New Dance Writing – Festival Edition
#interview
When choreographic worlds collide Robyn Sassen chats to Rachel Erdos and Sonnyboy Motau about their new collaboration Arguably one of Dance Umbrella’s more exciting collaborations is that between Moving Into Dance Mophatong’s Sunnyboy Motau and independent Tel Aviv-based choreographer Rachel Erdos.
grow. Three years down the line, I was there with Musi and Thabo. It was unbelievable,” he grins. “Unlike Sunnyboy I never wanted to be a dancer,” says Erdos. “From the age of 12, I wanted to be a choreographer. Whilst I was in junior high school, a dance company came to our school and did a workshop, involving creating movement from interpretations of a picture. It was the first time in my life anyone had asked me to express an emotion through dance and this was a real life changer.
They grin when they refer to their piece fight, flight, feathers, f***ers as a “beast”. They met in 2010 when Erdos was in South Africa for Crossings, a choreographic initiative coaxed into life under the aegis of the French Institute and hosted in Johannesburg. “This work is the first ‘baby’ in South Africa built on the connections Crossings established,” said Erdos. “Sunnyboy – associated with MIDM since 2008 – and I have been in dialogue for five years.”
“But it’s not so easy to say at the age of 15 you want to be a choreographer. It’s hard enough saying you want to be a dancer, especially where how you are going to earn money is a major concern, so it took a long time until I had the confidence to say that’s what I wanted to do.”
On paper, this year’s Dance Umbrella seems to thematically embrace masculinity: several works are choreographed by women for male dancers: but Motau and Erdos shake their heads: “This was not commissioned with a theme. After we met in 2010, we started exchanging ideas.
“We’re hoping for it to be soft and violent, aggressive and emotional,” says Erdos about the new work being developed. “Bringing in input from each of the dancers has made it richer. And we have to go there, enabling the dancers to take ownership of the work,” says Motau.
“We gravitated naturally towards issues relating to masculinity. In Europe and Israel, there are much less male dancers than there are female. Here it is the opposite. When Sunnyboy said ‘you can work with the company: there are five guys and two girls’ ... it wasn’t an even number. So it became: ‘let’s explore the issues of identity relating to men only.’”
“I’m not a 5... 6... 7... 8... choreographer,” Erdos smiles. “Neither of us are. I am fascinated with the dancers’ personalities on stage. And I want to do something that
Born in the north of England, Erdos moved to Israel 13 years ago, armed with a degree in dance from Rohampton Institute and a masters in choreography from London’s Laban Centre. “I was brought to Israel by a whole range of forces, including upbringing” – with a Hungarian father and an English mother, she was aware of being the only Jewish child at her high school and was curious about living and working in Israel – “but the reasons I went and the reasons I stayed are completely different.”
“We’re hoping for it to be soft and violent, aggressive and emotional”
“I’m not a 5... 6... 7... 8... choreographer,” represents them, but something they could not have done without us. “I love working with these guys. On the first day, we asked them questions about how males are perceived in society, exploring the difference between animals and man. Each day, we get to do more and see what comes out. For me that’s one of the best parts of the job: getting to work with people who you don’t know. You have to have real trust. As do they. You hope that that work will take us to a place none of us would attempt by ourselves. Is there life for the piece after Dance Umbrella? “We really hope so,” they concur. “That is the plan. We want it to tour and develop. It goes into both our companies’ repertoires. We can’t wait to see it, ourselves!” – first published on The View. Visit www.robynsassenmyview.wordpress.com for more interviews and reviews. Fight, flight, feathers, f***ers will show at the Dance Factory on March 4.
Nelisiwe Xaba says the fight is not over, writes Stefanie Jason
“The Israeli contemporary dance scene is pumping: Some of the best dancers in the world are coming out of there. And I have found loads of opportunities. I think Tel Aviv is an amazing city to live and choreograph in. It has a great vibe.” Motau always knew he wanted to lead a creative life. “Growing up in Alexandra township, I was involved with a community group doing acting, poetry and traditional dance. But when I was exposed to the genre of Afro-fusion whilst in grade 12, something clicked. I fell in love with it.” He joined a musical company, where we did everything from Afro-fusion to gumboot. In 2007 he was exposed for the first time to MIDM dancers, Muzi Shili and Thabo Rapoo. His life changed forever. “I developed a great thirst to study further and realised I needed to find a company that would enable me to
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Above: Constanza Macras and MIDM collaboration On Fire: The Invention of Tradition. Pic by John Hogg
www.goethe.de/joburg
Principal funder of Dance Umbrella
#review
The daze of our lives Constanza Macras’s new work with MIDM and Ayana Jackson, plugs into the ways in which reality is reconstructed, writes Layla Leiman “It’s Shaka Zulu not fucking Mickey Mouse,” yells the dramaturge in Constanza Macras’ new work On Fire: The Invention of Tradition, which opened Dance Umbrella 2015 at the Dance Factory in Newtown. The piece continues in Macras’ signature style of wry multi-media dance-drama, exploring and re-evaluating heritage and tradition in our fragmented and urbanised world. The mixed cast of 12 local and Berlin-based dancers and performers presented a high-energy and fiercely satirical work that employs the unlikely trope of the soap opera and clichés to pick away at the complex and tangled social fibres that we negotiate today. Sound, visuals, costume and narration are an important part of director/choreographer Macras’ work. Her style evokes all the senses, and pushes against the boundaries of ‘contemporary dance’. This work begins with the sound of rain. A single dancer moves onto the stage and slowly makes his way diagonally across it into a rectangle pool of water. As he moves about another dancer joins him and they engage in a gentle dialogue of fluid dips and touches, flowing and rippling around each other like swans. The sound of birds breaks through the rain and the two dancers’ movements echo this, becoming jittery as they take flight. They preen and flap and circle before exiting amidst a deafening chorus of whistles. This opening scene, so calm on the surface and apparently abstract, subtly visually forecasts one of the main themes in the piece: a (re) ‘staging’ of reality. The rain dance is followed but another evoking earth and then fire, which ends with the dancer literally tearing up the stage, which we learn is another illusion, because it has been covered with a huge sheet of paper. A video projected on the back wall of the stage shifts our gaze to a koppie overlooking the city of Joburg where the performers, dressed in stark tennis whites with antique rackets and golf clubs, casually ‘knock about’ white teacups that explode in puffs of ceramic dust. This vignette is both absurd and hard-hitting, as is often the case. We are spectators to this bizarre rendition of colonial tradition:
tea and tennis, the ‘oh-so civilized’, juxtaposed against the Highveld landscape and the city skyline, symbolic of the dark and dangerous ‘bush’.
“the custard, canned spaghetti, tomato sauce and milk spill over their faces. The sexy becomes the grotesque.” The narrative then returns to the stage with a booming operatic score and the dancers freeze into a perfect classic group portrait. They stare at the audience for a few seconds, fixing us with their collective gaze, before the image dissolves and they break apart. This tableau is repeated several times, taking place in front of photographic images by visual artist Ayanda V Jackson that are projected onto two white sheets hanging from the ceiling. The images used in On Fire are ultra-staged neo-classical portraits. The dancers’ movements respond to these, but corrode the static colonial/patriarchal representations of the Other.
The stage setting is deliberately pared back with the lighting and rough brickwork showing. We are led to believe that there is no backstage or other reality to what we see before us on the stage. But the stark OTT soapie aesthetic complicates this notion of authentic and ‘staged’ or fake reality. Evoking the sensualised product shots that characterise advertising, each performer pours some packaged food into their mouth. But the custard, canned spaghetti, tomato sauce and milk spill over their faces. The sexy becomes the grotesque. The camera pans out on a white dress hanging neatly on a rail, stained with the excess of force-fed consumption. This ‘title sequence’ graphically sets the scene for the cultural appropriation orgy that is to follow. The open-ended plot lines of soapies and character ‘types’ make this a universal cultural playground in which characters and stories become interchangeable and replicable. Into this space Macras choreographs a parody narrative in which African bodies are commodified: wrapped up in traditional garb and shipped off for Chinese audiences. A neat commercial package. But in this commercial context, what is authenticity measured against? As the dancers perform a spectacular traditional Zulu dance, the dramaturge struts up and down assessing the ‘display’, unimpressed by this apparent Mickey Mouse rendition of Shaka Zulu.
The camera metaphor extends into the dancers’ movements, which are short and sharp, reminiscent of the flickering of an old film. Contrasting this are scenes of drawn-out mock slowmotion battle (a full-on catfight is the hilarious climax to the episode). Through these movements, the dancers become masters of their own representation and active participants in their history.
Throughout this section of the piece the dancers narrate the soapie, translating their movements, putting words into each other’s mouths and twisting and reshaping meanings. We’re reminded of the TRC and the gaping holes in testimonies where language failed and translation ran out of words. Like Jackson’s images, language attempts to fix one version of the facts. But history, identity and culture are never this linear or neat.
The piece segues dramatically from the abstract into the bright lights of the full-blown soap opera melodrama. Under the harsh ‘on-set’ lights the dancers’ bodies become the focus; their sweat and muscles and facial expressions starkly highlighted.
This perverse and derisive fantasy soap opera reflects our society back at us, and implicates us in the process. It is a testament to Macras’ acute awareness of the complex social and cultural matrix that informs our culture.
Constanza Macras, MIDM and Ayana Jackson collaborated on the energetic piece, On Fire: The Invention of Tradition. Pics by John Hogg
In their own words Making art from the ordinary
Tossie van Tonder “So, I often just roll out of bed on to the floor to ask: ‘How am I today? How am I in my body today?’, to feel how I am and what is the energetic state of my being, which parts of my body are more mobile, which need more time. “Gradually I wake up out of that and by the time I’m upright, which is easily an hour later, the birds wake up. “That’s where I got my idea from. As I did it more and more, I thought, ‘well, this is actually a performance,’” (in conversation with Theresa Smith about the work, What Does the Earth Think it is, Before Sunrise? August 20, 2013, The Star, Tonight. )
Images above and below: Jay Pather‘s rite - photographer John Hogg
#review
Disrupting cycles of violence Jay Pather’s rite exploited rituals to articulate the contemporary moment, writes Same Mdluli
Tossie van Tonder will perform Chthonia at the John Kani Theatre, Thursday, March 12 March & Friday, March 13 @ 20:00
Sello Pesa: “Rituals are still central, because they are part of our daily experience. Additionally I find material in it, which appears quite contemporary to me. I do not want to perform such ritual elements with traditional costumes, masks, body paintings. In that case it could be easily limited as a kind of “traditional African art”. And what is known about that? I think there are so many misconceptions about African cultures. Besides, I use the ideas of used objects for rituals, but the material is different. Sometimes I abstract additionally the movements of such rituals. Anyway, I feel the need to alienate ritual elements; they mainly serve as an inspiration for me. And, on the other side, what is the use of working only with western contemporary styles, techniques and concepts. I was trained in Leeds, but I do not want to apply such techniques like Ballet, Cunningham, Graham techniques to my dance pieces any longer. I want to choose my own artistic language. Therefore I use daily movements like in my piece “Same but Different”. It was dealing with day-to-day routines. In my piece “Totems” I used a completely other body language that was inspired by the historical strike and protest movements of South Africa. In such gatherings we used to dance like this (Pesa demonstrates the dance style). I transfer such movement styles into another context. It is not any longer visible, where the material comes from. It gets its own aesthetic.” (Interview with Grit Köppen, October 2011, Buala Org)
Violence in South Africa has become such an intricate part of our lives that at times it appears alluring. Although this is not the main focus of Jay Pather’s piece rite, it is a an underlying theme and provides the means for the Cape Town-based choreographer to merge a traditional classic work with a contemporary edge, narrating the uneasy seductiveness of violence. Through Russian composer Igor Stranvisky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, a ballet and orchestral concert work, Pather creates a seamless dialogue between classical music, contemporary African dance and song, imagery and installations, all of which come together into a dramatic journey through episodic rituals. Performed by the Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, rite is a selection of the original fourteen-piece work with a cast of seventeen dancers. The opening scene is a rich display of visual references. It starts with a conversation between what are presumably lovers, physically debating a crossroad in their relationship. Next to them is a half dressed male figure standing on a table, strapped with string all around his body and a young chicken tied to one piece of string by its foot. The figure has an apple and a lit candle in his mouth and as the heat of the flame gets closer to his mouth the dialogue between the couple intensifies, drifting somewhat into a dream-like shamanic realm of a ritualistic dance, video projection and music. It ends with a violent act, a characteristic that is a motif in each scene that follows. The audience is then led to the next scene, which starts to integrate them into the piece through interaction and confrontation. Here violence is enacted through the use of metaphors like raw cabbage, red chilli, red high heels and deodorant spray. This is carried through to the following scene, which takes this interaction further by presenting
questions to the audience but also actively facilitating a conversation between the performers and their viewers. It is in these moments that the work probes larger inquiries around beliefs, memory/remembering and other philosophical themes that permeate in what is an intricate glance at the contemporary South African moment. Besides the use of interdisciplinary modes, one of the work’s strengths is the use of space. The choice of space, Pather explains, is because “the piece is also about deconstruction”. The narration of the story is articulated via different forms from light, costumes and sound. The industrial rawness of the Museum of African Design (MOAD) was not only a strategic choice given the site specificity of the work, but it also enhanced the overall staging of the work through the use of architectural structures inside the building. The strength of the work also relied on the performance of the dancers, all whom gave an impressive interpretation of the nuances of contemporary South African life. Although it ends with somewhat of anti climax, in that there is sense of disappointment of not actually seeing the maiden finally sacrificed, there is also something revealing in this about our own desires and attraction to violence. It therefore seemed appropriate for the piece to conclude without any kind of resolution but rather with a sense of empathy and embracing of humanness. Pather’s re-imagining of Stranvisky’s work is not only stimulating but it also shows why he is one of the stewards of contemporary dance in South Africa at the moment. While the piece draws from a particular historical reference, which may not necessarily be familiar to most South African audiences, the sensitivity and attentive detail paid to the subject matter, makes it one of the most thought-provoking pieces to show at this year’s festival.
#opinion Thabiso Pule tackled the construction of masculinity in Penis Politics. His new work is about the environment. Pic by Thami Manekehla
Men “don’t dance” Some male dancers find ways to remain “men” on the stage, writes Mary Corrigall Gender identity is hard to escape in the dance and performance realms as are politics attached to the body – the visual markers of identity that are inscribed into the body or via dress. However, the gender of the dancer also seems to preempt a dialogue about gender in relation to dance. This is grounded in the notion that men who dance are effeminate, homosexual. Negotiating masculinity in relation to dance appears to be such a sticky subject that an entire canon of literature has sprung up to address it, with books overtly boasting risky titles such as Men in Dance. Thabiso Pule might have been the co-creator of Penis Polictics but resists being drawn into a discussion on this topic – perhaps his insistence on being labeled an arts practitioner rather than a dancer or choreographer is in part motivated by a desire to sidestep the baggage attached to the “dancing male.” Sonia Radebe confirms that gender has a pervasive impact on not only the dancer’s identity but the character of their gestures. “It is hard choreographing male dancers because they don’t want to do softer more feminine movements.” Up until December last year Radebe was a member of the Moving Into Dance Mophatong (Midm) company, which despite being established by a woman (Sylvia Glasser), has become a male dominated institution. Radebe left because she wanted to experiment with her craft and pursue collaborations with people outside of the field of dance, however, it is clear that at MIDM she had to confront barriers. “They (the men) thought I couldn’t do what they could do. It took me awhile to convince them that I could lift a man. I can. You know being a mother and carrying a baby all the time, when they are young and you are breast feeding requires
great physical strength, which you can use in dance.” As part of a desire to think of themselves as infallible many male dancers refuse to warm up before dancing, which means they are less supple, says Radebe. Certainly, Pule admits that he doesn’t warm up before performing. He prefers to eat a chocolate. He implies that this choice is motivated by his objective to be ‘fresh’ when he performs so that he can surprise himself and the audience – improvisation is a fundamental element of his practice, he says. In contrast to Radebe’s experiences as a female dancer, Pule suggests that men have been marginalised in this drive to liberate women. “Why is there only a campaign for the “take a girl” to work; what about the boys? What will they be thinking?” he asks. Ayana Jackson, an American-born visual artist who collaborated with Constanza Macras on Into the Fire appears to have picked up on the impact of these profemale campaigns – the body of work she showed at the Joburg Art Fair last year featured the artist posing as men. “I wanted to acknowledge the men in my community and show that I identified with them and the issues they face around race, and being Muslim in the post-9/11 world we live.” The new work Pule showed on the Dance Umbrella 2015, What the Hell Happened to this place?, sees the artist shifting this focus away from gender and focusing instead on environmental issues. It is not such an unexpected turnabout; his interest is on using performance (and now film too) to draw society’s attention to all pressing problems. “I want to educate people.” That said when he was first developing the work in New York as part of a residency in the US, it began with him walking across the Brooklyn bridge in a pink tutu.
Hot Tips
Mamela Nyamza, dancer, choreographer
Which work on this year’s DU programme should not be missed and why? I strongly believe that Dance Umbrella Festival itself must not be missed this year 2015. I believe platforms to show case contemporary dance are increasingly diminishing in South Africa, and that this medium of dance will also diminish if platforms such as DU were not there. In the same vein, I think critics of dance must be dedicated, knowledgeable and balanced, so that contemporary dance and their platforms can advance.
Mamela Nyamza rehearsing this week for Wena Mamela
What is the biggest misconception about contemporary dance? The biggest misconception is that contemporary dancers reject ballet principles and protocols. Historically contemporary comes out of that rejection of strict rules, or that it is a radical break from classics. I think contemporary dancers attempt to connect the past of the classics and the present which is today. That is why we cant have a static definition of what contemporary dance is, simply because contemporary dance stresses on versatility, improvisation, authenticity, originality, discipline and technique. Contemporary dancers strive to connect the discipline of dance technique with fluidity of body movement. The other biggest misconception, is that contemporary choreographers are killing dance, not knowing that they are moving on with times and being in the present moment, as all has been broken before we are still continuing evolving in Contemporary dance trying to be original not copy cats.
What keeps you interested and passionate about contemporary dance in south africa? The connection between my immediate environment with my personal experience as a South African, serve as an inspiration for my movements as a contemporary dancer. My social reality keeps me on the edge when I create. Contemporary dance has allowed me to invent my own steps, routines, and movements, and thus I am a choreographer experimenting most of the time. But, I am well aware of the pitfalls of being both the subject and the object of the dance: that of being a self-indulgent choreographer and performer. Thus, I balance my individualism with the broader social reality as an activist in the art. I involve myself in mentoring programmes, advisory panels for the dance, and indeed, facilitating for networks in the dance for aspiring dancers.
Credits: Editor : Mary Corrigall Production Manager: Benjamin Keuffel Designer: Adéle Prins, www.prinsdesign.co.za Contributors: Same Mdluli, Robyn Sassen, Layla Leiman, Mary Corrigall Photographs: John Hogg Acknowledgements: This publication would not be possible without the support of the Goethe-Institut or Dance Forum and the individuals driving the promotion of these institutions; Benjamin Keuffel and Georgina Thomson. Thanks to all the dancers and choreographers who provide the inspiration for the content.
More information and bookings on www.danceforumsouthafrica.co.za
#upcoming Cape Town-based choreographer Mamela Nyamza will premiere a new work Wena Mamela, which she created in residency in Senegal, Cape Town and Germany on March 5 and 6 at 19:00 at the Dance Factory. Gavin Krastin has created a new work called On Seeing Red together with sound composer Shaun Acker, The current treacherous global climate of greedy organisations acruing power will be addressed in the work. Presented in collaboration with the National Arts Festival the work can be seen at the Barney Simon Theatre on March 5 and 6 at 20:30. It carries an age restriction PG18. Another new programme in Dance Umbrella takes place at the Wits Theatre on Saturday and Sunday March 7 and 8. The first programme is the Young Choreographers Platform which can be seen from 14:00 and the second Student Choreographers programme is from 16:00. The well-known Zimbabwean Tumbuka Dance Company returns to Johannesburg with a new work from the Zimbabwean choreographer, Nora Chipaumire. Portrait of myself as my Father can be seen at the Dance Factory on March 7 at 20:00 and March 8 at 19:00. Two young choreographers, Thoko Sidiya and Kitty Phetla can be seen on March 10 & 11 at the John Kani Theatre, Market Theatre at 19:00. Both works focus on the role of women and the strength and power they have and need today. Excavating the Personal Choreographing the Archive. This panel discussion will address issues around the archive in performance and the process of developing performance out of archives. Presented by The Ar(t)chive, Wits School of Arts and facilitated by Adrienne Sichel, this presentation will be held at the Wits Downstairs Theatre on March 9. For further information email Jessica Denyschen, The Ar(t)chive project manager on jessicadenyschen@ wits.ac.za Face to Face conversations after performances: the popular Face-toFace interviews where a few selected choreographers, will discuss the various aspects and creative processes of their staged works, after a performance. Audiences will be invited to join in the conversations: - Gavin Krastin in conversation with Nondumiso Msimanga: March 6 - Tossie Van Tonder in conversation with Adrienne Sichel: March 13 - Nelisiwe Xaba in conversation with Mary Corrigall: March 14