Quote from Dance Umbrella 2012: “Unless that chicken is standing in fourth position, or is on pointes, that is not dance.”
This naughty quip by veteran dance photographer John Hogg about Boyzie Cekwana’s three-minute intervention, 00.03:30 – thinking out loud experiment, performed with a feathered friend contained in a cardboard box sparked off resonances with many works at the 24th edition of this festival.
Not that too many people were complaining. By now the Dance Umbrella faithful expect Jay Pather’s performers (in various shapes, sizes and cultural contexts) to appear in unlikely places as they did in Qaphela Caesar! in abandoned offices and on the old stock exchange dealing floor.
If Robyn Orlin’s co-conspirators didn’t tear the place apart, physically and conceptually, (and make you stand for an hour to see the supposed swan song of Daddy, I’ve seen this piece six times before and I still don’t know why they are hurting each other) then something would be seriously wrong.
Of course there was more conventional, technique-driven, theatre dance, albeit with a robust edge. Like Alfred Hinkel’s devilishly compelling Dansmettieduiwels; Pather’s Qaphela Caesar!; PJ Sabbagha’s unsettling HIV/Aids-themed One Night Stand (uncharacteristically crying out for tighter direction); Melody Putus’s autobiographical Faith (cluttered with too many ideas, a fuzzy narrative with outbursts of true originality) and Mari-Louise Basson’s gruelling uncle stans, jane & john doe.
A zesty breeze of experimentation, in pursuit of the urban African mindscape and heartscape, blew through the programming. While elements of dispossession informed many works, there was a distinct sense of choreographers and dancers re-possessing either traditional, or non-traditional, performance, historical or intellectual spaces.
The visiting international programmers and producers (on return visits) had expected to see violence – but they weren’t prepared for the volume of abuse and preoccupation with sex and religion. Sexual, religious, gender, racial and political violence broke out like artistic acne as dance makers not only plugged into the state of South African society but provided a bulletin on the state of the art form.
Identity continues to be a dominant ingredient of South African choreography – but it has become very sophisticated.
Gregory Maqoma’s Exit/Exist, Nelisiwe Xaba and Mocke J van Veuren’s Uncles & Angels, Hinkel’s Dansmettieduiwels; Desire Davids’s Who is this?... Beneath My Skin and the world premiere of Moya Michael and Fritz Welch’s at this moment right here right now, right here right now, here now, here now, here now now now translated as powerful personal interdisciplinary memorandums entrenched in memory, yet fired with current realities and truths.
From a critical perspective the most rewarding aspect of Dance Umbrella 2012, so far, is how several choreographers wrestled with form. Some of the offerings may still be in gestation (and some of them like First Physical’s Cellar Door were in a totally inappropriate space – The Dance Factory stage), but there was thrilling exploration in Fana Tshabalala’s Rodin-inspired The Gates of Hell, his duet with Sonia Radebe; Ivan Teme’s provocatively interactive Unknown Equation; Athena Mazarakis and Hansel Nezza’s rigorously playful Inter.Fear; Sifiso Kweyama’s intensely inventive The More... (in which the Moving Into Dance Mophatong Company redeemed itself after the vulgar shoddiness of Mark Hawkins’ Dirty Laundry); Moeketsi Koena’s aesthetically cheeky Just we and Kieron Jina’s evolving Homodryer.
Collaborations across stylistic, cultural, regional and geographical borders were also significant as energies and synergies flowed across the venues. Not only the performers, but their audiences, decided what theatre dance, in a South African context, is “here now now now”.
Tragic footnote: Last week real-life violence intervened with the murder of former dancer and Johannesburg Youth Ballet artistic director Rulov Senekal (of the Joburg Theatre) who taught and mentored Melody Putu and Moya Michael. Now working internationally, as accomplished dancers, they both presented commissioned works at Dance Umbrella 2012 which, unwittingly, eulogised this pioneering artist’s enduring legacy to SA dance.