Dance enthusiasts are in for a treat this year with 10 mainstream dance productions on show at the national arts festival, writes Andrea Vinassa
Every journalist has done an interview that has resonated far beyond the immediate confines of tomorrow’s deadline. Mine was in 1992 with celebrated New York choreographer Bill T Jones.
There we were, a radical, intellectual gay, black choreographer and a white chick from pre-election South Africa chatting in the Chicago Hilton.
I was blown away by Jones’s openness and generosity of spirit, and his ability to articulate how he felt about the loss of his partner, Arnie Zane, who died from Aids a few years earlier. I was astounded by his energy and his passion for life.
It was the opening night of Jones’s new season, yet he spent three quality hours telling me his life story. He also expressed his desire to perform in South Africa and insisted I bring a tape home and put the word out. At last he’s made it.
The Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company – a small, multicultural group of highly individual contemporary dancers – will perform a selection of signature works, including D-Man in the Waters (Part 1), Etude and the 1999/2000 work Out Some Place, which was commissioned by the Kennedy Centre and is performed to a jazz score by Fred Hersch.
This year sees the return to the festival of avant-garde director Chris Pretorius, who has been working as a decorative painter in Chicago, with Dark Continent. The piece, which is now in its third incarnation, reflects Pretorius’s obsession with the images and myths of colonial Africa. The audience follows the travels of a European explorer who wakes up and finds himself drifting down the Congo River in a bathtub.
Pretorius has commissioned five Chicago- based artists to devise a moving, painted scroll as a backdrop. Over the past eight years Pretorius has flirted with theatre and played host to scores of artists in the vast Chicago loft that is his workspace. But it is in Germany that he has found his true artistic home – the latest Dark Continent is a collaboration with German composer and musician Gert Anklam.
Another hot favourite is the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT1), which will perform for the first time in South Africa. The company is known for its robust and athletic style. Resident choreographer Jir Kylin, a veteran of the European dance landscape, refused to allow his work to be performed in South Africa during the cultural boycott and his work is often politically inspired. His offerings are No More Play, Petite Mort (created for the Salzburg Festival on the second centenary of Mozart’s death), Falling Angels and Symphony of Psalms.
South African dance is well represented, with the State Theatre Dance Company performing Jeanette Ginslov’s acclaimed Written in Blood. Made in South Africa, as the triple bill is dubbed, also includes the artistic director of the State Theatre Dance Company, Esther Nasser’s Against the Gate, an intimate work reflecting on the relationship between three characters.
Young choreographer Sean Bovim’s witty Zoo Biscuits is set to the musical scores of cult movies, and Mandla Mcunu’s Us 2 is choreographed to contemporary jazz hits.
Then there’s Stomp – a blend of percussion, movement and visual comedy created by a bunch of Brighton boys in 1991, which has taken the world by storm. Using industrial instruments and dressed in labourers’ outfits, Stomp has taken dance out of the powdered parlours of limp-wristed matrons and flung it into the populist arena.
Loud, electric, spectacular and vibrant, Stomp’s performers are drummers who use the universe and every hard object on the street as instruments. This is not to be missed.
Of course, let’s not forget our own Stomp, called Boots – “90-minute extravaganza of a cappella singing, irreverent humour and infectious rhythms” that features the Gumboot Dancers of Soweto. Gumboot dancing evolved from traditional dance styles on the mines. Under the directorship of master drummer Zenzi Mbuli, this art form of the migrant labourer finally gets the recognition it deserves.
Watch out for Jay Pather’s A South African Siddhartha, which mixes traditional Xhosa, Zulu and Indian dance, and [email protected], a celebration of student dance from Australia, Hong Kong and South Africa.
The Philippe Genty Company, a veteran of the European stage, is another company to look out for. This French company presents Dedale (Daedalus), a character drawn from Greek mythology. Genty uses dancers, actors and puppets to create theatrical events which bridge various art forms.
Not to be missed is Stung, a programme by the pioneering British dance theatre company, Momentary Fusion. The work, which has dancers suspended from the ceiling by ropes like live sculptures, is described as “thrilling, dangerous and surprising”.