If Dance Umbrella’s contemporary ballets are meant to be populist, why, asks Stanley Peskin, do they continue to elude understanding?
DANCE Umbrella is now seven years old, and during its formative years some bad habits have set in. In the case of children, there are absent fathers, working mothers, lost sons. In the case of Dance Umbrella, there are absent choreographers and few dancers of any striking individual talent. Worst of all, there is a terrifying familiarity about everything we see.
There is still a regrettable tendency to make choreography that lasts as long as the chosen piece of music (often extended and repetitive) dictates. Choreographers are still composing compendium pieces in which the work is danced either to a series of songs or unsung compositions which do not always have a discernible relationship to each other. Some exceptions are the Requiem composed by Andre
Strijdom for Pinto Ferreira’s Bendicte’s Castle and the songs written by Pierre Terblanche for Kinetic Triptych.
I am aware that it is the policy of Dance Umbrella to give an opportunity to any dancer or company to perform, but perhaps auditions should be held and choices made. Twenty minutes as an outside limit is too long, particulary if the ballet composed is a solo rather than an ensemble work. On one evening two companies from Cape Town, The Yaku Dance Theatre and the Jagged Dance Ensemble, were permitted to perform seven works. Why? Either as dance or movement theatre, these ballets are not immaculately rendered and the content is tendentious.
Moreover, as theatre of protest and subversion of holy cows, Dance Umbrella simply does not make the grade. In nearly all of the works presented, a clarifying inventiveness is missing. Instead of everyday social and political concerns, there is imprecision and enervation. Dance Umbrella has not yet managed to fashion a new dance form which includes a clear passion for the social or dance issues at this period of time in South African history.
There are, however, some pluses. Pamela-Ann Power’s Small Passions is set to a moving poem by Ingrid de Kok which pits the loss of one white child against the horrors suffered daily by black women. The choreography and dancing are not up to much, and the poem is not particularly well read, but the ballet for some reason works and the Zulu freedom songs and Latin chants which accompany it are effective. Mandla Mcunu’s Idle Winds gives pleasure. It is fluid and sexy, and is well performed by the Pact Dance Company. The mine dance (Gladman Nkomo’s and Cedric Demeda’s Dancing) and the gumboot dance (Bheki Xhakaza’s Izinhlasi) are among the better works. The latter is distinguished by some witty choreography and back-chat, but both pieces are too long.
Unfortunately, the negative works are in the ascendant. In Diek Grobler’s A Feminist Statement by a Male Chauvinist Pig, we watch for what seems like eternity a woman checking her make-up in front of a mirror while a voice intones: “Smile, you are beautiful.” Judith van der Klink’s Kiss almost came off as an exercise in homoerotic love. In Debbie Goodman’s and Jacqui Job’s Tale, rehearsed spontaneity begins to pall after 30 seconds.
Johan van der Westhuizen’s Ida, described as “a male ritual from the New Guinea Lowlands, exploring an androgynous male womb”, was curiously set to music from a Korean opera when Van der Westhuizen wasn’t clucking like a constipated hen/rooster. Are we being told that Wanking is not a town in China, but some of the ballets performed by Dance Umbrella?
Robyn Orlin’s In a Corner the Sky Surrenders is much too long at 35 minutes. But Orlin, alone on stage, works tirelessly as stage manager and there are some pleasing special effects and songs. Sonia Mayo’s Made in South Africa is in two halves; the first is slight but pleasing enough, but the second is politically outdated.
In consequence, one is obliged to put a riddle: if classical ballet which is regarded as elitist manages to convey meanings which are accessible to audiences, why do so many of the contemporary ballets which are regarded as populist — of the Dance Umbrella variety anyway — elude understanding? As far as I am concerned, a seven-year itch has definitely set in: fidelity to the cause of Dance Umbrella, however noble its intentions, is difficult to sustain and other attractions of a more traditional kind beckon.
Stanley Peskin attended programmes two and three. Tonight at the Wits Theatre there will be a performance of programme five, while awards for contemporary dance will be presented at a gala evening tomorrow night