New Dance Writing – Festival Edition 2016 www.goethe.de/joburg
What makes contemporary dance grow? Is it the impetus of sponsorship that a festival like Dance Umbrella through much hard work from its artistic director yields? Or is it the sheer enthusiasm, thoughtfulness and skill of contemporary dancer/choreographers to relentlessly reshape the discipline and challenge both audiences and practitioners to confront something new? Indeed, is it fair or justified to consider South African contemporary dance as insular and in need of stimulation or assistance from those from outside our borders? Or do we really have something of value and interest to the discipline to share with the outside world? This year, Dance Umbrella celebrates 28 years of being an annual injection of contemporary dance in Johannesburg. It is still considered the stepping stone for choreographic greats and historically it is still reflected as the moment choreographers, dancers or performance artists such as Vincent Mantsoe, Thorisa Magongwa, Steven Cohen and Dada Masilo stepped into a real careers, overseas. But what are the pitfalls of romanticising this obscurity-toprominence kind of story too heavily? (Bearing in mind that it has lent itself to remarkable tales of achievement and success under the steerage of choreographers such as Sylvia Glasser, Adele Blank, Martin Schonberg and others, who have effectively turned young performers’ lives around over the years, through dance). The discipline of dance is complex for not only technical reasons, but the aesthetic, socio-political, economic and audience-related realities it embraces. Local dance audience must reflect on it from a variety of sides: South African art audiences are very easily conned into swallowing the notion that ‘overseas is better than local’. This comes of an historical mindset rooted in apartheid thinking, where an artist was only respected critically or taken seriously by the establishments once he or she had achieved a modicum of success overseas. But lest we forget: apartheid was instrumental in blocking artists’ access to not only overseas venues, but also overseas publications, particularly in the years of high apartheid when punitive cultural sanctions the world over were applied. But, while apartheid is over and the illogical laws no longer exist, contemporary young black dancers still hone their craft against many pragmatic odds, including a lack of financial support. Does this render them insular in their thinking? The danger of romanticising the ‘overseas world’ is real. Not only does the notion of overseas success lend itself well to publicity writing and so-called puff pieces, but it is specious in the extreme: the overseas world is so big that it is meaningless. There are big festivals and small ones, important venues and insignificant ones. Once a publicist lavishes everything with the word ‘New York’ or ‘Paris’, the smaller facts seem to wither away. Having said that, one can never deny the value of overseas experiences, but more often than not, South African contemporary dancers have evolved a product and an
How lekker is local dance?
There is a danger of romanticising the ‘overseas world’ and its influence on dance, writes Robyn Sassen
Rebellion and Johannesburg is an interpretation of the Shakespearean story Romeo and Juliet, set on a backdrop of a transforming street sub-culture in Johannesburg. The work is by Jessica Nupen, who has collaborated with Moving into Dance Mophatong. It shows at the UJ Arts Centre Theatre on February 25 and 26 at 19:30. Photo by Steve Thomas
approach to an artistic medium which suffers more from a parochial downplaying of it than from actual flaws that can be addressed in the hand of ‘overseas’ experts. So then, can we say, local is really lekker? Over the past Dance Umbrellas, there has been no shortage of works from overseas or collaborative energies blending the ideas of South Africans and those of dancers/choreographers from foreign countries such as Portugal, Switzerland and Germany that have given new energy. But arguably, when the quality of such work has left audiences wanting, the veneer of overseas begins to pall. South African dance is no longer insular as it is enjoying the influence of the overseas world. South African dance, from the early years of Dance Umbrella, was irrevocably infused with the anger and energy necessary to not only combat apartheid values, but to re-establish identity. One need only ponder the kind of groundbreaking gestures Steven Cohen articulated with his body and his sexuality in the late 1980s that formed part of the spine of Dance Umbrella, challenging myriads of preconceived notions about what dance actually was.
Portuguese choreographer Nelia Pinheiro will present Terra Chã at the UJ Arts Centre Theatre on March 1 and 2 at 20:15. Photo by Telmo Rocha
When one considers the work of choreographer-dancers such as Mamela Nyamza and Nelisiwe Xaba who have certainly benefited from overseas experience, it would be mischievous and disingenuous to colour their dance roots with how performing overseas might have developed them. In 2009, several years before her meteoric rise to acknowledgement, Nyamza created Kutheni, an immensely
“The dance community does not exist anymore; people work in isolation and do not collaborate much. Until this changes and there is a good representation of the sector, we cannot expect to achieve any access to the powers that be to effect real change and respect for the industry,” says festival director Georgina Thomson. Read the interview on Page 4 sophisticated work which engaged with the rape of lesbians in township society. Highlighting levels of violence in our country, this year’s Dance Umbrella features works that bring South African constructs into an international arena. Toyi-Toyi, a piece choreographed by French-based Hamid Ben Mahi explores South African protest, as does Bailey Snyman and Ashley Churchyard’s piece Makwerekwere. Indeed, the showcase works that begin the festival is R & J, a spoof on the Romeo and Juliet narrative, in which German-based Jessica Nupen and local choreographer/ dancer Sunnyboy Motau dissects suburban violence. Cross-border collaboration and negotiation needs to be seen as a tool in making dance, rather than as a remedy to treat a predicament. South African dance is not in crisis: its situation is a lot more complex than a simple reflection on the value of overseas money may point at.