Yinka Esi Graves

Yinka Esi Graves is a British creator, choreographer and flamenco artist. Her work explores the links between flamenco and other contemporary art forms from a personal perspective rooted in the African diaspora in Europe. 

With a long and distinguished career in flamenco, she studied at the Amor de Dios school in Madrid and later in Seville with artists such as La Lupi, Andrés Marín, Yolanda Heredia and Juana Amaya. She has performed with renowned dancers such as Remedios Amaya and Concha Buika. Her recent collaborations with creators and thinkers Nora Chipaumire and Ama Wray have further defined a practice that includes theatrical pieces and site-specific compositions, both solo and in dialogue with other artists. 

Her co-creation Clay with choreographer Asha Thomas (a former dancer with Alvin Ailey) marked the beginning of a more investigative and experimental approach in her work. Graves’ artistic activity is also enriched by her collaborations on productions such as Celestial Bodies and Origin with the Marco Vargas and Chloé Brûlé Company and Mailles by the artist Dorothée Munyaneza, works presented at leading international festivals. 

Yinka Esi Graves' first solo stage work, The Disappearing Act, premiered in 2023 at the Nîmes Flamenco Festival in France, culminating an artistic exploration of invisibility. A previous version of this work, The Disappearing Act: A Conversation from a Dissident Body, was presented at the 2022 Seville Flamenco Biennial as an illustrated lecture based on the theoretical part of Graves’ research. 

Her new stage project, A Place To Dance, in collaboration with Madrid-based Brazilian choreographer and dancer Poliana Lima, premiered in February 2026 at the Teatro Central in Seville and was subsequently presented at the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona. Simultaneously, she has started work on a new production entitled “más”, which will premiere in January 2027 at the Nîmes Flamenco Festival.