Upon deciding to meet a fellow Peenutt Batha Jahmer, she told me she would be watching a dance show by Gaby Saranouffi and her brother. I had thought the festival was on the weekend, so I missed out on some of my favourite choreographers.
Last night I was treated to Soritra by Gaby Saranouffi, Skwatta by Vincent Mantsoe, Les sorciers by Aly Karambre, Inhabitant by Sello Pesa and 111-1 by P.A.R.T.S graduates.
I fell in love with lines; movements; negative & positive spaces on stage; colour and my childhood games. The trio really brought it. I was also told that the Soritra we were watching is the original Madagasca version with the original cast. These are some of dance's African veterans.
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| The program for the last days |
The next piece did not keep me at cloud nine. I am a big fan of Africans finding new movement vocabulary and telling stories through their own movements and not from white Liberal so-called African schools. Whilst Vincent really sweats and repeats these so-called African movements that have made him famous in European cities, I as a progressive African, saw nothing more than a regurgitation of Magogo's M.I.D syllabus. Leaving me asking the question: If white women or men do not tell us how to move, how would we move as Africans? And does the world really set such low expectations of movement for us?
The next piece was brother Sello Pesa. Most of Sello's work is misunderstood and from personal experience, he is o.k with that. The piece was site specific close to John Foster square police station, on the road during afternoon traffic. We witnessed scenes of a high-brow business meeting, recyclers taking recyclables to the recycling building, walker-byes, taxis driving past looking for people and the audience gasping as the performers rolled on the street in front of cars passing.
A tale of a city living with homelessness, blue collar workers and of course high class bosses. An interesting interaction of performers, civilians and an audience that didn't know they were part of the performance.
P.A.R.T.S graduates took the stage in their oh-so-relaxed attitude that has become synonymous with Aunt Theresa's school. My interaction with P.A.R.T.S was with George Khumalo the late, who introduced me to the love of my life....internal based movements. The quartet explored phases of movements in different spaces, times and in different combinations. As a mover one could appreciate the beauty of movement as it was presented as purely movement, no costumes masking the performance, no death-defying acts, not spectacular movements or arabesques...just movement. The piece showed how different movements sit on different people.
This did seem like a great end to a great evening...but alas I spoke too soon. The last piece took place over 40 minutes and seemed more like a ramble of movements and just a knick-knack of ideologies, props, costumes and movements. This was not to be mistaken with a beautifully considered, clean piece of dance. In many ways I can appreciate that this piece represented how we are in Africa...confused, scattered and just plain random due to colonial issues. This is by way no excuse to presenting work like that and it has been said many times before...Dance reflects our society. If Africa is so fragmented and still stuck on colonialist whiplashes, how do we take it forward as movement practitioners?
I did not complete yesterdays programs due to taxi constraints...but I would have loved to see my homeboys Thami Manekehla and Thabiso Pule would have been a great way to end the day and see my friend's work.
I'm off to watch today installment of dance pieces starting with Moeketsi Koena's piece.
