(REVIEW) Memory Walking: Dissonance, by Adéráyọ̀

Maya Uppal reviews Adéráyọ̀’s Dissonance. Adéráyọ̀ is a multi-disciplinery artist and performer based in Glasgow. Dissonance (2025) is their debut moving-image art film.

“ how are you?  are you having a good time?  yes, yes I am breath,  breath through your mouth,  whisper in my ear,  okay, show me that you’re capable of love “

As I begin to write this review, Adéráyọ̀ teaches me the word ‘lakiriboto’ and they tell me that in Yoruba, this means a woman who will not be mounted by a man. Beyond this, they tell me that it means a person who will not be mounted in general. Beyond this they tell me that it means a person who is intersex. Beyond this they tell me that it means neurodivergency. And as I hold these meanings together I begin to see that language itself, especially language in translation, cannot truly tell you why something is queer or how something is queer. Even if words drip away from their solid forms and distort into resonant, echoing sounds, words can form cages around a feeling. Queerness denies the overeager reach of language with a refusal which catapults language into opaque structures. It is in this new structure where Adéráyọ̀’s Dissonance can be found. 

Memories which bubble forward from childhood sit just behind the eyes, there they are twisting into the sparkling present. They hold onto Adéráyọ̀ throughout the film, picking up an arm, then dropping it. Placing a flat palm to their chest, hearing the heartbeat. Touching their face and then turning it away. All invisible actions. For viewers Adéráyọ̀’s body remains unchanged but for the filmmaker these memories create the movement. Their body stands, walks, dances and guides us through scene after scene each one revealing the next step on a journey towards an unquestionable queer awakening. The visual language of Dissonance treats memory like a stretched rubber band. It takes one end of a memory and stretches it taught. Pulling it as far as it will go waiting for the tension to transform the shape of the memory into something new and long and ever reaching then snaps it back together again. The motion propels you forward through the film. We do not stop over one language or one medium. Dissonance ties everything together, from poetic confession to documentary filmmaking to dance, all form begin to merge. The sparkling present flits towards you again - but then the rubber band snaps - we are back in the past, back in Nigeria. 

Adéráyọ̀ did not leave Nigeria because of their queerness. This is the context within which Dissonance is cradled. Dissonance is not just a film, it is two fingers pressed into the flesh where the jawbone meets the neck. It is the soft pulse you feel after one or two seconds of a firm hold, the one indicating life is pouring through you just beneath the surface. And it is pouring through sound, dance and poetry. The flood of it is the story. 

This flood intercepts the relationship between the expectations of home life and the freedom of their removal from it, in a way that language fails to express. Dissonance, then,  is the result of a year of memory walking, allowing memories to move them,  restrain them and grip them with unspeakable feeling and dreaming. Out of the tension between memories and the present comes Adéráyọ̀’s practice of catalyzing a new and melting sense of joy. 

This review is almost like an interview on top of an interview, smiling laughing people wave excitedly at Adéráyọ̀’s camera - enjoying their nights, speaking fast to the camera, they tell you what they love about the party, their scene, the city: 

‘Love the sights and sounds! Love the sea… love the … what else is in Glasgow? ‘ ‘The people! The People! People make Glasgow! People make Glasgow! ‘Who are you? (Laugh) we met actually before … Yeah actually did meet before you’re right … We’re doing this for the camera? Yes!’ The camera! The camera! the camera! the camera!’ 

It’s a snap back to reality following a sequence where  Adéráyọ̀, adorned in jewels and soft white draping fabric dances with all the emotions of each scene flowing through their arms, legs, head and eyes. Here, dissociation is only the way of experiencing a feeling of a memory. It is losing yourself in music, publically, it is a backlit and shining existence. It is fighting the urge to explain oneself fully, another rejection of inadequate words. About 17 minutes into the film you will hear Adéráyọ̀  laugh. It’s a laugh that bursts through the screen and dreamlike I am shaken awake by it. When I dream, I wake by falling into the living, panicked. I wake this way most mornings, thrust into life but today the laugh catches me, tells me it is a Saturday, maybe a Sunday, or maybe the point where night tips into morning. The laugh tells me that the voices and the memories are fading away as right now I am pulled into the present.  

We are sitting in Adrian's bar, on Victoria road, it’s been open maybe a month and it is full this afternoon. Adéráyọ̀’s painting is hanging on the wall. We began this interview down the street and ended up here 

My conversation with Adéráyọ̀ is not a private one, not only because the content is noted down and fed back into this review for you (hello, reader) to better understand this film. The conversation is not private because we know the patrons and the staff and as we talk we are joined by others. Old friends dropped by to remark on either our presence or our recent absence, to remind us of an unsent text, to tell us about their job, the scene gossip, to listen to the interview, to take part themselves. This is Adéráyọ̀’s effect, Dissonance may be an entirely personal film but it is not a private one - it connects the audience to the scene and expands beyond the borders of the camera’s frame to welcome you in, physically, to the scene. 

Much of Dissonance revolves around local queer spaces in Glasgow. We open in the now gone Bonjour bathroom (RIP) and cycle through queer homes, Stereo and into Ponyboy. Club nights, domestic spaces, cafes, bars, venues. The ‘Queer space’ is maybe a redundant term to use. Again, language is pushed aside by queerness. In Glasgow a queer space can be made wherever the community goes, but this is not so easy in the rest of the world. Adéráyọ̀ tells me stories of husband-wives and gods and they seep through the cracks of Dissonance. If you hear the static buzz in the split second between one frame and the next and press your ear to it, there you will find all the queer stories that were unfenced by words are leaking through. 

Dissonance premiered March 28, 2025 at Resonate. a live exhibition which showcased POC artists across music, performance and visual arts

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Text: Maya Uppal

Image: Stills from Dissonance (2025)

Published: 27/07/25