Shuffle Festival 2026 at Platform, Glasgow (review)

Shuffle Festival 2026, hosted at Platform since its first year, gave a timely reminder of why creative community matters, celebrating the best of Scottish hip-hop and dance. 

My personal reminder started on the drive in with Nicolette McCormack, a dancer and Glasgow-based creative who is front and centre on this year’s poster. Career conversations and catch-up led to affirming the need for open opportunities based on devoted work. We tried to avoid leading the conversation over to the closure of Glasgow institutions and the experiences that had almost scared us off creative careers for life as women of colour. 

Instead, Nicolette briefed me on the two-week residency at THREE60 Studios with Boy Blue, that had shaped the show for the night. We would be told more after the show about the training and development of the residency, but it connected to our craving for more chances to take part in and see art in Scotland. 

The honouring of tradition, particularly within diasporic arts, is rightfully being celebrated across popular culture recently, and the MC, Sotunde, reminded us that the performances were showcasing both the future and present of the Scottish scene, whilst also honouring all the work that has gone before and got us here. A big theme for the show. 

It was a nice touch that he showed us how stupid we look taking photos with flash from his space on the stage. It’s easy to forget how visibility works on both sides of the stage and how distracting proud supporters with smartphone phone torches can be. I just wish this high energy banter had kept up throughout the show.

The smiles and energy of the first group of young performers were infectious – I just kept repeating ‘who are these divas?’. They were THREEE60 Youth, learning their formations and foundations as the future of the scene. As a result of their training and opportunities, we were shown how talent is nurtured in these spaces, throughout their performance. 

A brief trigger warning pre-empted the next performance from AKO, African Kulture Overseas, featuring gunshot sounds and panicked quick movements. Nicolette whispered ‘Divine choreographed this’, introducing a performance inspired by communicating memory, with white clothes reminiscent of ceremony and African ancestors complimented by glowing body paint that highlighted the shapes they formed and speed they moved with. The piece ended by the dancers forming a ceremonial circle of solo performances, gesturing passing a cup to each other before their energy came out in mesmerising solos with syncopated movement and trance-like passion. 

The Dimestop Crew came next, with ‘Ayedentity’, a blending of four powerful performances and a surprise saxophone. The piece started with a reflection on addiction from mirrored movements, a dancer in white gloved costume and ski mask controlling the dancers until they physically broke free from its puppet-like possession. 

The breaks and movements were super clean, polished, and rhythmic like a pulse to merge the four performances naturally. 

Brothers Who Lock then moved in their ancestors’ footsteps and experience with their ‘Drums of Trauma’. The talking drum signalled their struggle to move freely, blooming into faster paced percussive footwork and isolated movements. There, the projection of family photos connected the individual cloths that they were wearing and the way they were moving to family and ancestors.

I started welling up, thinking of how beautiful it is that we can dance in our ancestor’s cloth and stand on a stage and put all that heart and pain onto it, for the audience to share. And how vulnerable and beautiful that is to share. A real ‘Oh, I get it’ moment.

The evening reminded me of an event last month for Afro Scottish Events called Voices Beyond Borders, where I’d seen bagpipe pay alongside talking drum, and gotten emotional thinking how my family would have felt, and how privileged I am to hold and witness both cultures in daily conversation –just like AKO and Brothers Who Lock. It’s a complex duality (for me anyway) to feel privilege as well as hurt in Black History Month. 

Back at Shuffle Festival, Boy Blue finished with a piece called ‘The Vault’, made throughout the two week residency. It’s fair to see why they’re the headliners of any bill, a tight group with smooth passes that make solos look like one big group movement. Especially knowing about the residency and the work that had gone into the piece, I was even more impressed and invested.

The shouts of ‘Let’s Go’ and ‘That’s My Dad’ again made me start welling up again – this is exactly what a community is meant to be. Dedicated, expressive, and supportive. 

A sign off from the event leaders and studio wrapped up the formal part of the evening with gratitude before we saw the sweetest ‘stage door’ interactions and dancers rightfully getting their flowers. The greetings and cheers as performers emerged from the stage were a sweet reminder of community collaboration, where everyone knows everyone, and has come to show up for their people, and support the people that have supported them.

Abundant with talent, an invigorating show that gave the community its ‘flowers’.

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