The Life Cycle of Rainbows is a film and installation exhibition by India Sky inspired by the BaKongo Cosmogram’s influence and permutations within Afro-Diasporic music and dance traditions, particularly underground disco, house, and ballroom culture. Within BaKongo cosmology, the cosmogram provides a map of the principle shape of the Universe as well as the trajectory of the soul as it cycles through Birth, Maturity, Death and the Ancestral world.  Both the film and installation utilize the BaKongo Cosmogram as a structural device, weaving a universe of sound, nature, sculpture, elaborate costumery, dance and storytelling in which cycles of life, death, becoming and rebirth are expressed through a Black, femme and queer lense. 

The soundscape of the film, composed by India Sky, features several mixes by the legendary DJ Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage as well as India’s original music. Based on India Sky’s research that traces the influence of the BaKongo Cosmogram in disco and the work of Larry Levan, India positions the sonic, spatial, dance and aesthetic elements of disco as a Cosmogram reborn. Additionally, the final song of the film, a house track which sets the score of the Ancestral World, is composed by LA based DJ and producer Kumi James (BAE BAE). 

The film was created over an intensive 7 week residency and shot throughout several locations across Scotland’s Western Lowlands. Featuring 13 performers including India Sky, it provides a vibrant prismatic view of Afro Diasporic dance legacies including house, whacking, locking, krump, Congolese, vogue and improvisation. The archival footage present in the film and installation highlight key elements of the birth and evolution of the disco era including; David Mancuso’s infamous Loft parties, Larry Levan at Paradise Garage, Gwen Guthrie performing at the Garage’s last night, disco legends Sylvester and Donna Summer, Soul Train, voguers on the Christopher Street Pier in NYC, and Pepper Labeija at the Kansai John Moschino ball. The coalescence of legacy, presence and place in The Life Cycle of Rainbows shines a polychromatic light on the living connection between the ancestral and physical worlds and the manifold cycles we move through in space and time.