Luyanda Sidiya was born in Evaton and raised in Sebokeng alongside diverse traditional dance forms. Shanell Winlock was born in Eldorado Park and started ballet when she was four years old. Qudus Onikeku was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and became a dancer, actor, acrobat, writer and studied at France’s national circus school.
As diverse as their backgrounds and artistic influences are, these African dancer-choreographers have one thing in common: commissions to create choreography for Vuyani Dance Theatre’s Triple Dose season. The vital connection is, of course, theatre founder Gregory Vuyani Maqoma, who gave them carte blanche “to invest in the process”.
Sidiya is the company’s artistic assistant and their working rela-tionship began when the dancer from Sedibeng (who had been introduced to contemporary dance by the late Wendy David) was training at Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM), then joined the company before going to work in the UK for three years.
Maqoma encountered Winlock, a member of the Johannesburg Youth Ballet, when she was training at MIDM. They went to PARTS (Performing Arts Research & Training School) together in 1998 and Winlock joined the fledgling Vuyani Dance Theatre Project. Their collaboration has continued, with Winlock – who has been based in London with the Akram Khan Company for the past nine years – appearing in such landmark Maqoma duets as Southern Comfort (2000) and Southern Bound Comfort. (2010). “I am now home for good,” she says.
Onikeku and Maqoma were Facebook friends until they met formally last year when the South African was performing his Beautiful Me at the Theatre de la Ville, in Paris. They met again in Bamako in Mali in November when Maqoma was on the jury and the feisty Nigerian dance intellectual won the solo competition with his My exile is in my head.
Onikeku’s latest solo, Still/life, previewed at the Avignon Festival. In Joburg, Onikeku has been creating We dance We pray, a provocative ensemble piece for eight dancers, a violinist, cellist, vocalist and percussionist.
The work interrogates the blurring between the dancer’s professional and private persona, and was inspired by multifaceted American actor Antonio Lyon’s 2011 album We dance We pray.
“I contacted him in Los Angeles and we talked on Skype,” explains Onikeku. “The title gave me an idea. I am using it as a metaphor. Also to pose the questions: ‘As artists, what is our role in this world of business and money? Are we useful?’ “
Adding another layer to this triple bill are live music and original scores created during the process under the direction of Isaac Molelekoa (who is on keyboards for Winlock, with guitarist Billy Monama).
The Vuyani Dance Theatre junior company’s Xolisile Bongwana sings and dances in Sidiya’s Umnikelo (Offering) and Onikeku’s commission.
Winlock, an award-winning dancer who has collaborated choreographically with Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Maqoma, is embarking on new territory. The duet Halftone, created by Teresa Mojela and Phumlani Nyanga, is her formal debut.
The title refers to a cellphone application: “You can take a picture, change it. Make it high or low contrast.” Similarly the sexual relationship between the man and the woman has subtle and not so subtle shifts, physically, visually and musically.
Sidiya’s signature is more familiar since his earlier pieces have delved into ritualistic neo-classical Afro-fusion vocabulary. The seven dancers, in cahoots with a violinist, two vocalists and percussionist, delve into space and spirituality, and what is the offering? “Myself. I am grateful for the opportunities in my life. It is a blessing to the space.”
This theme struck Sidiya at a performance at the Oprah Winfrey Academy when Nyanga took over a solo in Four Seasons. “He ran with it. I got the same feeling I had when I first started dancing. This is what touches me. Surrendering myself.”
l Triple Dose is at the Dance Factory: Thursday and Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 6pm. Outreach performance: Sunday at 2.30pm. Book at Computicket.