the work of: Sonia Boyce, Curtis Holder and Charmaine Watkiss. Fusing original poetry and music, in collaboration with other creatives (including musician and composer Christella Litras), Rommi works to reimagine art gallery spaces through participatory experiences.
Rommi’s curatorial work invites audiences to think with her in rewriting ideas of Britishness and British culture. As Writer-in-Residence for the TopFoto archive, Rommi curated Changing The Story: Photographs of British Life in Black and White (1917-1962).
Rommi has an outstanding and exemplary portfolio of distinguished writing residencies and commissions to her name at organisations including: Houses of Parliament, BBC, British Council, Keats House, Harewood House and The Wordsworth Trust. A special edition of BBC Radio’s The Verb is dedicated to the themes of her residency: Liberation Narratives. Rommi’s academic research is published by New York University Press and Routledge. Full Moon on Progress Street, the BBC Radio 3 essay series is based on her academic research into the hidden lives of the great Jazz and Blues women. A second series has just received a commission – and will be broadcast in 2026. Rommi is a judge for the Forward Prize for Poetry 2025.
Christella Litras is an award-winning composer, musician, songwriter, musical director, choir-leader, and producer for theatre, performance, the recording industry and film. Productions include: Searching for the Heart of Leeds, Queen of Chapeltown & Nine Night (Leeds Playhouse); Yellow is the Colour of Sunshine (Tutti Frutti); The Legends of Them by Sutara Gayle (Brixton House/The Royal Court), winner of Offie award for Best Performance in 2024; and the award-winning Windrush Movement of the People (Phoenix Dance), made into a BBC film.
In 2022, Christella composed her first Opera, Power (Northern Opera). In 2023, Christella’s Soca-remix of The Kaiser Chiefs, I Predict a Riot, was performed live during the opening ceremony of Leeds 2023.
Christella has toured and shared a stage with artists including: Jamiroquai, Beverley Knight, Peabo Bryson, Martha Reeves, Candi Staton, Kim Weston and Martha Walsh. Christella is a featured singer in Sting and Katie Prince’s West End Production of Message in a Bottle, whose musical director is Hamilton’s Alex Lacamoire. Christella collaborates with world-renowned producer, Glen Scott (Repute records) on various recording and artist development projects, including providing backing vocals for: Erib Bibb (Kensaltown Studios), Ricardo Ajorna (Abbey Road Studios/Kensaltown Studios).
Inspired by her mentor Geraldine Connor (creator of Carnival Messiah), Christella founded the award-winning Caution Collective, to develop the talent of local young singers. She is the Creative Director of Music House, Leeds.
Christella Litras
Book tickets
07:00 pm
Tue, 19 Aug 2025
Stage
£15 full price / £13 concessions
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
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