As the Dance Umbrella reaches its climax, Jill Waterman looks at the main players centre stage
After a highly successful week of South African and international performances, one can convincingly say that dance is alive and challenging but, sadly, still financially unwell. Audience support is encouraging and perhaps civil society is beginning to realise that if we want dance to survive we as the public can, along with funders like First National Bank, play a major role in the future of the arts.
Programme seven of the FNB Vita Dance Umbrella began with a sensitive and celebratory work called Blessing, choreographed by Jackie Mbuyiselwa Semela. This work is performed by dancers from Soweto Dance Theatre. Semela remains true to his explorations of African dance as a vehicle for the communication of life rituals.
Semela’s work was followed by two very short interludes; Slippery when wet by Tracey Human and Listen with your eyes shut by Paige Dawtrey were presented as extracts from works. I am not convinced of the merits of scheduling bits of works that have been presented in the past as is the case with Human’s choreography and works that are far from completed as with the piece by Dawtrey. Although these works were professionally danced, their incompleteness serves as a distraction rather than a bonus in an already full evening of dance.
Striking a Balance by Jayesperi Moopen brought a new and enthusiastic group of East Rand dancers into focus. The Moopen blend of classical Indian dance and African dance is used to explore the ever-shifting concepts of cultural dynamics. This group performing under the banner of Tribhangi Dance Theatre is a group to watch out for in the future.
Visiting from Durban is the Fantastic Flying Fish Dance Company with David Gouldie’s new piece Disfluency. It is an intricately formed work with explorations of motion set against the shape and shadows of still dancers. We are constantly made aware that stillness is active and that these quiet shapes are merely waiting their turn to impact, disrupt and re-organise the relationships around them. This company continues to produce work of maturity and quality, an asset and symbol of dedication to dance in our country.
Themba Nkabinde produced Constructions, a new choreography for the Moving into Dance Company. Playing with the movements, humour and ironies of being a road worker, Nkabinde creates a vibrant group work which allows the company’s energetic dance style to shine. This work is a development for Nkabinde as a choreographer.
Programme eight shifts geographical emphasis from local dance to an international dance arena.
No Fly Zone supported by the Swiss Institute of New York and Pro Helvetia, was conceived and interpreted by Fast Forward and Foofa d’Imobilite . The movement and spoken text were interplayed, led, and interrupted by evocative and compelling sound scapes performed by Fast Forward , who was appropriately dressed in a combat outfit. Fast Forward anarchically places sound at the centre of the performance space, challenging and inverting the often hidden nature and relationship of musical accompaniment and dance.
Chief Josef performed and created by Swiss born artist Katharina Vogel is a minimalist work, as she says, investigating, “power and powerlessness, about two opposing points of view, and how to move freely between them …”. This is a slow and beautifully textured performance. Vogel is inspired by Butoh Dance and its economical, uncluttered essence as a way of portraying meaning.
The deliberate slowness of the work required an audience to shift into Vogel’s performance tempo and to share the space and time of the moment. The slowness provided a challenge to audience members who like lots of fast, condensed action to keep their attention, and some of them sadly left before the work was completed.
Programme nine at the Wits Theatre was initiated with a dance dialogue co-directed by Faustin Linyekula and Gregory Maqoma and co-created by Gladys Agulhas, Ami Shulman and Shanell Winlock. A powerful team indeed as three of them, Maqoma, Agulhas and Winlock have all been nominated for FNB Vita Dance Awards. A brave work which at times presents poignant and powerful images of Africa but at times it is the process and ideas behind the performance that seem more important and interesting than the actual product.
Laws of Recall and Thathamachance performed by Durban-based Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre are two works fashioned and performed with the Pather signature. The politics of the body, status in the arts, and cultural relationships are constantly being re-positioned and challenged.
The excitement of the programme was the new work Motswa Hole (person from far away) choreographed and presented by Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe. Seeing this highly articulate dancer perform in South Africa is a rare treat. Mantsoe’s interest in the reconstruction of cultural memory is once again at the heart of this piece. He continues to be a vivid performer to watch, however this work would have been more powerful if it had been edited.
The FNB Vita Dance Umbrella is coming to an end this week. Performances to watch out for on March 16 and 17 are Meetings on the Edge by Gladys Agulhas, Shift by Booyzie Cekwana, Megwa/Habit by Moeketsi Koena and Rock-a-Bye for a Sleeping Man and a Barking Dog by Gary Gordon. Tickets are available at Computicket; venue is the Wits Theatre. Tel: (011) 442 8435