Yinka Esi Graves is a British dance maker and flamenco artist. Her work excavates the links between flamenco and contemporary forms rooted in the African diaspora. With a long career in flamenco, she studied at the Amor de Dios dance school in Madrid and later in Seville with artists such as La Lupi, Andrés Marín, Yolanda Heredia and Juana Amaya.

As a flamenco dancer she has accompanied renowned artists such as Remedios Amaya and Concha Buika. Graves' more recent work with dance makers and thinkers Nora Chipaumire and Dr Ama Wray have helped further define her work spanning from stage pieces to in situ site specific work, as a solo artist and collaborator.

Yinka's co-creation, Clay (2016), with choreographer Asha Thomas marked the beginning of a more investigative and experimental approach to her creation. Yinka also draws from her collaborations in productions such as Cuerpos Celestes and Origen by Cia Marco Vargas y Chloé Brûlé and Mailles by Dorothée Munyaneza, with whom she’s toured to festivals internationally.

Graves' first solo work, The Disappearing Act, premiered at the Nimes Flamenco Festival (France 2023) and has subsequently toured to international festivals such as El Grec, La Batie, FIT de Cadiz amongst other, it continues to tour in 2024. This piece is the culmination of Yinka's multidisciplinary exploration of invisibility. As part of the Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla 2022, Yinka presented The Disappearing Act: On Erasure, an illustrated lecture based on the theoretical corpus of the stage piece. Graves is currently developing a number of projects that will premiere in 2025.