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Drum Calls Cosmos

African and diasporic dances reveal circles of connection between the past, present and future. Dance and poetry reframe popular music in this docu-fiction. A scientific premise is that rhythm codes are transmitted by muscle memory – the same memory you use to drive a car – and not by DNA or blood. While African rhythms resist colonialism, rhythms of the Americas express resilience, creativity, and diasporic spirituality. Drum Calls Cosmos is a 12-minute version of the sister film Drum Calls | Body Recalls (19min). An interactive musical map accompanies the film: https://unityatlantic.org/

  • Deirdre C. Molloy
    Director
  • Kamau Brathwaite
    Writer
  • Deirdre Molloy
    Producer
  • Miguel Bica
    Producer
  • Deirdre C. Molloy
    Key Cast
  • Aurélie Capelle-Sigère
    Key Cast
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Le Tambour Appelle le Cosmos
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short, Student
  • Genres:
    dance, screendance, ethnography
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes 20 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 15, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    8,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Country of Filming:
    Portugal
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes - University College Cork and University of Toulouse France
  • Greensboro Dance Film Fest
    Greensboro
    United States
    Screening postponed due to snow
    Official selection
  • International Dance Festival New Orleans
    International Dance Festival New Orleans
    United States
    September 7, 2025
    exact date TBC
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Deirdre C. Molloy

Under the artistic name Unity Atlantic, Deirdre Molloy creates film, music and performance collaborations. Unity is a container for collaborations that flow from her PhD research. Thanks to EU funding, Martiniquan dancer Aurélie Capelle-Sigère joins Unity for the Black Atlantic Space-Time production through 2023-24. Transdisciplinary co-producers include Code Your Future (UK) and Gerador (Portugal).
Molloy uses social dance ethnography and digital design to research Black Atlantic identity. Visiting the USA in 2024 with Erasmus+ funding, she participated in Blues, DC Hand Dance, DC Bop, and street dance communities. Highlights of 2024 include presenting research at the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance at Duke University, at SLIPPAGE dance lab of Northwestern University and at Droppin’ Science hip hop conference in Cork. In 2022, Molloy affiliated with CIPHER ERC and won the Danijela Memorial Award for interdisciplinary innovation in Film, Music and Theatre. Molloy's current practice-as-research follows degrees in Psychology (2.1 TCD), Multimedia (1.0 DCU) and Ethnochoreology (1.0UL). Molloy is a PhD candidate at UCC in cotutelle with University of Toulouse, France. Her research websites are designed to platform dance culture-bearer voices: https://unityatlantic.org/

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Director Statement

Drum Calls interprets the history of the transatlantic slave trade as one of Afro-diasporic cultural resilience through rhythms that encode and renew a sense of belonging and identity amid the harsh conditions of Euro-colonial slave societies and their aftermath. The story is told through poetry and dance, with creative use of camera angles, movement and lighting. Deirdre Molloy's multimedia ethnographic research gives rise to her theory of rhythm codes and its expression in this musical narrative. A Black Atlantic identity of shared historic traumas of slavery and colonisation finds healing in sharing rhythm codes as heritage. The film is co-produced with Gerador, Portugal thanks to funding from the European Union through Project Manifest.