Swapna Prabhakaran meets Jean Franois Duroure, choreographer with a mission
A Frenchman walks into a hostel in Jeppe, Johannesburg, and asks the Zulu workers there to show him how they dance. It sounds like the beginning of a Van der Merwe joke but Jean Franois Duroure, a dancer- choreographer with a mission, did this one Sunday early this year.
He says the workers were astounded. They stared at him and asked: What are you doing here? [Wenzani la?].
Despite their incredulity, he persisted in his attempts to create a collaboration of dance between France and South Africa and before long the people he approached began to trust him. It became my name. They called me What are you doing here, Duroure says.
Sponsored by the arts ministries of both the French and South African governments, Duroure has spent months creating a collaborative work with the people of the townships, in Alexandra, the East Rand and Soweto. The township art shocked me and impressed me … I find that in the township, beyond the violence there is a strong power of hope. He used this power to fuel the collaborations.
But it wasnt easy. When he first got here, he was caught in the middle of a taxi-war. People were shooting at each other, he says. I didnt know how difficult it would be in the township. Duruore has done this sort of work in dance for almost 10 years, travelling to Africa and Asia from Europe, making new fusions. His dance operates on a realm of the post-modern, using fragmentation and distortion to create a wordless story. He has had to overcome resistance and ignorance. I have a vision and the artists here are ignorant of it. I am ignorant of their vision. I had to learn and they had to learn. It was difficult to bring them into the dimension where I wanted to go.
When the problems have been ironed out, what has emerged is a harmonic blend of traditional Zulu, gumboot and physical theatre. Duruore says the central focus of the work is sacrifice. Before religion, before Jesus Christ even, sacrifice was a part of our [European] tradition. It is a part of our culture and here in Africa it is also a big part of the rituals. He says, however, that the themes are not cut- and-dried. It is not a question of good or bad, of apartheid or no apartheid. Apartheid is still here in a different way and we wanted to show people to look at it in a different way, to have a different vision into the problem.
While the work, also called What are you doing here? adresses social problems of South Africa, Duroure is adamant that what he does is not a social project. I dont want people thinking I am Unesco. I am not Unesco. Im not here to put a little band- aid on the wounds. Im here to make real theatre.
Frowning slightly, he says: To be political, for me, means to engage yourself in the fight for what you believe in, and I believe in art. It is the only way to bring a new conscience to society.
The collaboration has already premiered in the townships and a full-scale tour of France is scheduled for later this year. But for the moment they are playing at the Market Theatre. Duroure says it is a pity no one has built a real theatre in the townships. There is no place with lighting facilities, no technical possibilities, no chance to use film. We couldnt reach further than the limits of the technology.