therapy anymore’

Joel Campbell

SOME STRONG women have shaped the path taken by award-winning South African choreographer Dada Masilo.

One of her most heralded pieces of work to Saint-Saëns’s The Dying Swan, was inspired by the treatment endured by her aunt before she died. Her latest work, The Sacrifice, currently on a 14-venue UK tour ending on April 12, is an acknowledgment of her grandmother, her biggest supporter.

At 38 years old, Masilo has defied the odds throughout her journey from her humble roots in Soweto, to touring the world over delivering her raw and authentic artform which is deeply rooted in tradition.

Turning her genuine love for dance into the refined and captivating performance she delivers in 2023 however, is the product of some key advice given to her by yet another influential woman in her life.

“When I was 12 I used to ask the director of the Dance Fac- tory, Suzette le Sueur, ‘So, when do I stop being talented?’. And she said, ‘You don’t stop being talented, you’re always a learner’.”

Having joined The Dance Factory, a unique non-profit dance institution aimed to train children in contemporary dance and ballet, a year before receiving that vital pearl of wisdom, Masilo says that foundation set her up for the long road ahead.

“I started dancing when I was 11 years old with a girl group called the Peace Makers in Soweto and we we’re dancing to Michael Jackson, so it was a lot of fun.

Training

“When I was 12 we were introduced to the Dance Factory and the executive director said he wanted to start us off on formal dance training.

“We started contemporary dance and ballet, we didn’t know anything about that, it was very foreign to us.

“At the age of 14 I just said to myself, OK, this is what I want to do for a living, this is my calling. So that’s how it started and then the girl group saw Roses performing at the Dance Factory and I had never seen people move like that before, so I thought OK, I want to go to that school.”

She continued: “I went and auditioned in 2004 at the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S) in Brussels and I got in, somehow. I still can’t believe that I got into that school because it is so exclusive.

“There were 800 dancers in that audition and only 30 at the end. I’m still quite surprised about that and it’s been the most amazing journey of my dance life.”

Masilo says the experience gave her the confidence to create her own pieces.

“When I was dancing I was never interested in choreography, I just wanted to dance, but at P.A.R.T.S they forced us to choreograph and so I made my first work there which was a solo piece I made for my aunt who died of AIDS.”

She added: “She really died of heartache because the community just shunned her.

“It was at that point where people were saying, ‘Oh, if you have that disease we’re not going to talk to you and you don’t belong to this family’ That whole shame thing that was happening.

“So she died on my 21st birthday and that is what propelled me to go, ‘OK, I want to tell stories and to make work based on narrative and making people feel. That is why I do what I do.”

Masilo has attracted much attention for her retelling of classic stories that speak to Black identity and feminism, fusing different dance forms to create an inimitable choreographic style.

She explained what sets it apart from contemporary art forms.

“I think for me it really is about learning different things at all times. I say to the company that yes, you can be an amazing technician, but are you a feeling technician? Are you complacent in what you know and what you have been taught? So I am trying to get away from that.

“I’m trying to go, OK, let’s learn this. We have a lot of laughs with learning techniques because, how am I going to fit this into a work?

“So when I do that, I don’t know what I am doing. But I think that in terms of cultures, traditions and rituals I have to go to my elders and go, ‘This is the kind of work that I want to do, is it OK for me to do this’.

“Because, a lot of the time they say, ‘Now you’ve gone too far’. You have to have an elder that says, ‘No, you can do this’ for stage or not.

Learning

“So it is a lot of work in that sense because you’re constantly learning about your culture and traditions and the type of rituals you used to use and kind of change things up so it’s not offensive to the elders, because I think we still need to respect the fact that the rituals, yes they were done a long time ago, but I still want to know that I am respecting those rituals.”

With each piece Masilo comprises, there is a bespoke message. Over the past decade her re-interpretations of Carmen, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake and Giselle have been critically acclaimed both in South Africa and internationally.

For The Sacrifice, she combines the European heritage of The Rite of Spring with the uniquely rhythmic and expressive movements of Tswana, the traditional dance of Botswana often used in storytelling and healing ceremonies.

Performed by an all-South African cast of 11 spectacular dancers, at the piece’s heart is Stravinsky’s epic tale of the struggle of the sacrificial victim, danced by Masilo herself.

“With The Sacrifice it was really weird because I wanted to do a very, very hard, dark work.

“And then COVID happened and I saw a lot of my loved ones, my friends, my family, lose people.

“So it went from a dark piece of work to a piece that is about healing. I hope people really take from this work at the end of it, is that, OK, I’m healing. It’s OK to say, I’m not OK because people are still trying to get over the fact that the last two years were just a mess.

“A lot of lives have been lost and not just lives, people have lost themselves, people have had to learn how to deal with life and that has been really hard.

“So, I’m hoping with The Sacrifice, though the end of it makes people cry, but I think that’s what we need to do – we need to cry and we need to just heal.”

She added: “I think after Giselle I was just tired of being put on a pedestal and The Sacrifice was a work for me that was for me.

“I was acknowledging my grandmother who was my biggest supporter from when I started dancing but it was not about pleasing anybody.

“So I think that with this work I am healing. I’m going, ‘Yeah, you made some strange decisions along the way but this one is helping me heal’.

“I don’t need to go to therapy anymore, I can just do the work and know that I am healing.

“I know that there are a lot of people in the company that are healing, so it’s not just about what we show to the audience, it’s also about what the work means for us.”

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